"And she doesn't even ask if you need any help with the house and the meals. Sarah. You're too nice to her, letting her yet away without doing more."

"I know. Dave," Mama said. "Don't get yourself all worked up again."

"I don't know whether I'm better off with her home or run off with some loser," he muttered, "I thought maybe if I provided her with a substantial home, a real family, a chance at some higher education..."

"She'll come around, Dave. They always do."

"I'm not as optimistic about it as you are.

Sarah." He looked at me. "Sorry. Noble. I know she's not proving to be much of a sister to you or help with the baby." he added, looking at Baby Celeste. "Look at the smile on that kid. How can anyone refuse to take any interest in her? What goes on in that girl's empty head?"

"You have to relax. Dave. It's not good to go to bed with so much tension inside," Mama told him.

"Yeah, I know."

"Let me fix you something."

She made him a drink that she said would calm his nerves and help him to sleep. Like everything she prepared with a purpose, it worked, and soon afterward he was in bed. resting comfortably. After he was asleep. Mama came out of the bedroom and down the stairs. I thought she might be looking for me.

Baby Celeste was asleep and I had gone out to sit on the porch. I felt that I was guarding the house.

She stepped out sat in the chair beside me without saying anything, and stared into the darkness.

Although she didn't look at me. I felt nervous, even a little afraid. Was she silent because she was any at something I had done or said?

"You may wonder," she finally began. "why we have been alone these past weeks!'

"Alone?"

She turned and looked at me. "Has someone been speaking to you?" she asked quickly. I shook my head. I wouldn't tell her about Elliot, not now, maybe not ever.

"If s not because we've done anything wrong or because anyone is any at us. There is evil in our house."

I held my breath. Did she know about Elliot after all?

"But it won't be here long," she vowed. She nodded. "Not much longer."

"What evil, Mama?"

"You know what evil. Don't start acting stupid again," she snapped.

I looked away, but watched her out of the corner of my eye. A moment later she smiled. "Baby Celeste is really becoming something, isn't she.

Noble? You see it now, too, don't you?"

"Yes, Mama."

"Good. Then you understand why it is so important we continue to protect her and nurture her like some precious flower."

"Yes, Mama." I would do it anyway, I thought After all, she was mine. Mama rose. "Get some rest.

We have difficult days ahead!'

She stepped off the porch and walked slowly toward the old cemetery. I watched until she was swallowed up by the darkness, then I went inside and up to bed.

The difficult days she spoke of were filled with more and more tension because of the ongoing and sharper arguments between Betsy and her father. I could see the increasing wear and tear in his face, hear the growing strain in his voice. Whenever he set eyes on her, he would look troubled. He tried tying the money he doled out to her to work responsibilities in the house. despite Mania's advice to let that be. When he forced her to help with the kitchen and the dinners, she broke dishes or made a bigger mess in the kitchen.

She couldn't set a table neatly, and whatever cleaning she did had to be done over anyway. He was always after her to clean up her room, but she never made her bed and didn't change linen until he forced her to do so. If she ate anything in the house, she left the dish wherever she had been sitting or lying. She dropped crumbs, spilled things, stained furniture. He was cleaning up after her more than someone would clean up after an errant puppy.

And all the while. Mama remained calm, understanding, still remarkably taking Betsy's side with the promise that she would soon change. The more sympathetic she was, however, the angrier Dave became at Betsy.

"Look at how nice Sarah is to you. How can you be so ungrateful and inconsiderate all the time?"

he would chastise.

Betsy's reactions to her father's rants and raves were simply to look away, pretend she didn't hear him, or turn to me to ask a question as if he weren't even there. Frustration reddened his face. He looked more and more haggard, and when anyone asked him why he looked so tired, he would let loose with a catalog of problems he was having with his daughter.

Mama and I were often witless to his speeches in the pharmacy because the sight of us would bring his vexation to a boil.

"That woman," he would say, nodding at Mama. "is an angel. She's an absolute angel. What she contends with would drive anyone else mad. I don't deserve her. and Betsy certainly doesn't. Teenagers,"

he would spit, and people would nod in sympathy.

"Shell come around," Mama would say charitably. It never ceased to amaze me. From what trunk did she dig up all this patience and understanding? I knew firsthand what her temper could be like. Why wasn't she thinking of ways to change Betsy? Why was she so tolerant?

I couldn't disagree with Dave about Betsy being ungrateful. The nicer Mama was to her, the more she resented her. Betsy harbored all sorts of ridiculous suspicions. I thought.

"I know exactly what your mother's up to," she told me one afternoon after she had just had another argument with her father and Mama had interceded on her behalf .She came charging out of the house and found me stacking some kindling wood.

"What are you talking about now?" I took off my gloves and wiped the sweat off the back of my neck.

"I'm talking about how she makes herself look so good and pure to my father just so he"ll hate me more "

"That's not true. She's just trying to keep him from getting sick over the things you do." I put my gloves back on.

"Oh. brother. You'd defend her no matter what.

You know what?" she said, with her eyes as mean and cold as she could make them. I turned my back on her and started on the wood again, but she seized my shoulder to spin me around. "I said, you know what?"

"What?"

"People don't just think you're weird or gay.

They think you and your mother have an unnatural relationship."

I wanted to reach out and slap her because it was as if she had just slapped me. I couldn't help the rush of blood to my face. It brought a smile to hers.

"Did I hit a sensitive area. Noble man? Is there some truth to the rumors? Maybe Daddy wouldn't be so devoted to your mother if he 'clew, huh?"

"Shut up," I snapped, and with the small hatchet in my hand I started toward her with such fury that she backed away, "Don't you touch me. Don't you even think of it," she warned, but for the first time, from behind a cracked wall. "That's all you have to do. I'll make up stories about you," she threatened. "I will. I'll tell everyone you tried to rape me or something."

I shook my head and retreated. It restored her courage, so she stepped toward me again.

"You know. Elliot told me about the time he let you spy on me."

The blood that had risen to my face dropped to my feet. I kept my back to her.

"He brought you into his room and let you look through that hole in his wall. Go on, try to deny it. I'd like to hear what you say."

I continued to stack the wood. I'll do what she does. I thought. I"ll pretend she's not there. pretend I don't hear her.

"I didn't care. I was actually flattered. Did you get a good eyeful? Did it make you excited? Did you fantasize about me and play with yourself? I like to think a lot of boys did and still do. Was I your first naked girl? What's the matter, the cat got your fat tongue? You're not so brave now, are you? Does your precious mother, who thinks you're so perfect, know about all that?"

Whatever angle I turned, she moved to stand in front of me. "Leave me alone," I said, practically begged. Her smile widened, "You can't believe he told me. huh? He did it to get even with me for something, and I surprised him by not getting angry about it Who do you think is prettier, me or your mother?"

"That's a really stupid question."

"Oh, is that so? Why is it stupid? Because you can't appreciate any other woman? Is that the reason?"

"No!" I screamed at her. "1 can't!"

She looked shocked. I hadn't meant to say that like that and she could never understand what it was I was saying anyway. How could she understand why I couldn't appreciate any other woman the way she expected I should?

"You are sick," she said, wagging her head and stepping back. "I'm getting out of here soon, getting away from all of you. You'll see. You'll all see and you can have Daddy to yourselves." She turned and marched back to the house.

Good riddance. I thought. The sooner you leave, the better it will be. I had no doubt she would leave and soon, but not before she was to wreak some more havoc on what her father had hoped would be a happy home, a new start.

It came first with the news that she had managed to get failing grades in every subject in which she had enrolled at the community college. My assistance in math hadn't helped her with the class because she didn't understand or try to understand any of the homework I had done. Her teacher knew pretty quickly that she was having someone else do the work, and like every other time she was exposed as a liar or a deceiver, she simply shrugged it off or made it look and sound like nothing of any importance.

Dave got the news first from one of her teachers at the college who came to his pharmacy for medication, and then he learned about her failures from the official college mailing that he read. His confrontation with Betsy over it came to a head in a storm of rage that threatened to blow out the very walls of our house. In the midst of that. I heard what people called the eye of the storm, the silence right before a hurricane resumes.

I had been outside most of the afternoon. I saw Dave return from work. He had gone into the store early and was off. He had the mail in his hands, waved to me, and went into the house. A little more than an hour later. Betsy drove in, her radio blaring as usual, the car spitting up dust as she tore up part of the driveway and jerked it into the spot behind Dave's car.

It was late fall now. The days were shorter, the afternoons especially abbreviated. Years of experience in nature told me that the cooler breezes were foretelling an early winter. There were years when it actually snowed hard in October and the temperatures dropped to below freezing quickly.

I put all my tools away carefully and started toward the house. As I walked, I remembered my dog.

Cleo, and how he had enjoyed following me about everywhere and how I enjoyed having him at my heels. He had filled the dark holes of loneliness and made my life here more than just bearable. Maybe I should get Mama to let me have another dog. I thought, but then I thought it would be heartbreaking if she came to harbor the same suspicions she had of Cleo.

I was really beginning to feel sorry for myself.

Despite the brave and indifferent front I put up between myself and Betsy, her continual criticism, sarcasm, and challenges were having an effect. I could feel myself breaking down. I had come close to losing my temper a number of times since her accusations about me and Mama. I was tired of her lording over me, threatening to do this and that to cause Mama to get angry. If anything now. I was beginning to resent Mama's defense of her, especially her understanding and tolerance. Why was she closing her eyes to the harmful and damaging effect Betsy was having on all of us, especially Dave?

Before I reached the porch. I could hear his shouting. I would quickly learn that he had rushed up to her room after he had opened the letter from the college informing him and her that she had been dropped from the college rolls. None of us knew that she had been dropped from two classes because she had simply not shown up enough times, and apparently she had been called into the dean of students' office twice to discuss her situation. All the promises she had made, she had broken.

I opened the front door and entered, listening to the litany of charges and complaints Dave was shouting at her up in her room. I closed the door softly and walked down to the living room. Mama was sitting in the rocker with Baby Celeste on her lap, her head against Mama's breast, her eyes opened. She looked to be listening as well. Mama didn't turn to me.

She kept gazing out the window, her face remarkably at peace, actually caught in a beautiful glow.

Dave had left Betsy's bedroom door open so it was impossible not to hear every word.

"Why did you even start this if you knew you weren't going to do it properly? Just to get me to buy you a car? Was that it. Betsy?"

"No," we heard.

"Then why? Why? To make a fool of me?"

"I don't have to do anything to make a fool of you. You do enough yourself," she fired back.

There was a moment of silence.

Mama's smile widened. Why?

I thought he would just walk out and slam Betsy's door. but I didn't hear any footsteps.

"What do you intend to do with yourself now, Betsy?" he finally asked her, his voice quivering.

"I don't know. I have other problems, bigger problems." What could they be? I wondered.

Mama turned her head slowly toward me and our eyes met. Baby Celeste was looking my way, too.

"What bigger problems?" Dave. asked Betsy.

"It's not my fault. It's your fault!" she shouted.

"Excuse me? What are you talking about now.

Betsy? What's my fault?" I turned toward the stairway and listened hard.

"Those pills you gave me. They didn't work.

They were probably old or something."

"What? You mean... are you talking about the birth control pills?"

"What other pills did you give me, Daddy?"

Another silence made the air in the house heavy.

"My God," Dave said finally. "Not again?"

"Its your fault!" she screamed. "You probably gave me samples or something that was no good anymore."

"You neglected them? You had unprotected sex and neglected to take your pills? Is that what you're saying?"

"No! Look," she screamed. "See. I followed directions. See, every pill I was supposed to take, I took."

I looked back at Mama. She was smiling now.