I hear a dog barking with vigor in the background. I press the phone closer to my ear.

"I want the cakes for this Saturday."

My heart is doing flips of joy. "Great, and what is your name and phone number?" I scan my desk for a pad and pen.

"My name is Mrs. Marble Angelica Gray."

"Hello, Mrs. Gray," I say. My first cake order and it is from the town's cheapskate. I remember seeing her pick up several brochures at the bake sale. Maybe she thought they were coupons for dog food. "How is Sinatra?"

"Oh." She giggles and I imagine her pink curlers bouncing. "You are good with names. He's running around in the backyard now."

The next thing I know I hear the panting of a beast right in my ear.

"Say hello, Sinatra," croons the woman.

Sinatra merely yelps.

My ear will never be the same.

"So you want two cakes?" I ask over the yelps.

"Sinatra, go play," she commands. With a clearing of her throat, she says, "Yes, I would like one chocolate and one white velvet."

"What sizes?"

"Eight inches is fifteen dollars?" I suppose she is reading from my brochure.

"That's right." Will she actually pay me? I wonder. This woman is known as the one who will cheat you out of your underwear. Suddenly, my enthusiasm for getting my first cake order falls like a cake without baking powder.

"So two cakes is thirty dollars?"

"That's right."

After a moment of hesitation she asks, "Do I pay you when I get the cakes?"

Delivery! What's the mountain air doing to me? I forgot about that. Am I going to cart my custom-made cakes all over the mountainside to people's homes? Quickly, I make a decision. "These cakes will be ready for you to pick up on Saturday at nine in the morning."

Silence on the other end.

"Hello?"

Impatiently, "Well, then, where do you live?"

I think of Jonas and the first time he gave directions to this cabin. Will those work or do I need actual street names? All these mountain bends called roads, do they have real names? I give her the best directions I can, adding that I am near Memorial Methodist Church.

"I'll be there," she says.

"I take cash or checks."

"I'm sure you do."

And no expired coupons, I want to add, but resist.

I'm ready to hang up, but Mrs. Marble Angelica Gray isn't. "One more question."

"Yes?"

"How will I carry my cakes home?"

What does she mean? She'll be driving, won't she? She can put them in her car like other people do. Confused, I ask, "What do you mean?"

"Won't they slide all over the seats? I don't want my leather seats covered with icing!"

"Boxes," I say quickly. "I have cake boxes, and they'll keep the cakes safe."

Grunting, sounding like a pig rooting in the trough for a corncob, she says, "Are they those white boxes?"

I go over to a large box by the desk in my room that is half filled with the pastry boxes. They are flat and can be opened and assembled to hold any size cake, round or square. I look at the box on the top, as though viewing it will help me with my answer. "Yes, they're white."

"Do they cost more?"

"No, Mrs. Gray. The boxes come with your cake order."

"Well. That sounds nice."

Downstairs I hear the front door opening and the bark of another dog. "Deena! Where are you? We need to go!"

"What?" I end my conversation with Marble Gray and look over the banister at my distraught aunt and a slobbery Giovanni.

"Jonas fell off the church roof!"

"Jonas?"

"He's been taken to the hospital."

I grab my purse and sail down the stairs. My first cake order now seems insignificant.

"I tried to call your cell, but I just got your voicemail," my aunt says, her voice heavy with urgency.

At the bake sale I learned that Jonas is the church plumber and sometimes spends time at the church on weekday mornings long before my classes start. But what was he doing on the roof? As we get into my aunt's truck I ask her what happened. I sit in the back of the cab; Giovanni never gives up his cushy passenger seat for me.

She backs out of the driveway with the ease of a woman who has lived in these mountains for a long, long time. "He was getting a badminton birdie."

"From the roof? Why did he go up there?"

"The preschool girls got the birdie stuck on the roof and asked him to get it down today. He was busy. You know Jonas. He had to check some pipes first." She speeds down the looping road as I close my eyes. "He was admitted over an hour ago after first being in the ER. Jo-Jen got the phone call while we were playing Scrabble."

I can't bear to think of Jonas being in the hospital. As we pass homes, I note their roofs and think that the distance between a roof and the ground is a long one.

The next thing I know, my aunt is asking if I know how her dog got his name.

Perhaps this is a trick question, or something that has to do with Jonas? Softly, I say, "No."

"Ah, I never told you." She puts on her brakes when we reach the end of the road and takes a right into the heart of the town.

"I guess not."

"Well, about six years ago, one fall, I was driving on the Parkway in my truck."

I want to laugh at how bizarre this is. Jonas's life could hang in the balance and my aunt uses this moment to tell me about her dog.

Regena Lorraine continues, "Mozart's Don Giovanni Don Giovanni was playing in my CD player. I was enjoying the day but feeling a bit lonely. Out of the woods came this bounding mass of fur. I stopped my truck in time, or I might have hit the happy critter. Then he walked over to my window, which was down, and licked my hands. Just jumped up and gave me a kiss. His tail was wagging, Mozart's opera was blaring. I parked my truck, saw that there was no collar on him. I took him home, and the rest is history." was playing in my CD player. I was enjoying the day but feeling a bit lonely. Out of the woods came this bounding mass of fur. I stopped my truck in time, or I might have hit the happy critter. Then he walked over to my window, which was down, and licked my hands. Just jumped up and gave me a kiss. His tail was wagging, Mozart's opera was blaring. I parked my truck, saw that there was no collar on him. I took him home, and the rest is history."

Giovanni lets out two happy barks.

We are now at the hospital's parking lot. "Nice story." Then I sneeze; I am still allergic to dog fur, yet my aunt hasn't seemed to catch on after all these months. Some dog lovers, as well as parents, just can't grasp that not everyone adores their babies.

My aunt is still clueless about why I'm sneezing. With all the excitement of a parade, she gushes, "His name is so appropriate, Shug. The opera about Giovanni combines comedy, drama, and the supernatural. That was how that day was for me, that day I met my own Giovanni."

Jonas lies sleeping on a sterile bed of white, his heart monitored by a green humming machine. Where his bandana is usually tied, is a large gauze bandage. His face is pale; an IV feeds into his arm.

Regena Lorraine pats his other arm and says, "Jonas, this is no place for you."

I suppose she hopes this line will cause him to pop open his eyes and jump off the bed. He does neither.

I watch the squiggly lines move across the machine. I never know what to call this piece of equipment, although Sally has supplied me with the proper term many times.

Flashbacks of my days at the Atlanta Medical Center come to me. I woke up alone in my hospital room and for a second felt nothing but calm. I thought I must have died and that this was heaven. Then a nurse entered and suddenly the horror of what had happened crept in around me. I asked if Lucas was all right; I was so naive.

The door swings open; Zack enters the room. In his typical style, he smiles at my aunt and me.

"How is he?" Regena Lorraine whispers. I don't think I've ever heard her whisper before.

"Still unconscious."

"Has he been conscious any since he fell?"

Zack shakes his head.

I know Zack must be thinking of the girlfriend he lost. His parents died within months of each other when he was nineteen. His father was in a logging accident and then his mother had a massive heart attack. In this whole world, Zack's only close relative is his brother. I want to wrap my arms around Zack and give him a hug. Me-the one who lately has made it a priority to avoid him.

Zack says, "Dr. Martin said they should have the results of the MRI soon. I was just talking with him."

"What are they afraid of?" My aunt is bold to ask.

Zack speaks from dry lips. His words come out shaky. "Bleeding on his brain."

We stand in silence, and then my aunt says she must go. She promised to bring dinner over to Butterfly Ormandy, a woman who just had knee surgery. "I hate to leave," she tells us apologetically as she places her tote bag over her shoulder. "But I promised I'd help out with a meal, and this woman was a dear friend of Ernest's."

We tell her that we understand. Zack offers to drive me home later.

"Butterfly was there for me when I went through a cold, lonely time," my aunt says.

I nod and think how nice it is that my aunt has such good friends, even if they do have the most peculiar names.

thirty.

A tall nurse with stunning features enters Jonas's room. I bet every man loves to have her as his nurse. I note her blue eyes and the thick blond hair dangling over her back. She even smells good, like the roses on our farm in Tifton after a rainstorm. Jonas needs to wake up so that he can admire her, maybe even sing her a few lines from the Eagles. If only he knew what an opportunity he's missing. tall nurse with stunning features enters Jonas's room. I bet every man loves to have her as his nurse. I note her blue eyes and the thick blond hair dangling over her back. She even smells good, like the roses on our farm in Tifton after a rainstorm. Jonas needs to wake up so that he can admire her, maybe even sing her a few lines from the Eagles. If only he knew what an opportunity he's missing.

The door flies open; a young doctor bounds into the room with the vivaciousness of Giovanni, a chart under his arm. I sense Zack's discomfort as the nurse and doctor talk quietly and briefly, hovering at the foot of Jonas's bed.

The doctor looks over Jonas's chart and then turns to Zack. "Your brother's test results should be back soon." With a pat to Zack's shoulder, the doctor leaves as energetically as he entered. I wonder what kind of vitamins he takes.

When the nurse finishes taking Jonas's temperature, Zack pulls over a stool for me to sit on. He sits on a matching stool close to the head of his brother's bed. He takes his eyes away from Jonas to look at me. "Thanks for coming."

"He is going to be okay." I hope I sound certain, but my shaking knees belie the words.

"He would do anything for anyone." There is admiration in Zack's voice.

"He's a lot like you, then," I say with feeling. Here I am, the Queen of Avoidance, vowing to keep away from this man, and suddenly, I am letting my heart speak for me.

Zack says, "I don't know if that's always true."

"Oh, it is."

"I balk at being inconvenienced as much as the next person."

"You're always there for the kids."

"Yeah, but if you look at me real close, you'll see that I'm ready to spit nails when they have an emergency when it's time to go home. I'm hungry and tired and just want to get to my house, turn on the TV, and watch something mindless while I eat dinner. Then comes the phone call from some officer or therapist to let me know I have to come pick up somebody somewhere."

"So you're admitting the kids can aggravate you?"

"You knew that," he tells me with a slight smile. "I told you they could one of the first times we talked."

That's true; I recall that conversation now. That was the afternoon I was ready to never set foot in The Center again.

A murky voice whispers, "You two?"