"He doesn't hate you." I slip an arm around her shoulders.

"He'd hate me if he knew the truth. So would you."

This is my hint to ask, The truth about what? The truth about what? But I do no such thing. In fact, I move my arm off her. But I do no such thing. In fact, I move my arm off her.

"What's the matter? Can't you take the truth?" she asks.

Again I don't answer.

"He was never supposed to be born. Quinn was an accident."

"A happy accident," I say. "A gift from G.o.d after Dad died."

She cries harder, hacking and straining to haul up something from deep inside her, like a buried anchor from mud. "I considered aborting him. Honest to G.o.d, I did. I beat my belly so hard it left bruises. I would have done worse. But I had a girlfriend who got pregnant by a sailor while her husband was off in the army. She took a coat hanger to herself and bled to death. I didn't dare chance that. Not with you and Maury to worry about. d.a.m.ned if I'd let you be raised by your father's family."

"You must have been under terrible pressure." I can't think of anything else to say.

"That's what the priest said when I confessed to him. He didn't blame me for being tempted to get rid of my baby. The point was, I didn't do it. He told me to pray for my dead girlfriend. I've been doing that since 1944."

"I think it's time for you to let go and let Christ take over." I repeat the homily from this morning's Ma.s.s. "Life is like waterskiing. The Lord's job is to steer the boat, and ours is to hang onto the rope while He does the driving." This image of me up on water skis requires a leap of faith, but I manage it and enjoy the idea of zipping across Chesapeake Bay with G.o.d at the controls.

Mom, however, can't make the jump. "I haven't worn a bathing suit in forty years," she says.

"Then forget about waterskiing. Just have faith in G.o.d's forgiveness."

She shakes her head. "After all I've done, G.o.d won't forgive me. There's so much you don't know and I've never told you."

And there's so much I'd rather not hear, I want to holler. Instead, rocking her in my arms, I murmur, "Go to your happy place."

This is what Mom told Maury and me when we were sad or sick or scared. "Go to your happy place," she'd say, "and tomorrow'll be a better day."

"The only place I'm headed," she says, "is h.e.l.l."

"That's not true."

"Yeah, it is."

Rocking her harder, I whisper, "Let go. Just let go and let the Lord do His job."

Mom heaves and shudders. The spasm is so powerful, I'm afraid it's a seizure. I pull back and examine her lopsided face, the blue eye and the brown eye behind mismatched lenses.

"Quinn's not your brother," she blurts. Then she corrects herself. "He's not your full brother. He's a half to Maury and you."

I don't bother to ask whether she's lying. When it's a question of bad news, Mom never lies.

"Does Quinn know?" I say.

"Of course not," she spits out indignantly, like how dumb can you be? "You're the first person I've ever told, the only one I'd trust."

"Lucky me!" In my shock I want to lash out at her. Lash out at something. But I bite my lip. "Don't you think he deserves to know?"

"That's what the priest claims, the Filipino. For my penance, he wants me to admit the truth. But after hiding it all these years, how can I do a thing like that to Quinn?"

"Same way you did it to me."

"I'd rather die," Mom declares. "I'd rather be put out of my misery."

I'm stunned, appalled. "Suicide is a mortal sin. You know that. It means d.a.m.nation and no burial in consecrated ground."

"I'd never kill myself. But I'm afraid what Quinn'll do if he finds out."

"He certainly won't kill you."

"I wouldn't count on that. Promise you'll never tell him," she pleads-which is precisely what she's angling for me to do, call Quinn and let her off the hook.

"I couldn't do it if I wanted to. He'd have hundreds of questions, and I don't know a thing about it."

"I'll explain everything to you."

"I don't want to hear." I clap my palms over my ears. "This is between you two."

"You're not curious who his father is?"

"Not on your life. That's for Quinn to find out, if it matters to him." Then it dawns on me that there is one thing I would like to know. "Is this what you and Dad were fighting about the day he died?"

In a kind of palsy, she claws the gla.s.ses from her face, blinding herself and making me invisible. "That's a s.h.i.tty thing to ask your dying mother."

"Not half as s.h.i.tty as leaving me to wonder."

"Sounds to me like you've made up your mind."

"You haven't denied it."

"What I haven't done is dignify the question."

"This is a strange time to stand on dignity. Why start so late in the day?"

"I can't believe you're talking to me like this."

"Ditto," I say. Getting up on hands and knees, I climb to my feet.

"So that's it. You're abandoning me." She jabs her gla.s.ses back on. "You won't help."

"I'm late meeting Lawrence." I reach her a hand.

"That's not the help I need."

"It's all I have to give. I'm not telling Quinn he's a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I've known you to call him worse. Won't you do me this one favor?" she says. "Phone and tell Quinn I'd like to see him one last time."

"Why not call him yourself?"

"My fingers ache." She brandishes her swollen arthritic knuckles. They might be a boxer's fists at the end of a brutal career. "And I can never keep the numbers straight. There's so many to dial for an international call."

"If I call him and have him ring you back, do you swear you'll tell him the truth?"

"Not over the phone. I want him here so I can confess face to face."

"But you promise you'll be honest with him then?"

"Yes."

"Okay, it's a deal. Now let me help you downstairs."

"No. I'll stay and go through this stuff."

I leave her there at the cedar chest, and in a state of shock-or maybe my feet have fallen asleep-I almost tumble a.s.s over teakettle down the stairs. I grab my purse and barge through the front door into the fresh air. Gulping it down, I have the sensation of surfacing after a dive into a muddy pond. My gene pool. Oh, how I'd love to swim out of it!

I cling to the thought of Lawrence. I cling to him as the priest urged us to cling to the waterski rope and trust G.o.d to pull us where we need to go. But then pawing for the car keys, I feel the pyx still in my purse. The towline slips out of my hands and G.o.d's boat goes speeding off with the rope jiggling behind it.

I don't have the stamina to run back into the house and start over, haggling with Mom to eat the Bread of Life, begging her not to despair, not to die, when in my heart of hearts what I want is for her to be released and me to be free. I open the golden box and take the Host on my tongue for the second time today. A sacrilege, I'm sure. Then I get into the Honda and grip the steering wheel. Once the wafer melts there's nothing to do but mumble "Amen" and switch on the ignition.

Quinn

The question my memoir obliquely addresses-the same one I've been avoiding in my sessions with Dr. Rokoko-is how I survived my childhood. How did I escape? Was I the fittest? Or like a feral boy, did I have the good fortune to be raised by a nurturing wolf? As Orestes himself expressed it, half in pride, half in horror, "Does mother's blood run in my veins?"

Candy believes it does. She's long accused me of being as bad as Mom. But that just raises a different question: How bad is Mom? Sure, she can be ruthless and conniving, but no more so than the monsters I've had to contend with onstage and off. A case could be made that at her worst she was excellent preparation for my professional career.

Today's International Herald Tribune International Herald Tribune reprints an article from the reprints an article from the New York Times New York Times science section that examines the maternal instincts of animals. Its conclusion: cannibalism, abuse, abandonment, and neglect are motherly coping mechanisms. Lovable panda cubs, it points out, are born in pairs, and one is always left to die. Mama pigs roll over and crush the runt of the litter. Penguins push excess eggs out of the nest and into the Antarctic deep freeze. Huggable female bunny rabbits drop their babies, then hop away, returning for just two minutes a day at feeding time. "Rabbits are a highly popular prey," the article says, "and many predators will pursue them into their burrows. To keep the fox from the nursery door, the mother rabbit shuns the room. Her absence may not make her pups' hearts grow fonder, but it may keep those hearts thumping a little longer." science section that examines the maternal instincts of animals. Its conclusion: cannibalism, abuse, abandonment, and neglect are motherly coping mechanisms. Lovable panda cubs, it points out, are born in pairs, and one is always left to die. Mama pigs roll over and crush the runt of the litter. Penguins push excess eggs out of the nest and into the Antarctic deep freeze. Huggable female bunny rabbits drop their babies, then hop away, returning for just two minutes a day at feeding time. "Rabbits are a highly popular prey," the article says, "and many predators will pursue them into their burrows. To keep the fox from the nursery door, the mother rabbit shuns the room. Her absence may not make her pups' hearts grow fonder, but it may keep those hearts thumping a little longer."

Is this the explanation for Mom's cruel and contradictory behavior? For the way she alternately blessed and blasted me? Were her vacillations from icy indifference to blistering interference all part of a strategy to protect me?

As I dither over these questions at breakfast, there's a m.u.f.fled concussion at the window. Another bird has hurtled against its reflection in the conservatory gla.s.s. Pigeons are forever snapping their ruby-ringed necks and bouncing off in a shower of feathers. Today a fawn-colored dove staggers away dazed, then drunkenly turns and marches back into the transparent door. It hits the gla.s.s headfirst.

I leap to my feet to save the bird from brain damage. But then the phone rings and scares the dove into flight. I answer the call with a rote response to preserve my privacy. "Two aught seven, four three five, treble six two."

"Can I talk to Quinn Mitch.e.l.l?"

"Who's calling?"

"This is Candy, Quinn. You sound like a servant in a PBS drama."

I revert to-I wouldn't call it my real voice. I have many voices. Mimicry has served me not just as an actor. It has permitted me to fit in, or at least fool people that I belong, anyplace in the world. For Candy's benefit, I scrub the Britishness and adopt an American accent, Maryland specific.

"I was finishing breakfast," I say. "I had egg in my mouth."

"What time do you roll out of bed? It's six here. Doesn't that make it eleven there?"

"I got a late start. Nice to hear from you." I don't want her to feel she's called at an inconvenient moment.

"The reason I'm bothering you, Mom's not so good."

"What is it?"

"She's afraid she's dying and going to h.e.l.l."

"What's your prediction?"

"She's a sad little bag of bones." On the long-distance line it is difficult to say whether Candy sounds flippant or sympathetic. "But she's feisty enough to last for G.o.d knows how much longer."

"I mean what do you make of her chances of staying out of h.e.l.l?"

There's a pause. I can almost hear Candy counting to ten and tapping her foot to stay calm. "Sometimes you seem to get a kick out of acting like a heartless p.r.i.c.k," she says.

"You're confused about male anatomy. p.r.i.c.ks don't have hearts."

"You can say that again."

I chuckle at her comeback.

"I'm at the end of my rope, Quinn. I can't do it alone anymore. I need backup."

"Hire somebody. I'll pay for it."

"It's not that simple. She won't let anybody in the house to help her."

"You're preaching to the choir. Mom's the one you have to convince."

"Why's it always up to me to convince her? Why doesn't somebody else do it for a change? Why not you?"

"Okay, I will the next time I call. But sometimes it's hard getting through to her."

"What do you expect? You live thousands of miles away."

The dove suddenly resumes banging its head into the door-an all too blatant symbol for my conversation with Candy. "If memory serves-correct me if I'm wrong-it doesn't make any difference whether I'm here or in Maryland. Mom won't listen to me. She won't even let me see her. Last time, I had to talk to her through the mail slot."

"She doesn't have a mail slot."

"Excuse me. That changes everything. I spoke to her through a door. That makes me feel so much better."

"Why take it personally?"

"I am am a person. How am I supposed to take it?" a person. How am I supposed to take it?"