It is three days later and Ginny has returned from New York. She does not have to go to soccer camp this week. I think her mother has given up that idea. We are lying on the beach watching the Gourd children and laughing at poor Dr. Callahan. Every summer we watch him try to take his vacation and lie on the beach and read and relax but because people needing medical advice now must go all the way to Lincoln, they come sniffling and coughing with towels, which they put down suspiciously close to his, and before long he is working again.

"I don't know why he just doesn't vacation somewhere else. Aren't doctors rich?" asks Ginny.

"Maybe he likes it," I say. "Maybe he is one of those people who can't really take time off."

Ginny frowns and looks out at the ocean. "I think I will be one of those people," she says. "I'm not really happy unless I'm designing clothes or making them."

Ginny has told me what happened. Her mother found the vintage clothes under the bed after all. It turns out that she does vacuum under beds from time to time. When Ginny got home Sat.u.r.day from our house and reached under the bed to take out the clothes, they were gone. Her mother had hauled them to the dump with a load of other things. And she wouldn't take Ginny there to retrieve them. And neither would her father. Her parents said the clothes would be covered with garbage and rats.

"I remembered what you said about people's fires. I knew my mother didn't care about mine but I never thought she would try to extinguish it. Things will never be the same between us after this," says Ginny.

"But what were you going to do in New York?" I asked.

"I didn't think that part through. I was just so mad. I decided not to wait any longer. Just to go. I had this vague plan that my aunt Lucy would let me live with her."

"I am done with Nellie Phipps the way you are done with your mother but while I was with her she claimed to have healed Willie Mae."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," scoffs Ginny.

"There's no way of knowing for sure," I say.

"Hey, listen, I don't believe it for a second but if you do, what are we doing still babysitting the Gourds? We have two weeks of vacation left," says Ginny.

"We have no proof we can give Mrs. Gourd that Willie Mae won't grow up damaged from the Bible I dropped. And as long as we have no proof she could still sue."

"How do we know there is no way to get proof? Maybe there are tests the doctors can give Willie Mae."

"Don't you think Mrs. Gourd would have thought of that already?"

"Mrs. Gourd? Are you kidding? Feh. She'd probably never even ask about such tests. But we can. Dr. Callahan is right here."

"He won't know," I said.

"He might."

And before I can say anything Ginny has plopped herself right next to him. "Dr. Callahan," she says in a loud voice. His eyes are shut. I think he is pretending to be asleep. "Dr. Callahan! Are there any tests you can give Willie Mae to find out if he's going to be developmentally challenged from the Bible that got dropped on his head?"

Dr. Callahan sits up and frowns at her. "What are you nattering about?" he asks, putting a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun and squinting at her.

"Don't you remember at the beginning of the summer when Jane dropped a Bible on Willie Mae's head? Mrs. Gourd came out of the checkup with Willie Mae and you told Jane that Mrs. Gourd could sue her for it? He had a b.u.mp and a bruise on his forehead?"

"I remember that checkup. Yes. Well, there's no damage, for heaven's sake. And he didn't get the b.u.mp from some Bible. He got it when I asked Mrs. Gourd to hand me my stethoscope and she dropped it on Willie Mae's head. Thirty years of practice and I've never had a mother drop something on her own baby's head. Remarkable."

I sit there like stone.

"He didn't come in with the b.u.mp?" asks Ginny, turning her head to look at me.

"No, he came in just fine. He left with a big black-and-blue mark and a b.u.mp, but again, parents are lucky that babies are made of rubber. Most of the things that happen to them bounce right off. And certainly no one is going to be developmentally challenged from a little bruise like that. Particularly on that part of the skull. Skulls are interesting. Head injuries are interesting. Hit the skull in this place and it cracks like an eggsh.e.l.l and the person bleeds into the brain and it's all over. Hit them an inch to the right and there's no damage to the skull at all. As I say, interesting. But even if she'd dropped the stethoscope on a fragile part of the skull, she didn't drop it hard enough to do anything but make a nice dramatic goose egg, which, although stunningly purple, was nothing more than a little boo-boo, really. Now can you please move? You're in my sun."

All those nights of twisting in bed, worried. My whole ruined life. It is like waking from a bad dream. At first I am elated.

Then Ginny, who does not look elated, only mad, thanks Dr. Callahan, returns to me and says, "We've been had."

We sit there quietly for a long time.

Ginny wants to march into the Bluebird Cafe right now and leave the children there but I don't want any more conflict or confrontations or dramatic situations so I get her to agree to wait until it is time to hand the children over in the parking lot.

By the time Mrs. Gourd arrives I am angry too. Nellie, Madame Crenshaw, Mrs. Gourd, that bogus channeler with her great destinies and evolved people. My own stupidity at ever believing any of them. I will believe in no one ever again. What was the purple circle of light? Mrs. McCarthy? Coincidence? Wanting to believe? I will believe in nothing, then.

"We know what really happened," says Ginny, holding the baby carrier tightly so Mrs. Gourd can't get away. "Dr. Callahan told us that you dropped a stethoscope on Willie Mae's head."

"He's wrong," says Mrs. Gourd quickly.

"Well, shall we all go over and ask him?" asks Ginny.

I don't think I could talk to a grown-up like this but Ginny is in some ways already grown up.

"What if I did? More fools you," says Mrs. Gourd, grabbing at the baby carrier. "Anyhow, you can't prove nothing."

"Well, here's your perfectly fine baby back," says Ginny, handing over Willie Mae. "n.o.body's going to babysit for you anymore."

"Like I can't figure that one out," says Mrs. Gourd, and walks away. No apology. Nothing.

Ginny and I stand in the parking lot and watch them until they disappear. We sit on a cement divider. Gulls swoop in a lavender light as the sun relaxes into the dinner hour. Ginny finally gets up and says she'd better go home and I sit for a few minutes longer when Ned's car pulls into the parking lot.

"NED!" I say in surprise.

"Fancy meeting you here, Bibles!" says Ned, unloading groceries.

"Never call me that again," I say.

"Come on, help me carry this stuff. I would have called your mother but-"

"No phone," I say.

"We're having a real blowout tonight. Champagne. Two kinds of pop. Lamb chops! Because I got a job."

When we get to the house he tells us the whole story. My mother is astonished. But it turns out the job isn't here in town or even in Ma.s.sachusetts. The job is in Saskatchewan teaching French. It's a good full-time position, the type of job Ned has never held before, and he has even bought a house. He says the town needs a French teacher so badly that it is willing to a.s.sume the mortgage until Ned can pay back the down payment.

"It's a honey of a house," he says. "Of course, it's not very big. It's just kind of a box. Not a lot of personality. But it has three bedrooms. The town's got a lot of empty houses-that's why the school board got it so cheap. I have some snapshots in the car. I'll go get them."

He heads back to the parking lot. Maya and Max and Hershel go with him. They are all feeding potato chips to the gulls as they head down the beach.

My mother begins to get dinner ready. I am wondering if Ned actually thinks my mother would ever leave this house and move to Saskatchewan and I am thinking that I feel sorry for him and the disappointment he will have. Suddenly there is a tug on my neck and I am choking. I am too startled to cry out and then I smell something foul as a strong hairy arm pulls me backward. For some reason it is all this coa.r.s.e, curly hair that scares me the most. There is something wrong about all this coa.r.s.e, smelly hair. I cannot call out. I cannot move. I can't even register exactly what is happening. I blink rapidly. I see my mother coming out of the house, her eyes enormous, running to me, and I want to go to her but the arm tightens and a voice drawls, "Hold it right there, Mizz Fielding, it is Mizzzzz Fielding, isn't it?"

I know what the matter is now. The man is drunk. He is saying "Mizzzzz," like a buzzing bee. It sends chills down my arms.

He pulls me by the neck across the sand so that my heels drag. It hurts and I am afraid of choking to death and I can see by my mother's wide eyes that she is afraid of this too. She stops in her tracks and one hand goes to her throat as if she can feel mine. "I'm takin' her home to babysit, Mizzzz Fielding."

Then I know who it is. It is Mr. Gourd. I have never heard him so drunk but I remember the day we heard him throwing things in the trailer. He is staggering left and right and sometimes it feels as if he isn't aware of me even though he has a forearm pressed so tightly against my neck.

"Taking her home?" repeats my mother in a croaking whisper. Then more loudly, "Why, you're the janitor at the school, aren't you? Please. Please stay calm."

"I am calm," he says, and laughs and staggers again. Every time he staggers he tightens his arm as if holding on to me for support and I can't get my breath for a minute. I hear strange animal sounds and realize they are coming from me. I see my mother's eyes get even larger as we listen to me.

"Yeah, I gotta take her home. Mrs. Gourd says she had to quit her job because this one doesn't babysit for us no more but I said, Don't worry, I'll get her. I got her now. She kin baysit." He stops and with a free hand removes a bottle from his pocket and takes a swig. "We gonna pack up and move now to 'nother town. Haul her with us to baysit. She almost killed the baby. You hear that? Dropped something on his head. Bible."

I think my mother is going to faint. She is swaying. Instead, she says calmly and clearly, "Don't worry, Mr. Gourd. I will never CALL 911! I will never CALL 911!"

I think this is such an odd thing to say. It is part of this nightmare of things suddenly off-kilter. Why is she saying this?

"Don't you call NO ONE!" he yells savagely in my ear. He totters a bit and then starts dragging me again. I can't breathe and my mother starts running toward us but stops when he holds the hand with the whiskey bottle out to the side threateningly as if he will strike me.

My mother is twisting her hands but she isn't looking at him or me. She is looking behind us and she seems even more terrified by what she sees there and I am thinking, What can be worse than this? when suddenly I am yanked backward and then I fall in the sand away from Mr. Gourd. I seem to bounce to my feet and start running without thought, before I realize that Ned must have pulled Mr. Gourd off me. But when I turn I see it is Mrs. Spinnaker, sitting on the small of Mr. Gourd's back, her legs still around his middle. She is so small she must have jumped on him. She has his head pushed into the sand. My mother is sitting on him as well. The whiskey bottle is next to him. Then we hear a siren.

"I heard you yelling 'Call 911! Call 911!' I looked out the window and I called the sheriff," says Mrs. Spinnaker. "And then I thought, What can I do? What can I do? That man is drunk as a skunk and Jane is going to get hurt and I see I can creep around the side of the house and leap on his back before he hears me coming."

The sheriff arrives now, running, and takes control so my mother and Mrs. Spinnaker move off to the side, away from Mr. Gourd, who is in handcuffs.

"Oh, Mrs. Spinnaker, Mrs. Spinnaker! You were so brave!" says my mother. "How can I ever, ever thank you enough? You saved Jane's life. You saved her life!"

"And you saved Horace's. So we're even," says Mrs. Spinnaker, looking pleased at the praise.

"No, no, it's not the same at all. I can never, ever repay you," says my mother.

"Oh, so that's what you think of Horace!" says Mrs. Spinnaker, her face darkening. "I might have known." And she storms back to her cottage in a huff.

My mother watches her go in dismay and looks like she would like to go after her but then says, "Enough, enough for one day, enough, enough."

And then I very quietly faint.

When I wake up the sheriff is leading Mr. Gourd away. He offers to take me to the hospital but I do not want to go and all I have are a few scratches on my neck where Mr. Gourd's fingernails raked me when Mrs. Spinnaker jumped on his back and he tried to hang on to me. My mother has gotten out the Band-Aids and antibiotic ointment. She cleans me up but we don't even talk, we are so stunned.

Ned has returned and is feeding and putting Max and Maya and Hershel to bed.

My mother and I cannot eat. We take a slow walk on the beach. She has not asked me once about any of it although the cat is out of the bag about dropping the Bible and all that followed.

Because Mr. Gourd has already mentioned it, I tell her about Willie Mae and Mrs. Gourd and the dropped Bible. So that she will know that Mrs. Gourd lied. That I did not drop a Bible on Willie Mae. Still, it is only a lucky accident that I didn't seriously hurt someone. What will she think of me that at one point I thought I had, and kept this secret all summer?

Our legs grow tired. The sun is soft and full and golden as it dips in a haze toward the sea. We finally return to the porch.

My mother and I sit quietly on the steps with our sides touching. Our legs are bent and we lean over our knees. I can hear her breathing along with the waves. "We all belong here equally, Jane," she says. "Just by being born onto the earth we are accepted and the earth supports us. We don't have to be especially good. We don't have to accomplish anything. We don't even have to be healthy."

I put my hands over my eyes and press the flesh back in hard. In relief it is melting off my bones. We sit there all through the twilight. I lean into my mother's side and cry.

To Canada.

My Fourteenth Adventure.

The last two weeks of summer are a blur. Ned and my mother get married quietly at the town hall without telling anyone until it is done. Mr. Gourd takes a plea and does not have to go to trial. My mother finishes making the rest of the blackberry jam until she has filled the last shelf. This is somehow satisfactory even though she has said that we cannot take it with us. She doesn't want to take all that jam over the border and besides, there is no room in Ned's car. He has traded his old car for a station wagon but even so, with all of us and our clothes and a few things it is full. My mother explains that we will all come back to the house for the summer and maybe if it doesn't work out in Saskatchewan Ned can try to find a job here.

"But we will never sell the house?" I ask.

"We will never sell the house," says my mother with one hand on a doorjamb as if she is rea.s.suring it as well.

"Still, all that jam," I say sadly.

"I have an idea about that," she says.

Mr. Gourd has gone to jail and we go to visit Mrs. Gourd. She is angry with us. She thinks somehow it is all our fault.

"I had to quit my job," she says to my mother after we knock on the door of the trailer. "You probably heard that. And now without Dennis's salary we're going to have to give up the trailer too. Just where do you think me and my babies are going to live? I can't work. I got no one to watch them so I can't get a job. I got no money, no husband, no home."

"You can live in our house," says my mother.

Mrs. Gourd just stands there, her eyes doing their mechanical brain movement, back and forth and this way and that. Finally it seems to register.

"What about you?"

"We're going to Saskatchewan," says my mother. "You can live in our house until next summer when we return. As you can see, it's only a stopgap solution but maybe it will see you through to better times."

"That's very kind of you," says Mrs. Gourd. She spits it out like she can't quite believe it herself. I don't think she knows any other way to talk but grumpy.

"I still can't work. I got no one to watch my kids."

I know a solution suddenly but I don't want to say it. I tell her about Mr. Fordyce despite myself. My mother looks surprised when I mention him but says nothing.

"Well, I can't pay him much," says Mrs. Gourd.

"He'll probably do it for free. I think he likes children," I say. "I think he wants a job and someone to read to."

"You tell him I can't pay him," says Mrs. Gourd quickly.

I tell her where his trailer is and we leave her heading over there with the children to talk to him.

"I hope she likes the house," says my mother.

"Are you nuts?" I say. "She'd just better hope you like the prairies!"

"Oh, I do," says my mother.

Then she tells me about the road trip that she and Ned took in a falling-apart car when they were "young and wild."