Trish arrived from her afternoon visit with Rose to find the operation in full swing. While Beverly and the two oldest girls were cleaning Old House, Nola had been left to deal with the children. Most of the younger ones were aimlessly circling the racetrack, as if by force of habit alone, or standing around in the front room, despondently scratching themselves like bored baboons in a zoo. Trish went into the kitchen to find the rest of them arranged on chairs and stools, their heads hooded in black plastic bags. She thought she'd stumbled onto the scene of an execution. "What's that smell smell?" she said.

"Kerosene!" called Nola, tugging a bag around the head of her last victim.

"You've soaked them in kerosene?"

"Only their hair."

"Are you serious serious? What about the fumes?"

"The fumes are the whole point, dear."

Now Trish could only stare at her. "Oh, don't worry worry," Nola said. "I've cut everybody a mouth hole."

"Mama?" Faye called meekly from under one of the black bags. "Please help me."

Nola explained that kerosene was the most effective flea remedy there was. Showering would only encourage the fleas, who preferred heat and humidity, and the commercial products were spotty at best, not to mention expensive. "Fleas are hearty little scamps, you've got to hit 'em hard and fast. Three minutes sucking kerosene fumes, though, they don't stand a chance. There's not just the adults but the larvae and the eggs. You've got to get 'em all or the next thing you know you're infested."

"Aggh," someone cried from under one of the bags. "I can't breathe!"

"Oh please," Nola said.

"I'm getting dizzy," somebody said.

"I'm seeing spots," said somebody else.

"Maybe if you guys didn't live in such a dirty house," someone who sounded like Helaman shouted, "we wouldn't have to be doing this!"

"Who said that?" cried Clifton, easily identified by his barking monotone. "It's you you guys who brought the fleas from Old House. It's guys who brought the fleas from Old House. It's you you guys who are the dirty fleabag jerks." guys who are the dirty fleabag jerks."

"You guys are the jerks!" somebody shouted. guys are the jerks!" somebody shouted.

"Oh no we're not!" cried somebody else.

"At least we're not uptight b.u.t.tholes," Clifton said.

There was some laughter, presumably from the Big House camp. Parley slipped off his stool and attempted to attack Clifton, but was limited in that his head was in a bag. He ended up b.u.mping against one of the girls, who tipped forward, screaming, "Ahhh! I got some in my eye in my eye!" and everybody started shouting and jostling and trying to pull the bags off their heads. Nola went around slapping their hands away and saying, "Hey! Hey! No! Hey! Three minutes! Breathe through your mouth!," the kids shouted and complained, Darling, the family weeper, began to weep, and Cooter, who had become the scapegoat in this whole affair and been banished to the utility closet after the humiliation of a kerosene bath, put up a woebegone howl.

Trish spent the rest of the afternoon vacuuming carpets and scrubbing floors and refereeing skirmishes between the respective citizens of Big House and Old House, who seemed intent on teasing and aggravating each other to the point of all-out violence. She oversaw the washing of bed linens and lining up the younger children for their a.s.sembly-line baths and applications of calamine lotion. After a soup-kitchen dinner of canned stew and cheese sandwiches, she and Nola went out to sit on the back steps and take in a little fresh air. Trish had been spared the indignity of a plastic bag over her head, but the fumes inside the house were still strong enough to make her feel faint with nausea.

The evening air was warm and the western sky a thin wash of red and gold. Beverly had just called to say they hadn't gotten Old House thoroughly cleaned, and would it be all right if her children spent the night at Big House, just to be safe?

"She's got it all figured out, all arranged," Nola said. "By her way of thinking, these fleas have been sent from G.o.d to test us, to bring us closer together. Fleas from heaven, spare us all. I think she has it in her head that if we're truly faithful and pure of heart our kids are going to see past their differences and wake up tomorrow the best of friends, all of them singing 'Go Tell It on the Mountain' in three-part harmony and making each other breakfast. Let's just say I have my doubts."

"But she's not coming over?"

"Heavens, no! She wouldn't dreeeeeeam dreeeeeeam of spending a night in this house, not if she can help it. of spending a night in this house, not if she can help it. She's She's not the one who needs to come around to a different way of thinking, the Great Bev knows and understands all, she orchestrates from afar. No, she and Golden are going to spend a nice quiet night alone while I babysit the Revolutionary War." not the one who needs to come around to a different way of thinking, the Great Bev knows and understands all, she orchestrates from afar. No, she and Golden are going to spend a nice quiet night alone while I babysit the Revolutionary War."

"I can stay over and help," Trish said, trying not to let the surge of jealousy she felt alter her tone of voice, trying very hard not to entertain the idea that Golden had been home for over two days and had not come to see her, had only called her to say that things had changed and he would not be going back to Nevada. "It's not like one more thrilling night alone is going to make me any more beautiful and happier than I already am."

"Oh no, you go home and get your beauty rest, gorgeous, really. I think the kids'll be tired-they're worn out and most of 'em are loopy on fumes. Give 'em a pillow and they'll sleep like little drunken hobos. And it's not like there's going to be an available bed around here, anyway."

Inside, another shouting match had started up, this one a swelling and hotly contested debate that addressed the question of who was, and who was not, the boss.

"Here we are," Nola said, slumping even further so that her stomachs stacked up under her folded hands, pushing her mountainous bust right up under her chin. "Living the life."

Funny thing was, for Trish this was was the life, the one she had envisioned when she first agreed to marry Golden. Years ago, when she called her mother to tell her the news, her mother clucked and sighed. the life, the one she had envisioned when she first agreed to marry Golden. Years ago, when she called her mother to tell her the news, her mother clucked and sighed.

"I never should have sent you down there to stay with Aunt Daphne," she said, a wavering note of regret in her voice. "I can only blame myself."

Trish told her mother that for the first time in her adult life she was happy, that she'd found a good man who would treat her well.

"Oh, honey, that's what we all think, and then comes the truth."

"I really think I love him, Mom. The other wives, they're good women, we're already friends. This is what I need. Believe it or not, I'm happy."

"I know it won't do any good, but I won't be able to live with myself unless I remind you of a few things. Jealousy. Squabbling. Nastiness of every kind-if that sounds like your idea of happy, then by all means. Time to yourself? Out the window. The days will pa.s.s and you won't have any idea where they went. You'll have nothing to yourself anymore."

This did not sound at all bad to Trish-anything was better than being trapped in her own grief, bored out of her mind. After the tense emptiness of her life with Billy, this was exactly what appealed to her: a life shot through with conflicting, round-robin emotions and a thousand and one distractions, nights of exhausted sleep, and the clamor of children's voices upon waking. A life parceled out and surrendered, a life shared.

Even now Trish could not understand how such a life had been denied her. She did not know what was missing in her, where she had gone wrong.

"I'm lost, Nola," she said, just like that. "I don't know what's going to happen to me."

"No," Nola said, her voice rising, as if scolding a child. "Listen. You're going to be fine, honey. I know, I know how hard it is. Everything you've been through. You just have to stick it out."

Trish shook her head. "I'm not talking about what's already happened. I'm talking about what's going to happen. It's hopeless for me. Do you know what Golden told me in Nevada? Do you know what I made him tell me?"

"I'd like very much to know," said Nola.

"I asked him..." The blood began to rise to her face and her eyes burned. "Why he wasn't interested interested in me. Why he's been avoiding me, physically." in me. Why he's been avoiding me, physically."

"What did he say?"

"He said because he couldn't. He told me he was impotent, Nola."

At this, Trish had expected a joke, or one of Nola's grand, Mephistophelean laughs, the kind that had the power to obliterate anyone or anything unfortunate enough to wander into its path. But she only sat quietly, looking at her hands. "He said that?" Trish nodded.

"I'm surprised he's never used that excuse with me," Nola said. Here a laugh did come: a flat, humorless chuckle. "With me, he's certainly had to make up his fair share."

The humiliation in Nola's voice-each word tender with some abiding pain-made Trish regret ever bringing up the subject. But she had come this far. There was only a little way left to go.

She put her hand on Nola's wrist. "So this is all I want to know. Was he telling me the truth, or was he just making another excuse?"

Nola shrugged, waited, as if hoping her good humor might return. "Hard to say, hard to say. It's been a long time with me, I can tell you that, but that's not too far out of the ordinary. Never has been. I'm not a young lady anymore and the Great Bev's more or less ancient, and Rose, who knows with Rose, really. You-I figured you, my sweet dear, were taking up the slack for the rest of us. I guess if he's acting that way around you, there's probably something to it."

Trish tried to accept this for the simple truth that it was. This was not the first time it had occurred to her that the only way to defeat her grief was with hope, even just a little, and everywhere she looked these days, hope was in short supply. She had survived the past year only because she could find it in herself to look forward to a better future, one in which Golden worked close by and found it within his means to offer the meager affection and commitment she required, one in which he could give her a child, or-hope of hopes!-two or three, children who could redeem (not replace, never never replace) the children she had lost, the pain she had endured. Children who would give her a place in this big, ridiculous family. replace) the children she had lost, the pain she had endured. Children who would give her a place in this big, ridiculous family.

The women looked at each other, both on the brink of tears, and something in this shared look, the self-pity so baldly displayed, made them sputter with sudden laughter.

"And all this time I was thinking you drove all the way out there to talk to him about Maureen Sinkfoyle," Nola said.

"I did," Trish said. "And he told me there was nothing to it. He said I was his last."

Though she tried to disguise it as another laugh, Nola let out a sigh of relief. Then she and her sister-wife shared a look, shaking their heads a little as if to say, How did we ever get ourselves into something like this? How did we ever get ourselves into something like this?

"Come on," Nola said. "Right now. Come give this fat old lady a hug."

Trish leaned in, allowed herself to be taken in by Nola's immense softness, and immediately upon feeling the warmth of another's touch the laughter died in her throat and something welled up in her so strongly that, again, she had to fight back a sob.

"I'm a mess," she said, and gagged in a very unladylike way.

"Join the club, honey," Nola said. "But you're going to come out of this. G.o.d will provide a way. He always does."

A MOTHER, A SON Before driving home, Trish carried the last load of washed bed linens up the stairs and found Rusty in his mother's bedroom, propped up on the bed, his legs under the covers. The bedside lamp illuminated little more than the circ.u.mference of its own shade, and the boy, cast in shadow and yellow light, looked carved out of wax. The skin around his eyes was stained with exhaustion and, though he'd taken a bath like everyone else, he still sported the smudged and tattered bandage, which Sister Sleigh had ordered not to be removed for two weeks, when the st.i.tches would come out. He had a bright red scratch on his cheek and a series of flea bites, like footprints, tracking down his neck along the hairline.

"Hi there," she said.

He said, "Buenos tarde, muchacho." "Buenos tarde, muchacho."

"What are you up to?"

"Sitting here. Don't feel like dealing with the jerks out there."

"What happened to your face?"

"Gale."

Trish nodded in sympathy. "You say something to rub her the wrong way?"

"She and Novella think this is their bed now." He gave his head a slight shake. "This is my mom's room. She's coming back soon and I'm going to keep her place. This is where I'm sleeping tonight."

"Looks like you ran them off."

"For now." The boy shrugged. His eyes were liquid and dark and he blinked slowly. "They'll be back."

"I've got some clean sheets here," she said. "You want to help me make up the bed?"

Rusty rolled off the bare mattress and together they pulled away the bedcovers and laid out the sheets, pulled the corners tight. Rusty wore extra-snug-fitting pajamas with mismatched tops and bottoms that would properly fit someone two or three years his junior. Whenever his hands weren't busy with something else he kept one or both positioned over his groin.

"Visited your mom today," Trish said.

The boy looked at her and waited.

"She's doing really well," Trish said. Which was a lie. Since she'd told one already, she decided it couldn't hurt to throw in another. "She asked about you, how you're doing."

The truth of it was that Rose had improved since being admitted, but was still incapable of carrying on a normal conversation, as if the very act of speaking words, or committing the brainpower to call them up, were too much for her. She took little interest in the goings-on at home and repeatedly looked past Trish's face to watch a game show on the wall-mounted TV.

Trish thought of what Nola said after they admitted Rose: "Poor Rosie, just too sensitive to live in the world, much less this part of it. She can't stand for a door door to slam because it might mean somebody is mad at her." to slam because it might mean somebody is mad at her."

"What did you tell her?" Rusty said, taking a seat at the edge of the bed.

She sat down beside him. "I told her you were doing just great. I told her what a good piano player you are and what a fine time we had at your birthday party."

For just a moment, so fast you wouldn't have noticed if you weren't paying close attention, he gave her a pleased look, one that betrayed an innocence so touching her throat tightened. Then he glanced away, his features retreating into an expression of ragged world-weariness. He looked so pathetic sitting there, wounded and lonesome in his too-tight jury-rigged pajamas, not to mention the dirty sanitary napkin taped to his head. She put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze.

Slowly he let his head come to rest against her shoulder and snugged his arm around her middle to return the embrace. With her fingers she arranged his damp hair, smelled the residue of Ivory soap and kerosene still on him, and then she felt him shift a little, press his arm around her a little more tightly, and slowly roll his hips to press himself into her thigh.

"Okay," she said, "enough of that." But he didn't move; he had locked himself onto her like a ravenous tick. She could feel his hot breath on her collarbone and his arm had moved up so that it rested just below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and she couldn't be sure, but it felt like, yes, definitely, he was grinding his groin against her hip.

"Hey!" she said. "Stop that. Come on." But still he held on until she levered her forearm between them and pried him loose. He released all at once and fell back onto the bed. He sat up quickly, turning his face away from her, shoulders hunched.

In a small voice he said, "I know you don't like me."

"Oh Rusty, you know I like you plenty. But you can't-" And here she fell speechless, unable to articulate in that moment, to this child, the difference between appropriate affection and forbidden, irrational desire. She wondered if she was to blame for this, wondered if in her own desperation-a desperation that was not altogether different from his-she had given him the idea that something like this might be what she wanted.

"It's okay," he said, shaking his head. Then he looked up at her, his face touched again with the flicker of innocence she'd seen a few minutes before. "I don't care if you don't like me." He shrugged, shook his head again. "I'm used to it. But I know who likes you."

"What?" she said. "Who likes me me?"

"Yeah," Rusty said. "June. He likes you and he's, like, your age and everything."

"I know that, Rusty, but-"

"He thinks about you all the time. At night, when n.o.body else is around, he wishes he could be with you. He's in love with you. He thinks you're a fox."

Now she truly was speechless; she opened her mouth but nothing came out. She took a moment, made another try: "He told you this?"

"No," Rusty said. "I just know. People know things. Like I know that you like him, too."

"Now wait. I've had him over to fix a few things-at the house-you know that, but there's nothing else."

She added, "That's all there is to it."

"Don't worry," Rusty said. "I won't tell anybody. You don't have to worry."

And with that he crawled under the covers, laid down his bandaged head on the clean pillow and closed his eyes.

"There's nothing else," Trish said, but Rusty only pulled the blanket up to his chin and sighed. He began to snore in an odd, snuffling way that made her wonder if he was faking. Trish leaned forward, finally, and shut off the lamp; though it was barely after suppertime the boy looked like he needed his sleep.

She moved to the bedroom door, pausing to check on him one last time. His eyes were open now, watching her, and in the dull light from the hallway she could see in his chubby jowls and puffy lips the features of her own son, Jack, and she felt her heart catch and squeeze. She went to him, sat beside him on the bed, and when she gathered him into her arms there was nothing wrong or awkward in the way they grabbed each other and held on.

"I do like you, you know," she whispered. "You're not nearly nearly as bad as everyone says." as bad as everyone says."

She felt him soften, some rigidness leaving him, and when she let go of him he fell easily into his pillow. She arranged the covers on top of him, and by the time she closed the door behind her he was already asleep.

A NOTE IN THE DOOR It was eight o'clock by the time she got away, exhausted and glad, for the first time in a long time, to be alone. Amazingly, Faye had asked to spend the night at Big House with all the others. When Trish had left her there with Nola to go to confront Golden, Faye had apparently struck up some kind of alliance or friendship with Fig Newton. When Nola reported this upon Trish's return, Trish dismissed it as wishful thinking, said she'd believe it when she saw it with her own eyes. Tonight, she had: the two girls sharing looks across the room, Faye at her spot on the divan being coy and unapproachable until Fig Newton drew her into a game involving secret messages written on folded gum wrappers and tossed across the room, and then they were following each other around the house, hatching plots and whispering in each other's ears and laughing behind their hands like best friends or, better yet, sisters.

In her warm little car with the radio playing, Trish thought she was happy to be alone until she pulled up into her driveway and was faced with the sight of the duplex, so starkly empty, the lawn so weedy, the windows so black. She was already mulling the idea of returning to Big House armed with a cheery excuse (sorry, forgot my jacket!), ready to lose herself again in the din, to witness her only child coming out of her very thick sh.e.l.l, to have the opportunity to tuck in two dozen bathed and sweet-smelling children, one by one-when something caught her eye. A white envelope tucked inside the screen door.