"Is your mom better?"

Now I did look at her. "How'd you know?"

She shrugged. "Everybody does."

"She's still in the ICU." I felt tears starting in my eyes. Peacie had called Brenda, suggesting she might want to come. It couldn't be a good sign.

"Want to stay with me?" Suralee asked. She had traces of purple at the edges of her mouth. I guessed she'd been drinking grape Nehi, our favorite flavor.

"No, thanks. Peacie's going to be here with me."

Suralee rubbed the back of Shooter's neck. "Then can I stay with y'all?"

We laughed, but I knew she meant it.

Suralee leaned back on her elbows, surveyed the empty street before us, and sighed. My mother always said that if you were bored, it was your fault, but it seemed to me that sometimes boredom came from the outside in. This town could feel like someone putting a high pile of cinder blocks on your chest, then saying, "Okay, breathe."

Suralee sat up suddenly. "Oh! I almost forgot! Did you get something from the contest?"

"What do you mean?"

"That contest we entered, did you win anything?"

"No, did you?"

"Yeah. But only a box of crackers and one of cookies." She shrugged. "They came in the mail yesterday. I might could share them with you." This last she spoke quietly.

"That's okay."

I could feel her relief. "That's how I think of it, too. Whoever wins something should just feel happy, and all their friends be happy for them, too."

"Right." All Suralee's friends being me.

"Anyway, it wasn't that much."

"It's something, though. Congratulations."

"I was a little bit afraid to tell you. I didn't want you to feel bad."

"Don't worry, I don't." I'd known neither of us would win anything good. We never had. We never would. We were not that kind of people.

A horn sounded, and I saw Dell's car coming down the street. He slowed and pulled over to the curb. "How is she?" he called.

I walked over to him. "She's still real sick."

He nodded, his smile fading. "Call me when she comes home. I'd like to come and see her."

I said I would.

I walked back to the porch and sprawled out beside Suralee. "What do you want to do today?" I asked.

"He really likes your mom," she said.

I looked at her.

"He does!"

"But what do you want to do today?" Absent the necessity of taking care of my mother, the day seemed too big, too bright, too empty.

"You want to come over to my house?" Suralee asked. "We could start a new play."

"Let's go downtown," I said. I didn't want to return to the scene of the crime.

I went into the house to tell Peacie I was leaving. She was standing at the washing machine, and she did not turn around to tell me it was all right for me to go. Instead, she simply nodded. "You okay?" I asked. She nodded again, then waved me away.

Suralee and I went first to Debby's Dress Shop, where we wanted to try on the pillbox hats. "Y'all put those down," Mrs. Black said from behind the counter. "You have no intention of buying them, and I can't have them getting soiled."

"We were going to buy one," Suralee said. "For Diana's mom."

She looked doubtfully at us.

"I got the money right here," I said, patting my empty pocket. "But I believe I'll take my business elsewhere."

"You do that," Mrs. Black said, and smiled at a woman coming through the door.

We crossed the street to the drugstore, where Mrs. Beasley asked the inevitable question. "She's better," I said, not meeting her eyes.

"Bless your heart," Mrs. Beasley said, and I said, "Yes, ma'am."

Suralee and I looked at shampoos for a while, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the caps to smell the delectable scents of the more expensive brands. We used White Rain and White Rain only; I found it uninspiring. Peacie occasionally used beer as a rinse for my mother's hair; it did seem to make it more l.u.s.trous. She was also a big believer in mayonnaise treatments, but my mother said mayonnaise was too expensive to waste that way.

From behind the counter came Mrs. Beasley's thin voice: "Y'all aren't taking the caps off the shampoos, are you?" she said. "Don't be doing that now. n.o.body wants to buy shampoo been fooled with."

"We're not," we sang out together, and moved to the magazine stand. We sat back-to-back, thumbing through the usual picks, and I said to Suralee, "When I grow up, I am moving to a town where there is so much to do it makes you sick."

"I know. Memphis."

"No," I said. "Even more."

"Right. Someplace where"-Suralee leaned back against me, harder, and here came her English accent-"Oh, what to do this evening! So many choices, what a b.l.o.o.d.y bother! Harold, darling. Bring me some tea, I must cogitate."

Suralee's mother had given her some money, and we shared a patty melt and a c.o.ke at the lunch counter, then went over to the hardware store. Though neither of us directly acknowledged it, we were looking for Dell.

I didn't see him when we came in, but Brooks was positioning a sign at the front of the store and he waved me over. "How is she?" he asked, and I told him she was still in the ICU. He nodded sadly. "What can I buy her, do you think?" he asked. "I'd like to buy her something, cheer her up." I said I didn't know.

"We were looking at pillbox hats for her," Suralee told him. "Every woman wants one of those."

"Is that right?"

"Mrs. Black wouldn't let us touch them, but I think they're real soft."

Brooks stared out the window at her store, then said, "Well, let's just go and have a look-see." He called over to one of the other men, saying he'd be back in a few.

Suralee and I followed Brooks across the street, Shooter walking behind us. I wished we could sic him on Mrs. Black. But I had noticed graying on the dog's muzzle when he lay on my porch that morning; Suralee said it had been there for a while, and that Shooter was starting to sleep a lot more than he used to. It seemed unfair that a dog so fierce and self-contained should suffer the indignity of growing old like any other dog. I would rather see Shooter die young; I thought he himself would prefer that.

It was strange seeing Brooks in the dress shop. It was a small and feminine place with pink walls and white trim; he didn't fit there. But Mrs. Black couldn't have been more polite. "Well, hi, hi, Brooks," she said, like he was her long-lost relative, even though she surely saw him on the street every day. "What can I do for you?" She looked quickly at us and then away. Brooks," she said, like he was her long-lost relative, even though she surely saw him on the street every day. "What can I do for you?" She looked quickly at us and then away.

"I'm interested in one of them pill hats," Brooks said.

"Oh yes," she said, moving over to her display. "Aren't they just the most elegant thing? I'm 'bout running out, they're so popular. But I have three left, as you can see. What color were you thinking of?"

"I was thinking 'bout all the colors," Brooks said. "I was thinking I'd buy every hat you have."

"For heaven's sake, Brooks!" she said, giggling, pressing her manicured fingers into her breastbone.

"And also I was thinking you got no call to be treating these girls like you do."

She stopped smiling and crossed her arms. "Well, I don't know how much time they spend at your your establishment messing with the merchandise with no intention of buying one single thing, but I-" establishment messing with the merchandise with no intention of buying one single thing, but I-"

"They're welcome at my store when they ain't buying s.h.i.t." He wiped at his nose and shifted his position, putting his hand to his hip like football players did. "Either one of them, Diana or...her friend."

"Suralee," I whispered quietly behind him.

"Shirley," he said.

"Did you want to buy something or not?" Mrs. Black asked.

"Believe I said I did," Brooks answered.

"You want every hat I've got."

"Every pill pill hat." hat."

"It's pillbox."

"It's a stupid name either way," Brooks said. "It's just a hat. Now I'm going to pay you, and then suppose you wrap up those hats real nice and give them to these girls. I believe you could call them customers now, couldn't you? What with they being the ones sent me over here. I believe you could treat them with some respect."

"Cash or check?" Mrs. Black asked coolly, and Brooks pulled out his wallet, and from it a check. His wallet was greatly worn; it curved up in the corners. What I knew about Brooks was that he could afford three hats little more than we could. I wanted to thank him for his extravagance but couldn't find the words. I watched him write the check; he was left-handed, and he wrote with his hand above the moving pen. It was like a bear taking penmanship cla.s.ses. I moved from behind my instinctive dislike of him to see a man in a thin blue shirt with a worn collar making an offering of love against fear. I had done it myself, determinedly made cards for my mother thinking that she would then have to stay alive to read them.

My mother stayed in the ICU for two days, then was moved to a general floor. Peacie and I took the bus to visit her, toting our Scrabble board. We set up a game, and when Peacie put GNU on the board, I said, "No. I challenge that." I reached for the paperback dictionary we'd brought along, its pages curled from use.

"Go right ahead and challenge it, it's a word!" Peacie said.

"Meaning what?" I asked.

Peacie straightened in her chair and spoke slowly and clearly. "'Either of two African antelopes. Having a drooping mane. And beard. And a long, tufted tail.'" She said all the A A's with the long sound. Obviously the word had come up before. She leaned forward to add, "Also called a wild beast. Like you."

"Well, wildebeest, wildebeest," my mother said gently.

I scowled and gave Peacie her points, and my mother laughed. She was in high spirits, so happy to be out of the confining and desperate atmosphere of the ICU, every day closer to coming home. Yesterday Brenda had taken time off work to spend the whole day with my mother. She had fed her homemade macaroni and cheese for breakfast, made the way my mother liked it, with extra cheese and little bits of bacon and tomato mixed in. They'd ordered out chow mein for lunch and pizza for dinner. Later that night, before she went home, Brenda lay in bed with my mother to watch television and drink the beers she had smuggled in in her purse and kept cold in my mother's ice pitcher, which she then hid in the bedside cabinet. "Where's your ice pitcher?" the candy striper had asked that afternoon when she came to refill it.

"I must have left it somewhere when I went for my walk," my mother had replied.

"Okay, I'll get you another one, don't worry," the candy striper had said, and my mother had said, "Okay, I won't."

Twice, the nurse caring for my mother in the evening had ordered Brenda out of my mother's bed; twice, Brenda had complied and then, after the nurse left, climbed right back in with her.

While my mother was ordinarily a deeply kind person, her mischievous tendencies came out in the hospital. Today, when the robust nurse taking care of her came to take her temperature, she put the thermometer in my mother's mouth and left the room, saying she'd be right back to collect it. My mother did one of her old tricks: used her tongue to turn the thermometer around backward. When the nurse came back in, she blushed and said, "Well, for heaven's sake, I'm sorry, I put it in backwards! Let's do this again." She put the thermometer in the right way, left the room again, and when she came back it was backward again. This time she stood holding the thermometer and glaring at my mother. "I don't have time for this, Miss Dunn," she said. To which my mother responded, "That's okay, Miss Carson; I do." The nurse's wrath grew, and my mother said, "Now now; don't get nasty or I won't do it again."

On the day of discharge, Brooks helped us bring my mother home. She had lost weight, but in many respects she was more beautiful than ever. Her hair was shiny from her hospital shampoo ("Castile soap-they use it for enemas, but it's great for your hair," she told us). Her eyes were bright, the skin of her face beautifully colored and flawless. She always enjoyed a certain vitality when she came home from hospital visits; she had defied the odds once again, and she relished the victory.

After she was settled inside, sitting in her wheelchair in the living room, Brooks set his gift on her lap. I opened it for her, and she stared wide-eyed, smiling, and then had Brooks put all three pillbox hats on her, one stacked up on top of the other. She thanked him profusely, though I could tell she wondered why in the world he had made such a purchase. I did not enlighten her.

Then Peacie went off to do ch.o.r.es, and I started upstairs. Brooks was finally left alone with my mother, something I knew he'd been waiting for, and for once I didn't begrudge him the pleasure of her company. "How's Dell?" she asked.

I stood still at the landing to listen for Brooks's response. After a weighted pause, I heard him say, "He's fine." The tone of his voice made me believe he was hanging his head, and I felt sorry for him. But I resolved to go and see Dell later that afternoon to let him know my mother was back-I didn't think Brooks would be in any hurry to do so.

When I came downstairs, Brooks had gone, and Peacie and my mother were in the kitchen, talking in low voices. "If he don't get killed, I might shoot him myself," Peacie said.

"Does he call every day?" my mother asked.

"Sometime he do and sometime he don't," Peacie said. "Either way make me mad. I don't know why he got to march, he doing enough with the Freedom Schools."

"There are injunctions prohibiting demonstrations now," my mother said.

"That's right," Peacie said. "But they doing them anyway. And any Negro partic.i.p.ate or even watch can get arrested. Now how I'm gon' get him out if he get arrested?"

"He won't get arrested," my mother said. "He's too smart for that. And too charming."

"He get arrested, he can rot in jail," Peacie said, "and I find me a new boyfriend don't go running off and get in trouble on purpose, act like a fool. I find me a young man, take me dancing."

My mother remained tactfully silent, and I made my presence known, coming into the room and asking what was for lunch.

Peacie looked over at me. "How those broken hands of yours coming along?" she asked.

The next afternoon, while my mother was napping, I sat at the kitchen table working on a scene for Suralee and my new play, a drama involving the murder of a dress-shop owner. We'd been benignly arguing over who got to play the killer. Peacie came up from the bas.e.m.e.nt and asked me to go into town for detergent. "We still have some," I told her.

"We need more," Peacie said.

"There was almost half a box this morning; I saw it. There's got to be enough left for today." Strangled by a scarf? Strangled by a scarf? I was thinking. I was thinking. Beaten about the head with a pocketbook? Beaten about the head with a pocketbook?

Peacie dragged a chair out from under the table and sat close to me. She s.n.a.t.c.hed away the paper I was writing on and crinkled it up.

"Hey!" I reached out to take the paper back.

She threw it on the floor, then leaned forward and spoke quietly. "Diana Dunn, you made of stubbornness, you know that? That's all you are. You ain't got no guts inside, just stubbornness. 'Fore I die, maybe you cooperate on one single thing. 'Fore I die, I like to say, 'Diana, would you bring in the sheets on the line?' and you say, 'Yes, ma'am, I do it right now on account of I owe owe it to you.'" Tears sprung up suddenly in her eyes and began to roll down her face; she brushed them aside angrily. "'I owe it to you, for all the things you do for me. Things I ain't even it to you.'" Tears sprung up suddenly in her eyes and began to roll down her face; she brushed them aside angrily. "'I owe it to you, for all the things you do for me. Things I ain't even know know about.'" She struck out at the air and began to cry harder, and I sat watching her, slump-shouldered and miserable. I would have felt better if she'd made contact, if she'd hit me. about.'" She struck out at the air and began to cry harder, and I sat watching her, slump-shouldered and miserable. I would have felt better if she'd made contact, if she'd hit me.