"May I come in?"

I stepped aside so that she could come in the door.

"Where's Peacie?" She asked the question like she already knew the answer.

"Um...she went to get some groceries."

"Where is Peacie?" Susan asked again, and again I said she'd gone out to get groceries. is Peacie?" Susan asked again, and again I said she'd gone out to get groceries.

"Diana," Susan began.

"I'm in here here!" my mother called.

"You might want to take a walk," Susan told me quietly, but I stood still.

She touched my arm gently. "Come back in about half an hour. I want to talk to you then. But right now I need some privacy with your mother."

I went outside and sat on the porch steps. I wasn't going to budge. After a few minutes I saw a familiar car come down the street, then pull up in front of the house. It was LaRue and Peacie. I thought for one moment that I might die, truly, something in my chest expanded so alarmingly I thought it had burst. But then I rose and ran toward them as they climbed out of the car.

LaRue had a patch over one eye, and he moved slowly, walking with a limp. But his hat was in place, jauntily angled as ever, and his smile was glorious. He put his arms around me and held me close, and Peacie put her hands on her hips. "Subdue yourself 'fore you knock him over," she said. "He ain't no movie star." Translation? We are so glad to see you. We are here.

At some point, Suralee had told her mother about Dell and my mother, and about my doing nearly all the caretaking. And this morning Noreen had called the Department of Social Services. And Susan had been, in her words, "called on the carpet." After Peacie and LaRue arrived, Susan went into the living room with them while I silently finished bathing and dressing my mother. Now all of us were sitting in there, LaRue and I on the sofa, Peacie and Susan in the armchairs, my mother, naturally, in her wheelchair.

For a long time, I'd thought it was an advantage that she always had her chair right with her. It came to me now that I no longer thought that, and I wondered when I'd stopped. Things changed all the time without your noticing. Only the other night I'd looked at my legs in the bathtub and they were no longer the legs I knew. They were longer, and my knees had become square and horsey and without scabs. You couldn't keep up with life. It was like fabric running through a sewing machine, everything slipping through your fingers and moving away from you. It was so sad and marvelous, like the whole other galaxies my mother told me about when we looked at the stars, those places we could never know and over which we had no control. Last time we'd talked about that, I'd told her thinking of such things made me feel scared. "Why?" she'd asked, and I'd said because it was all too big and it made me feel small and worthless. "Ah," she'd said. "Well then, this is the part where we hold hands." I'd put my hand in her lap and wrapped her fingers around my own. "Better?" she'd asked, not taking her eyes from the sky. "Yes," I'd said, relieved and laughing, and she'd said quietly, "That's what people are for each other."

Here on planet Earth, though, Susan was talking in her new no-nonsense voice. "We're going to have to come up with some sort of solution. All of this deceit has to stop right now, Paige. You've got to tell me the truth about everything."

"Look," my mother said. "I'm sorry your job was put at risk, but surely you can understand that the cost of twenty-four-hour caretaking is-"

"You are given the same amount of money as others who need such services," Susan said.

"And you think they're not cheating?" my mother asked.

"They cheating!" Peacie said. "I can guarantee you that! I seen it plenty of places!"

"Where?" Susan asked, and Peacie grunted and looked away.

"Where did you see that, Peacie? I would really like to know."

Silence, and then LaRue said, "Her memory ain't all it used to be. But I know she know what she talking about."

Susan leaned back in her chair and sighed. Her hair was dirty; greasy bangs hung in her face, and her skirt was wrinkled. I supposed she'd been rushed out of her house by the news this morning. "I wonder if y'all understand that I'm on your side," she said. "Do you know that? I'm trying to help you. Now, what other people do doesn't matter for what we're talking about. What we're talking about is how we can get you covered in the way you need to be."

"If I pay more for caretaking, I won't have enough left for groceries or anything else," my mother said.

"Then may I ask why you gave away a significant sum of money?"

Peacie chewed at her lips and looked down at the floor. LaRue, holding his hat between his knees, began to turn it around and around. My mother started to speak, then fell silent. My hatred for Suralee ratcheted up a notch. So she had told her mother this, too.

Finally, LaRue spoke. "Miz Hogart? Miz Dunn just loan us that money. We gon' pay it back, too, just as soon's we can."

"The money was mine, to do with as I pleased," my mother said.

"Do you have any left?" Susan asked.

"I have some left."

"Because you're going to have to pay taxes on it, you know."

"I know that," my mother said, but I believed she'd forgotten.

"You need someone here all the time, Paige. And that someone can't be your daughter. Surely you see that it isn't fair to ask her!"

"It isn't fair, fair, you say," my mother said. you say," my mother said.

"No, it isn't! She's a child! She shouldn't be put in the position of having to take care of you. It's too much!"

"I can do it," I said in a small voice. "I've been doing it for a long time."

Peacie looked quickly over at me, and I realized I'd made things even worse.

"For how long?" Susan asked, and I hesitated, then said for a couple of weeks. Then I crossed my arms and stared at my feet.

"All right," my mother said. "I would like to say something. May I say something?"

"Please," Susan said.

"Diana has been taking care of me at night since she was ten."

Susan leaned back against the sofa as though someone had just let all the air out of her. "Oh, Paige," she said. "Oh, my G.o.d." She was shaking her head slowly, like she was at the scene of a terrible accident.

"I don't mind," I said. "I-"

"Diana," my mother said. She turned to Susan. "I am well aware of the fact that I have to have someone with me all the time. Believe me. And I have thought a lot about whether or not it's right to ask my daughter to help me. I've wondered whether such a bright and beautiful girl ought to have her life circ.u.mscribed in this way."

Bright and beautiful! I felt my hands draw into fists. I felt my hands draw into fists.

"I know she suffers for what she does for me," my mother continued. "I know she suffers from the very fact of my existence." Here my mother looked over at me and I looked back at her, shook my head no. "I know you do, Diana," she said softly, and I looked away.

"But you talk about fair, Susan. Was it fair fair what happened to me? Of course not. But here I am. And let me put this the simplest way I can: If being paralyzed is my fate, helping to take care of me is my daughter's. I am deeply grateful for her help. I am deeply appreciative of it. But I don't waste my time or effort feeling guilty or thinking about how what happened to me? Of course not. But here I am. And let me put this the simplest way I can: If being paralyzed is my fate, helping to take care of me is my daughter's. I am deeply grateful for her help. I am deeply appreciative of it. But I don't waste my time or effort feeling guilty or thinking about how unfair unfair it is. If I did that-" it is. If I did that-"

"Paige," Susan said. "n.o.body is suggesting that you should feel guilty about accepting care that you are absolutely ent.i.tled to. You have the need and the right to be cared for twenty-four hours a day. But not by your daughter!"

"We...are a family," my mother said. "She is my family."

"She is a child!" Susan said. "And I cannot allow her to function in this capacity. Even if I could accept it personally-which, by the way, I cannot-I could not allow it by law. Now, I'm going to give you a week to find someone to be here at night. Peacie, are you back now? Are you able to cover the daytime hours as usual?"

"Yes, ma'am, I sho' 'nuff am."

"And Mrs. Gruder is here in the evenings?"

A silence-n.o.body wanted to cooperate with the interrogation. And then my mother said, "Yes, Mrs. Gruder can be here from five until ten."

"Could you come back and spend the night, just until we find someone else?" Susan asked Peacie.

Peacie spoke quietly. "Yes, ma'am."

"I'll find my own nighttime caretaker," my mother said.

Susan stood. "You may find your own if you prefer. But believe me, I'll be checking up on you more frequently. And if I find you're using your daughter in the way you have been-or behaving in any other inappropriate ways-I'll have her removed."

"Over my dead body," my mother said, her voice low and threatening.

Susan crossed the room to let herself out. At the door she turned to say, "I have to say I just don't understand you, Paige. I don't understand your philosophy. I'm sorry, sorry, I know you're trapped by-" I know you're trapped by-"

"We're all all trapped!" my mother said. "We're all trapped in a body with limitations, even the most able-bodied among us! And we're all guided by minds with limitations of their own. You want to know my philosophy? It's this: Our job, regardless of our bodily circ.u.mstances, is to rise above what holds us down, and to help others do the same!" trapped!" my mother said. "We're all trapped in a body with limitations, even the most able-bodied among us! And we're all guided by minds with limitations of their own. You want to know my philosophy? It's this: Our job, regardless of our bodily circ.u.mstances, is to rise above what holds us down, and to help others do the same!"

"Amen to that," LaRue said. "Amen to that!"

"I'll come by again soon," Susan said.

We all listened to the sound of her walking down the steps, to the sound of her car starting up and driving away.

Then Peacie spoke quietly. "I can't stay, Paige."

"I know that," my mother said. "I know you came to say good-bye."

I was astounded. How could this be, that Peacie was leaving? And how did my mother know that? Peacie came over to kneel beside my mother's wheelchair, then leaned over to kiss her cheek.

"You be careful, driving," my mother said.

Peacie straightened and wiped at her nose. "We will." Her voice was small and uncertain as a child's.

"Let me know how you're doing from time to time."

"We will."

LaRue got up and came to Peacie's side, took her arm. Peacie pulled away from him. "Just hold on!" she said. And then, in a more measured tone, "Hold on." She stood there, her eyebrows wrinkled. Then she said, "'Fore I go, I'm gon' make you big batch of biscuits, put them in the freezer."

My mother smiled. "That would be nice."

Peacie took off her hat, put down her purse, and signaled for LaRue to follow her into the kitchen. "I want you sift that flour fine as silk," she told him.

"Come here, Diana," my mother said. I went to stand beside her chair. "Bend down," she said, and when I did, she pressed her forehead against mine and sighed. "I'm going to solve this problem," she said. "But if I can't do it fast enough, you may need to go and spend some time with your father."

I stepped away from her, speechless.

"I know where he is," she said.

"What? What do you mean?" What do you mean?"

"I didn't tell you because he didn't...But he's in Jackson. He lives there with his wife and a daughter, and I might need you to go there for a little while. Just for a little while, until I figure out how-"

"No!" I said. "I'm not going there! I don't even I said. "I'm not going there! I don't even know know him!" him!" Jackson! Another wife, another daughter! Jackson! Another wife, another daughter! Tears started up in my eyes, and I blinked them away angrily. Tears started up in my eyes, and I blinked them away angrily.

"Well, I'll introduce you," my mother said. "Diana. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be flippant and I don't mean to scare you. But I can't let anyone take you from me. If you have to stay with him for just a little while, it'll be better than losing you completely. Do you understand?"

"I don't want to go anywhere!" I said. "I can enter another contest. How about if I-"

"Diana, please."

"No!"

I stared into her face, as familiar to me as my own, and then ran up to my room; it was my room, this was my room, I lived here. It was too much, everything I'd heard this morning, it was too much! How could she think of sending me to my father? Why didn't she just ask him for money? Why hadn't she done that a long time ago? Did she want to get rid of me? Was it because of Dell, who, by the way, had not even been around since that last, fateful visit? Brooks had been around-he'd stopped by to bring us some groceries, and he hadn't even been asked to. My mother had asked Brooks what Dell was up to, and Brooks said he'd been real busy. Doing what? my mother had asked, and Brooks hadn't answered.

"Oh, well," my mother said lightly, but I knew how much she hurt. I'd heard her crying at night. After all my mother had endured, it was the withdrawal of Dell's attention that pained her most.

I heard a light rapping, then Peacie saying, "Diana?"

I ran to my door, making sure it was locked. "You're a traitor," I said into the crack.

"Open that door. Let's us talk direct."

"There's nothing I want to say. And there's nothing I want to hear. Just go."

"Diana, you can be mad at me as you want. But we got to talk 'bout how to help your mother."

I walked back to my bed and sat down, looked out the window at the gray sky.

The doork.n.o.b rattled. "Diana!"

If you mix too many colors together, you get gray. My mother taught me that. Also she taught me that if a boy likes you, he calls. He doesn't avoid you.

"Diana, I'm gon' ask you one more time to open this door. And if you don't, this gon' be our good-bye."

I sat immobile.

Peacie started down the stairs, and I ran to the door to quickly unlock it. But she didn't hear me do that, and I didn't open the door. Instead, I went back to my bed and pushed my face into my pillow. Then there were footsteps up the stairs and knocking again, and LaRue's voice, and I said come in, and I let him hold me while I sobbed until my gut hurt. When I finally stopped, I leaned back against my pillow and gave out a long, shuddering sigh.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine!"

He smiled, then gave me a piece of paper on which he'd written an address and phone number. "This where we going," he said. "I ain't told your mother, I'm only telling you. It's better if she don't know. People likely come here looking for me, Diana. I jumped bail. You know what that is?"

I nodded. Knowledge from Suralee, when we'd written a play about a man falsely accused of murder and on the run.