"If I don't tell her, she can say honestly she don't know where I am."

I stared at the paper. "LaRue?"

"What, baby?"

I looked up at him. "You can write?"

In his face, it was as though the sun had come out. "That's a natural fact." He tilted his head to take me in fully with his good eye. "I done learned how. Onliest good thing 'bout jail is I had lots of time to practice! Somebody smuggled in paper and pen and give it to me, taught me how." From his pocket, he pulled out an envelope. "Now, this here? This here's for you from me and Miss Peacie, only don't succ.u.mb look at it until we long gone. That's orders from Her Highness herself. Will you promise me?"

"Yes."

He put the envelope on my dresser top and then turned to face me, his hands in his pockets. He was wearing polka-dot suspenders with his yellow shirt and red pants. With LaRue gone, there'd be nothing good left here.

"You come on down now, and say good-bye proper. Will you do that for me?"

"Okay," I said. "Just give me a minute."

"Don't worry, your face done calm down already."

"Well, I want to wash up."

"All right then." He moved slowly to the door. Something was still hurting him. After he started down the stairs, I thought about what to do. Then, although he had asked me not to, I opened the envelope. A thank-you card, signed by both Peacie and LaRue, but with an extra note from LaRue in his brand-new penmanship, in his overly large and careful letters made just like they showed you when you first learned, the little curls on the capital letters: Thank you very much for all you and your mama always done for us both. And for everything after I got in trouble. These three little words I say next is not enough but they all I know to say and most times they do the job. We love you forever. Well it is four words I see but anyway they is every one of them true. Thank you very much for all you and your mama always done for us both. And for everything after I got in trouble. These three little words I say next is not enough but they all I know to say and most times they do the job. We love you forever. Well it is four words I see but anyway they is every one of them true. Next, he'd written a P.S. Next, he'd written a P.S. This here from Peacie. She say you be good now. She say you know you in my heart forever. My eyes is also on you. This here from Peacie. She say you be good now. She say you know you in my heart forever. My eyes is also on you.

In the end, Peacie could not leave my mother so abruptly and agreed to stay for a week. She put LaRue on a bus for Ohio and moved in with us. She was edgy and distracted, but she was there.

My mother called my father. It was a long conversation, and despite my mighty efforts, I heard very little of it and Peacie would not tell me anything. "This between you and your mother," she said. "She tell you exactly what you need to know."

What my mother told me was that my father wanted to come and meet me. She said he would be willing to take me temporarily, and I could tell from the way she said it that the "temporary" part was his idea, too. She said there was an extra bedroom in his house that I could use.

On an unseasonably cool Sat.u.r.day, he came. The car pulled up-a new Ford-and a man stepped out. From the living room window I could see his discomfort-the tightness in his shoulders, the nervous way he looked up at the house and readjusted his hat. And I could see the resemblance; I could see that some of him had come into me. It made for a reluctant rush of longing. I answered the door and he said, "Diana?"

I nodded.

"Well, you..." He shook his head. "Spittin' image. May I come in?"

I stepped aside and he came into the hall, then into the living room.

"h.e.l.lo, Charlie," my mother said.

"Paige." He was squeezing the hat he held in his hands.

"Come in. Sit down."

It took him a moment, but then he crossed the room to kiss her cheek and sat on the sofa. I followed, with excellent posture.

"You've met Diana, of course," my mother said.

"I have!" He smiled nervously at me. I smiled back, my hands folded in my lap. He had thick hair. A mole high up on one cheek. Lips perhaps a bit too thick. Once in a great while, I'd imagined meeting my father. It was never like this. In my fantasies, he'd embraced me, laughing.

"How was your trip?" my mother asked him, and he said fine. Nothing more. He sat like a statue. From the kitchen, I could feel Peacie's eyes on us, and I wished she would come out. But my mother had asked her not to. "Just make us lunch, okay?" she'd asked, and Peacie had reluctantly agreed.

"Now, Charlie," my mother said. "I know we've already talked about-"

"Paige, I have to tell you something."

My mother looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

"My wife has asked me to...She's decided...well, both of us, really. We don't think this is a good idea. It just isn't a good idea."

"I didn't ask," I said quietly, and then, louder, "I didn't want to!"

He looked over at me and smiled, a terrible, false thing, blankness in his eyes. Then he turned back to my mother, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, entreating her. "I came here to tell you in person, Paige. I mean, I drove all the way here. I'd like to help you, but it's just too disruptive for my family if-"

"For your family family?" my mother asked. "Let's see. That being your wife and your daughter daughter?"

My father resettled himself on the sofa. "Paige, please. Just let me...I can't take Diana into my house. It would just be too hard." He looked over at me. I stared coldly back. "Now, I can help you with a little cash. It isn't much, but-"

"Peacie?" my mother called, and Peacie appeared instantly, fury clouding her face. She'd heard every word. "Could you escort Mr. Dunn out?" my mother called, and Peacie appeared instantly, fury clouding her face. She'd heard every word. "Could you escort Mr. Dunn out?"

"I'll do it," I said.

"We do it together," Peacie said.

"If you would just hear me out," my father said, and Peacie said, "Oh, I think what we gon' do is throw throw you out." you out."

After he drove off, my mother sat in her chair staring blankly. She looked so pretty. She'd put on makeup for him, her blue hair ribbon. "I should have known," she said. "Nothing about this surprises me."

"You had to get polio get rid of him, might have been worth it," Peacie said. A moment, and then we laughed, all of us, our family.

At the drugstore I asked Mrs. Beasley if I could tape a flyer to the window. I explained that my mother was looking for some help. "Of course you can," Mrs. Beasley said. "How is she?"

"Fine."

"Bless your heart," Mrs. Beasley said. "Now, listen. I've got some paperback books. They've got the covers torn off, but none of the story's missing. You think your mother might like to have them?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. I'll just pack them up for you. You go ahead and put up your flyer." She squinted and leaned closer to see it. "Oh, you've got little tabs so people can pull the number right off. Isn't that clever. And I'll tell everyone who looks at it how dear your mother is, bless her heart."

"Yes, ma'am, thank you." I began taping the flyer to the window. Outside I saw Suralee walking toward the store. It occurred to me to hide, but then I decided she should be the one to avoid me. I finished taping the flyer up and waited for her to come in the door.

She saw me right away. She hesitated, then came over to me.

"Hi," she said.

I said nothing.

"I'm sorry," she said, and again I said nothing.

"I messed up so bad. I just want you to know I'm sorry." She looked at the flyer, then at me. "Your mom needs help?"

I shrugged.

"I'll help," she said. "If y'all will let me."

I turned to face her. "Why'd you tell, Suralee?"

She looked at me, her eyes clear. "I don't know. I hate myself. I've hated myself every day since, and my mother, too. Although I hated her anyway, as you know. I didn't know she'd call and report y'all. I swear I didn't."

I held up the other flyers in my hand. "I've got to go find somewhere to put these. Do you want to help?"

"Sure. And I was just going to get a c.o.ke. I'll buy you one, too, do you want one?"

I said I did. We walked back toward the lunch counter and our hands brushed. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. After a moment I squeezed back.

Mrs. Beasley came over to wait on us. "What are you girls going to have?" she asked. We told her, and after she put our c.o.kes before us, she asked, "When's the next play?"

"I don't know," Suralee said, but I said right on top of her, "A week from today. Seventy-five cents." I was back to raising money the hard way. I would save up to buy my own canopied bed, right after I got my mother that typewriter. I'd seen it in a magazine; it was blue, her favorite color.

"Really? In a week?" Suralee said, and I nodded, confident that we could complete a script-and sure, too, that any role I wanted was mine.

At the hardware store, I saw Dell stocking shelves. I asked Suralee to tape up the flyer, and I walked over to him. "Hey," I said.

"Diana! How you doing?" He busied himself unpacking, wouldn't look at me.

"Are you ever coming over again?" I asked.

He stood still, then turned to face me. "I don't think it would be a good idea."

I felt like the air had wrapped itself around my throat and was squeezing.

"Why not?" I tried to smile. "My mother would really like to see you." Her on the phone last night with Brenda, trying not to cry.

He pushed his hair off his face. "You know, I'm going to be leaving tomorrow."

"You are?"

"Yeah, I'm heading out."

"Oh."

He returned to unpacking.

"She probably thought you cared about her," I said.

Silence.

"On account of what you did."

His hands stilled, then resumed their work.

"Why'd you do that, Dell?"

He took awhile to look at me again, then said, "It was...just to be nice to her. You understand? It was an act of kindness. But it didn't mean...I mean, come on, you know I couldn't really...It was just something I did for her."

"Oh," I said. And then, "Well, bye, Dell."

"Bye, Diana. Tell your mom I said good-bye."

"Okay." I'd do no such thing.

I met up with Suralee and told her what Dell had said. She nodded slowly, then told me to come with her. I followed her to Dell's car, where she systematically let the air out of every one of his tires.

"Where'd you learn how to do that?" I asked her.

"My dad," she said.

We walked back to my house together, and when we arrived, Suralee lifted her chin and went into the living room to greet my mother. I thought she was brave to do it. And I thought my mother was n.o.ble, welcoming her the way she did. Acting like everything was fine. Offering her lunch, when it was time to cut back again.

Mary Jo Crebs sat on our sofa, chewing gum and rolling her eyes. We'd hired her, but she was negotiating for more money.

"I just don't have it," my mother said. "I'm paying you as much as I can."

"Well, I saw your picture in the paper," Mary Jo said. "You won a lot of prize money."

"That money is gone," my mother said.

Mary Jo's eyes widened. "Already? What'd y'all buy?" She looked around the room doubtfully.

"It was gambled away," my mother said. "I gave it to my boyfriend, and he gambled it all away."

Mary Jo's hand flew to her chest. "You have a boyfriend?"

"Not anymore," my mother said. "Can you blame me?"

"No, ma'am." She pooched out her lips and chewed her gum some more, played with the clasp on her tacky purse, white with gold chains, the gold chipped off here and there. She wore white nurse's shoes and a white uniform, too, the b.u.t.tons gapping for its too-small size. She wasn't a nurse, but rather a nurse's aide who'd recently been fired from the hospital for "an error that was no way my fault regarding an elderly man who fell out of bed, which I wasn't even there."

Mary Jo sighed and said, "All right. I guess I can work for that if you're sure my sister has the other job."

Her sister Audrey made Mary Jo look like Florence Nightingale and Emily Post rolled into one. During the interview she'd belched loudly, then laughed behind her hands. Later my mother and I would laugh, too, but during the interview I'd felt a mounting sense of desperation. My mother was more sanguine. "You don't find many Peacies," she'd said. So we'd hired Mary Jo for morning and Audrey for nighttime duty. In the end, they were the best of the meager lot we had to choose from. Caring for my mother was a physical challenge, made worse by people's natural squeamishness about her situation: She can only move her head head! I imagined them saying at their dinner tables. One woman had walked out before the interview even started, saying, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize..." Another had said, "So I'd be the only one?" The only other interviewee had a dark nervousness about her, and after she'd left, my mother said with a cool-eyed confidence, "She'd steal from us; then she'd quit." Steal what? Steal what? I wondered but didn't ask. I wondered but didn't ask.

Susan Hogart interviewed Audrey and Mary Jo as well, and though she expressed her approval, I could tell she felt bad. "Call me right away if you have any problems," she told me. As though there'd be something she could do to help.

My trips to the grocery store now were sorrowful things. Mostly I pa.s.sed by food I wanted in favor of that which I did not. Apart from shoes, new school clothes were out of the question for the time being. LaRue and Peacie had sent us five dollars wrapped in a letter in which they promised more money soon, but they were struggling to pay the higher rent they were now responsible for. Peacie had found a job being a caretaker for an older lady named Mrs. McGillicutty (Every time I say her name I want to bust out laughing, Peacie wrote), but LaRue had yet to find a job. Peacie wrote), but LaRue had yet to find a job.

"Things will change," my mother told me one afternoon when I sat discouraged at her bedside. In the kitchen, Mary Jo slammed dishes around. She was clumsy and careless; already she'd broken two teacups and a plate.

"When?" I asked.