Of course she'd understood that relations were cool between Michael and his family-not one Mulvaney had come to their wedding! But she'd never heard the full story. She'd never heard so sad a story.

Michael said quietly, "No more, and no less, than the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d misses me."

RINGING THE.

COWBELL.

There was Patrick, shrewd-suspicious Pinch, falling for one of Mom's tricks!

Ringing the cowbell on the back veranda, the gourd-shaped coppery "antique"-as Mom called it-to summon him back to the house and inveigle him into volunteering-"volunteering"-to drive into town to fetch Marianne home.

Like a fool, Patrick had come running. The sound of the cowbell at High Point Farm was understood to be code for Who's in the mood for an outing? a nice surprise? Years ago when the family had been younger, Dad or Mom frequently rang the cowbell on summer evenings to announce an impromptu trip for all within earshot-to the Dairy Queen on Route 119, to Wolfs Head Lake for a swim and picnic supper. When the drive-in on Route 119 had still been operating, the clanging cowbell might even mean a movie-a double feature. In any case, it was supposed to signal an outing! a nice surprise! Not an errand.

Patrick should have known better. Eighteen years old, no longer a kid dependent upon his parents' whims and moods, he, not one of his parents, was likely to be the one driving somewhere on a Sunday afternoon. In mid-February, it wouldn't be to any Dairy Queen or to Wolf s Head Lake. But the sound of the cowbell in the distance, as he was walking along the frozen creek, one of the dogs, Silky, trotting and sniffing at his side, had quickened his pulse with the promise of childhood adventure.

Of the family, Patrick was the one to wander off by himself. He was content to be alone. At least, with only an animal companion or two. He'd done his barn ch.o.r.es for the day, cleaning out the horses' stalls, grooming, feeding, watering-seven pails of water a day per horse, minimum! Then he'd gone hiking along Alder Creek for miles up into the hills above High Point Farm. He might have been entranced by the snow-swept windswept distances but in fact his mind was tormented with ideas. Ideas buzzing and blazing like miniature comets. In one of his science magazines he'd read an essay, "Why Are the Laws of Nature Mathematical?" that had upset him. How could the laws of nature be mathematical?-only mathematical? He'd read, too, about certain recent evolutionary discoveries and new theories of the origin of Horno sapiens in northern Africa-what had these to do with mathematics? He said aloud, aggrieved, "I don't get it."

Innocently vain at eighteen, Patrick Mulvaney thought of himself as an experimental scientist, a biologist. He'd been awarded quite a prestigious scholarship from Cornell University to study "life sciences" there. His dad, who hadn't gone to college, boasted that Cornell was "one of the great American universities"-embarra.s.sing to Patrick, though surely true. Patrick intended to push on for a Ph.D. and devote himself to original research in molecular biology. His grades in science at the high school were always high A's; his grades in solid geometry and calculus were high A's too, but Patrick sensed his limits, knew he hadn't natural apt.i.tude for higher math. It filled him with dismay and panic to think that the laws of nature might be mathematical in essence and not a matter of indefatigable observation, data, experimentation. It was unfair! Unjust! Yet-was it correct? Science is a continuous text ceaselessly being u'ritten, revised, redacted, expanded and edited, while mathematics is pure and ahistorical. Much of today's science will be refuted, but not mathematics. Was this So? How could it be so? What could mathematics say of life? the simplest unicellular life? What could mathematics say of the mysterious evolutionary branchings of life through the millions of years of earth's existence? Patrick murmured aloud, "They don't know everything."

A fine powdery snow was blown against his face, from the ground. Above, the sky was clear-a hard wintry blue like ceramic.

Patrick hiked on, and began to smile. Recalling the "exquisitely beautiful watercolors"-Mom's words-he'd slyly tacked up on the kitchen bulletin board, aged fourteen. Mysterious prints of what appeared to be brilliantly adorned suns, moons, comets-whatever? After keeping the family guessing for a few days Patrick revealed what the prints were: magnified slides of the dogs' saliva.

The looks on their faces.

How Patrick had laughed, laughed. All of them, even Mike, staring at him in disbelief and revulsion. As if he'd betrayed them, or some sacred trust. As if he'd betrayed the dogs! Patnck demanded to know why the dogs' saliva, teeming with microbes (not so very different from their own) had seemed "exquisitely beautiful" to them one day, but not the next. Never mind, Patrick, Mom had said huffily, just take those things down at once, please.

Now Patrick laughed aloud, remembering. The memory had quite vanquished his anxiety of a few minutes before. "They don't know anything!"-he heard his bemused voice, aloud.

He meant not just the Mulvaneys, but most of mankind.

Hearing the cowbell, a summons from his mom, Patrick cut his hike short and trotted the mile or so back to the house, Silky pant- ing excitedly beside him, but the trick was on him this time-"I'm sorry to bother you, Pj., but b.u.t.ton needs a ride home from the LaPortes. Can you drive in?" Mom was apologetic, smiling, in that shamelessly exploitive way of hers none of her children could resist, Corinne Mulvaney playing at and perhaps even imagining herself as fl.u.s.tered, helpless-so contrary to her true nature, which was all efficiency. She was in the midst of refinishing a piece of furniture and couldn't stop, she hoped he'd understand, she was sorry to be intruding on his tinle to himself after he'd done his ch.o.r.es and did them so well and-anyway-it was a favor for b.u.t.ton, wasn't it? "Take the Buick, hon. Dad's out with the pickup. Here, catch-" fishing the keys to the station wagon out of a deep pocket of her stained coveralls and tossing them with inappropriate gaiety to Patnck, who glared at her with all that he could muster of adolescent irony. "Gee thanks, Mom," he said, shoving his gla.s.ses against the bridge of his nose, "-a Sunday drive to Mt. Ephraim and back. Just what I need."

Fourteen miles, round-trip. No, closer to fifteen since the LaPortes lived on the far side of town. It was a trip he took five days a week, back and forth, usually on the school bus.

So he'd driven into Mt. Ephraim, and picked up his sister, and yes he'd possibly noticed that something was wrong, Marianne's smile less convincing than usual, an evasiveness in her eyes, and certainly she wasn't her usual chattery-brimrning self, a purely and profoundly and to Patrick's superior mind often exasperatingly girl-self- but frankly he'd been relieved not to hear about the prom and the party and her "date" and her familiar litany of girlfriends Trisha, Suzi, Bonnie, Merissa-how "fantastic" the decorations in the gym, how "terrific" the local band, what a "wonderful, unforgettable" time everyone had had. And how "honored" she'd been, in the Valentine Queen's court. Patrick, a senior, hadn't the slightest interest, not even an anthropological interest, in the frantic febrile continually shifting social lives of any of his cla.s.smates. Corinne was disappointed in him perhaps, he'd scarcely known the Valentine's Day prom was the previous night until the commotion and fuss over Marianne and her new dress, Dad taking Polaroids as usual, and the "date" showing up-Austin Weidman in a dark suit that made him look like a funeral director, poor adenoidal Austin who was in fact a fellow senior, a shy frowning nervous-handed boy inteffigent enough to have been a friend of Patrick Mulvaney's through the years but was not. Patrick simply wasn't impressed with Austin and smiled coolly at him, looked through him. Why?Just Patrick's way.

Marianne had once complained to Mom, why was Patrick so unfriendly? so rude? to her friends? to her friends who admired him in fact? and Corinne had said soothingly, in Patrick's earshot, Oh, that's just Patrick's way. Which had quite boosted his ego.

So he hadn't paid much attention to his kid sister as he considered her, a year younger, a year behind him in school but light-years distant from him, he was sure, in matters of significance. He may have asked her how the dance-"or whatever it was"-had been and Marianne might have replied murmuring something vague but in no way alarming; adding, with an apologetic little laugh, touching her forehead in a gesture very like Corinne's, "-I guess I'm tired."

Patrick laughed, one of those coded mirthless brotherly laughs signaling So? He'd tossed Marianne's garment bag into the back of the Buick where it upended, and slid down, and oddly Marianne hadn't noticed, or in any case hadn't reached around to adjust it. In that bag were Marianne's new prom dress, her prom shoes, toiletries. Patnck didn't give it a thought.

I'Vhy didn't you tell me? Why, as soon as you got into the car? As soon as we were alone together?

Afterward he would think these things but not at the time. Nor did think much of the fact (he, who so prided himself in his powers of observation) that when he'd turned into the LaPortes' driveway there was his sister already outside waiting for him. Waiting out in the cold. Garment bag, purse at her feet. Mananne in her good blue wool coat. just waiting.

In truth Patrick might have felt relief. That Marianne's best friend Trisha wasn't with her, that he didn't have to exchange greetings with Trisha.

He'd backed out of the LaPortes' driveway without a second glance, wouldn't have noticed if anyone had been watching from one of the windows, behind the part-drawn blinds. Marianne was fussing with the seat belt, at the same time petting Silky's persistent head as he poked against her from his awkward position in the backseat, forbidden to climb into the front as he dearly wanted, but she hadn't let him lick her face-"No, Silky! Sit." Silky was Mike's dog he was always neglecting now.

Afterward Mom would say, I thought you and Marianne were so close. Thought you shared things you wouldn't share with Dad or me.

Patrick hadn't even thought to inquire why Marianne needed a ride home, in fact. Why Austin Weidman-her "date"-hadn't picked her up, driven her. Wasn't that a "date's" responsibility? Marianne often stayed overnight in town with one or another girlfriend and nearly always she was driven home, if not by a "date" then by someone else. Marianne Mulvaney was so well liked, so popular, she rarely lacked for people eager to do her favors.

Nor did Patrick inquire after Austin Weidman. It was absurd, that Marianne had gone to the prom with Austin. A dentist's son, fairly well-to-do family, very Christian, bookish. Marianne had agreed to go with him only after consulting her conscience, and no doubt askingJesus' advice, for though she didn't "like" Austin in the way of a seventeen-year-old girl's "liking" a boy, she did "respect" him; and he'd asked her weeks ago, or months-the poor jerk had actually written her a letter! (Which she'd showed only to Corinne, not to the derisive male Mulvaneys.) Crafty-desperate Austin had dared put in his bid to Marianne Mulvaney, a junior, and hardly a girl who'd encouraged him, well in advance of other more likely dates." Marianne was so tenderhearted, so fearful of hurting anyone's feelings, of course she'd said yes.

Last year she'd done the same thing, almost. Jimmie Holleran in his wheelchair. Jimminy_the-Cricket Holleran the kids cruelly called him behind his back, a boy in Marianne's cla.s.s long stricken with cystic fibrosis, in fact vice-president of the cla.s.s. He and Marianne were friends from Christian Youth and he, too, had asked her to a dance months before. Though even Mom had wondered about that-"Oh, b.u.t.ton, won't it seem like, well-charity?" Marianne had said, hurt, "I like Jimmie. I want to go to the dance with him."

Impossible to argue with such goodness.

"b.u.t.ton" Mulvaney was so sweet, so sincere, so pretty, so- what, exactly?-glimmering-luminous-as if her soul shone radiant in her face-you could smile at her, even laugh at her, but you couldn't not love her.

As a brother, that is.

Patrick disdained high school sports, most clubs and activities and compet.i.tions of popularity in whatever guise, but he could hardly ignore the presence of "b.u.t.ton" Mulvaney at Mt. Ephraim High. (Even as, grinding his teeth, he could hardly ignore the fallout of his similarly popular older brother Mike-"Mule"---"Number Four"-who'd graduated in 1972.)

Not that he was jealous. Not Pinch.

In fact his sister's popularity this past year at Mt. Ephraim High was an embarra.s.sment to him. He squirmed having to watch her with the other varsity cheerleaders at a.s.semblies before games-the eight girls in their maroon wool jumpers that fitted their slender bodies snugly, their small perfectly shaped b.r.e.a.s.t.s, flat bellies, hips and thighs and remarkable flashing legs. They were agile as dancers, double-jointed as gymnasts. They were all very, very good-looking. They wore dazzling-white cotton blouses and dazzling-white wool socks and their smiles were identically dazzling-white--such joyous smiles! And all in the service of the school football team, basketball team, swim team. Boys. Boys whom Patrick privately scorned. Grimly Patrick stared into a corner of the auditorium as into a recess of his own labyrinthine mind, as about him hundreds of idiots yelled, clapped, whistled, stamped their feet like a single great beast.

TWO!FOUR!SIX!EIGHT!.

WHO DO WE AP - PRE - Cl-ATE?

MT. EPHRAIM RAMS!!!.

Too silly, too contemptible for words.

But try explaining that to Michael Sr. and Corinne, the proud parents of "b.u.t.ton" Mulvaney. As they'd been for four glorious "ears the proud parents of "Mule" Mulvaney.

Patrick had never told his parents how he dreaded one day discovering Marianne's name in a school lavatory. Whenever he saw obscene or suggestive words, nasty drawings, above all the names or initials of girls he believed he knew, Patrick rubbed them off in disgust if no one was around, sometimes inked them over with a felttip pen. How he despised his male cla.s.smates' filthy minds! their juvenile humor! Even the nice guys, the halfway intelligent guys could be astonishingly crude in exclusively male company. Why, Patrick didn't know. Every other word "s.h.i.t"-"flick"-"b.u.g.g.e.r"- "a.s.shole"-"c.o.c.ksucker." Patrick himself was too pure to tolerate the breaking of taboos not wholly intellectual.

Another thing Patrick had never told his parents: how Marianne, for all her popularity, was considered one of the "good, Christian" girls. Virgins of course. But virgins in their heads, too. There was something mildly comical about them-their very piety, decency. A tale was told of how Marianne had asked one of the science teachers why G.o.d had made parasites. In the cafeteria, amid the bustle of laughter, raised voices, high-decibel jocularity, Marianne was one of those Christians who bowed their heads before picking up their forks, murmuring prayers of grat.i.tude. Most of these conspicuous believers were girls, a few were boys. Jimminy- the-Cricket Holleran was one. All were unperturbed by others' bemused glances. Or wholly unaware of them.

In conversation, exactly like her mother, Marianne might speak so familiarly ofJesus you'd swear He was in the next room.

The previous fall, one of the popular football players was injured at a game, hospitalized with a concussion, and Marianne Mulvaney had been one of the leaders of a fervent all-night prayer vigil on the field. The injured boy had been admitted to intensive care at Mt. Ephraim General but by the time the prayer vigil ended next morning at 8 AM., doctors declared him "Out of immediate danger."

So you could smile at Marianne Mulvaney and the "good, Christian" girls of Mt. Ephraim. You could even laugh at them. But they never seemed to notice; or, if they did, to take offense.

Why didn't you tell me? Anything.

How could you let me drive you home that day, not knowing what you were feeling. 14/hat you were enduring.

By 5 P.M. the sky was streaked in dusk. Plum-colored crevices in patches of cloud. Blowing, flying high overhead. Patrick tried not to be spooked by the sight of snow-covered vehicles on the roadside, abandoned days before during a blizzard. The Haggartsville Road was fair driving but High Point was basically a single crudely plowed lane. He'd gotten out, so he supposed he could get back. And school again in the morning. That d.a.m.ned school bus he was bored by the sight of.