Then from the same direction, a woman's voice: "It's only four A. M. California time."

"Get up, MarthaMarmalade!" yelled Martin. "Rise and shine. Men are out searching for wives today."

"Then I guess I'd better stay in bed!"

"Aunt Martha!" yelled Rebecca. "Come on. Get up!"

Barb had been trained by her own mother to speak quietly, but in this house, people yelled from room to room, as though they wanted to fill all the excess s.p.a.ce with sound.

Martin appeared at the table ten minutes later in green uniform d.i.c.kies. Martha appeared shortly after, draped in a ratty flannel bathrobe.

"Martha, do you want some French toast?" asked Barb.

"Oh, no, just coffee. Let me get it myself." In this light, Barb noticed Martha had dark halfcircles like faded bruises beneath her blue eyes.

When Rebecca finished eating, she plopped onto her Dad's lap and sat sideways, talking to Martha. Martin forked French toast into his mouth around Rebecca's back, holding her hair out of the way of the syrup. Martha blinked her eyes against failing back to sleep. Her robe was missing its belt and she repeatedly pulled the garment together across her cleavage. It would have been unkind of Barb to wish that her daughter hadn't inherited those fine bones, almost too feminine for Martin really, but on Martha, spectacular. Martha had married and divorced a drugabusing bully, and now Page 149 she was thirtythree and didn't even have an address. The older sister, Suzanne, was five years dead by suicide. Had their fates been cooked into the marrow of those graceful bones?

After work and before supper, Barb mopped the kitchen floor, and when she looked up the clock read 5:02. She searched for Rebecca outside the back door and in the dining room. She inhaled as if to yell, but instead parked her mop and walked up the stairs. Rebecca's bedroom door hung open, and she wasn't there. Barb knocked on the room Martha was using.

"Come in," shouted Martha. "You don't have to knock."

Martha sat crosslegged on the floor beside Rebecca, who handled a stack of envelopes.

"Look, Mom, love letters from Grandma's boyfriends. We found them in the wall."

"From Grandpa?" asked Barb.

"No. Other men," said Rebecca. "One was a soldier."

Martha looked on approvingly, as if letters from other lovers affirmed, or perhaps increased, the value of their common pedigree.

"Rebecca," said Barb. "m.u.f.fin's been outside for two hours, and your dad's going to be home in a few minutes."

"Dad is not going to run him over."

"Rebecca, I shouldn't have to remind you. If anything happened to m.u.f.fin, you'd feel terrible."

Barb returned to the kitchen and took a few last swipes at the floor. She'd done wonders in the beginning, but no matter how much she worked now, the improvement was only minuscule. The same with the wood floors in the rest of the house. She'd scrubbed and polished them, but they needed to be sanded and refinished. The downstairs walls and ceilings needed to be sc.r.a.ped and plasterpatched. Most of the bedrooms upstairs would have to be gutted and reconstructed with drywall. And all this on their regular paychecks. Barb stood frozen, mop in hand. A good solid rain, and water would run under those blue roof tarps and flood their bedrooms.

When she looked up, Rebecca stood in the kitchen doorway with Page 150 m.u.f.fin on a leash. "Mom?" she asked. "You've got love letters, don't you?"

"You are so lucky," said Martha at supper. Barb had insisted they eat in the dining room instead of the kitchen. Martin had brought home a bottle of wine.

"To have the house, you mean?" asked Martin.

"And to have a daughter like Becky. I wish I could have a daughter like this without having to have a baby. I wish I could give birth and then, boom, she'd be this age.

None of that crying and breastfeeding-although maybe the breastfeeding part would be okay." Martha winked at Barb. "This is the daughter I want. Smart. Can take care of herself. Look at that face. She looks like you, Barb."

Had Martha meant that as a joke?

"You don't usually get brown eyes with blond hair. I used to have blond hair, but now it grows with these dark roots." Martha put her hands on either side of the part in her hair and bent her head for inspection. Then she put her arm around Becky's neck and squeezed her. "Don't be embarra.s.sed about being beautiful, kid."

"She is a beauty, isn't she?" said Martin. "Just like her ma." Martin winked at Barb.

Barb smiled back. As always she was grateful for Martin's compliments but couldn't help thinking they came too easily to him.

"Cut it out," said Rebecca, blushing.

"You guys are like a real family," said Martha. "You're like Mom and Dad now." She gulped from her winegla.s.s. "Only you're totally sane."

"You haven't seen Mom scrubbing the kitchen floor," said Rebecca.

Barb looked at Rebecca, but the girl wouldn't meet her gaze.

"It's like she's possessed." Rebecca laid down her fork and moved her hands in a scrubbing motion. "Scrubbing and scrubbing."

"A regular Lady Macbeth, aren't you, Barb?" added Martin, grinning.

Barb felt the stab of betrayal twice. "We need new tile," she said apologetically. "That floor is ruined."

"Did Mom leave all those buckets?" asked Martha. "You know, Page 151 once she read how healthy potato water was, she wouldn't throw it out anymore." Martin joined in laughing.

How could they laugh about it? Why hadn't Martha dumped the buckets? Barb wanted to scream. Why had everyone let that poor woman keep all that stinking, molding potato water? Hadn't anyone cared about her?

"It is sad, isn't it?" said Martha. "Four of us kids, Martin, and the next generation is down to one, little Becky." Martha reached for the wine bottle and filled her gla.s.s halfway again. "It's all up to you, Becky, to carry on the O'Leary name."

Rebecca asked: "Aren't you going to have any kids, Martha?"

"I don't think so."

"Weren't you married?"

"Sure, but O'Leary women aren't much good at picking husbands."

"I might not ever get married."

"Good girl."

Martha emptied her wine gla.s.s, then worked at her pork chop in silence.

"What's the matter, Martha?" asked Martin.

"It just makes me sentimental to be here. I miss them so much." Martha was suddenly wiping away tears. "I miss Mom and Jack and Suzanne." Barb hadn't known Jack, the oldest, who'd died at seventeen in a car wreck.

"I do too, kid," said Martin. This was a pain in which Barb wasn't a full partner.

Rebecca watched her aunt in admiration, as if laughing one minute, crying the next, changing emotions without warning, was a marvelous feat.

"Stay with us, Martha," said Martin. "I miss you when you're gone."

Martha pushed herself away from the table. "I'll be right back. I just need to go outside." She pulled the door closed behind her, but it didn't latch, and with ghostly slowness it swung open again. Barb knew that Martin would have loved having lots of kids, a big, loud family like the one he grew up in. They heard Martha's car start up and pull out of the driveway.

Page 152 Later, after deciding not to wait up for Martha, Barb closed the bedroom door tightly and climbed into bed beside Martin. "Aren't you worried about your sister?"

"She's a big girl. She can take care of herself."

"You think everybody's fine all the time."

"They're not?" He laid his hand over Barb's stomach and moved it across her rib cage. She put her hand on his to push it harder against her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She didn't mind him a little drunk. He negotiated his hand under her nightgown, and desire for him struck her like heat lightning, at once uncontained, unrestricted. She pushed his hand between her legs and wrung its electricity. When he slid a finger in her, she cupped his wrist and tried to push his whole hand after it. She twisted around him, until her face was in his lap, and she took him so deeply into her throat that she had to fight not to gag. The whole house swirled around them, blue vinyl tarps flapping like skirts in the night wind, doors banging open on their hinges, plaster walls crumbling.

Barb had been sleeping for several hours when she awoke to laughing and footsteps. She recognized Martha's giggle and a lower voice, a man's voice. She heard them enter Martha's room, their gritty shoes sc.r.a.ping the raw pine floors that had never been properly finished. There had never been a strange man in the house in town. The clock beside her ticked incessantly.

Barb extracted her nightgown from the tangle of sheets and put it on. The floor groaned beneath her with each step. At night, this long hall felt like a public place, the hall of a boardinghouse. She tiptoed to her daughter's room and pushed the door open slowly. Through the top of the sixfoottall window, she saw a threequarters moon. Her daughter's skin shone both pale and bright, except where branches outside the window projected moonshadows onto her, junglebird shapes with wings flapping. Rebecca had covered some of the ruined plaster with a poster of a messyhaired guitar player. Through a few holes in the wall, one could view the empty bedroom next door, and the girl had painted around these disturbances with red and gold. Barb picked up two shirts and a pair of jeans and underpants from beside the bed and dropped them in the hamper. Like Martin, Rebecca slept soundly. Rebecca's shoulders seemed Page 153 small in the sheets. Her bones pressed outward against her veneer of skin. Barb wished she could babypowder and swaddle the girl and keep her safe from every crazy thing. Something thudded. If only she could lock Rebecca's room from the outside, thought Barb, and carry the key herself.

"Stop it!" said Martha, from her room.

"Just relax, baby," said a man's voice.

Martha's door was cracked, and when Barb peered through, she saw Martha with both arms handcuffed together to the metalframe headboard. A man with a dark pony tail sat beside her, fending off halfhearted kicks. Vomit rose in Barb's throat. She didn't even want to know people like this.

"These are too tight," complained Martha.

"So stop pulling on them," the man said, slurring his speech.

"Take them off. I'll handcuff you instead."

The man grabbed both of Martha's bare legs and held them affectionately. "Are you sure, baby?"

Martha tucked back her legs, then with full force kicked the man off the end of the bed. His head clunked against the heavy gla.s.s dresser top, and he slid down and lay sprawled on his back.

"Martha, are you okay?" Barb whispered through the door.

"Barb, is that you?" Martha threw back her head and laughed.

Barb hesitantly entered, the floor creaking beneath her. She smelled the mildew from the stained and yellowed walls. Martha's forehead was sc.r.a.ped and some blood had crusted on one side.

"Martha, please don't wake Rebecca."

"Barb, I need your help." Martha slurred as much as the man had. "I'm locked to this d.a.m.ned bed."

"Let me get Martin," said Barb.

"Let's just keep this between us women," Martha said. "Get his key. Isss in his front pocket. Hurry, before he wakes up."

"But," said Barb, but she didn't know how to finish her sentence. But I'm not a member of your family? But I can't help crazy people? But I don't want to be here at all? I want to be in my small brick house in town with the fencedin backyard.

"Please, Barb," laughed Martha, "or I might panic and start yelling."

Page 154 d.a.m.n her. Barb would get the key so that this man would leave, and eventually Martha would leave, and n.o.body would wake Rebecca. Barb knelt beside the man, who lay on his back in the dark, his head curled against the dresser. His breath was woody like bourbon, and his body smelled faintly skunky. The muscles of his arms and chest pressed against the Harley Davidson Tshirt, and his jeans were shiny with grease. A bulge of keys showed at his right front hip. Barb looked up at Martha before pushing her hand into the pocket. His skin emanated heat through the thin cotton. When the man groaned and shifted, a shiver pa.s.sed across Barb's back. She grasped the keys, but hesitated before withdrawing her hand. The man's eyes fluttered once, and Barb closed her own eyes. In fifteen years she hadn't touched another man as intimately as this. When she opened her eyes, Martha was staring at her from the bed, halfsmiling, one eye squinted. Barb slid the keys from the man's pocket, controlling her breathing.

"It's a small key," said Martha. "He showed it to me."

Barb flipped through the keys, her hands shaking. She held Martha's wrists, which were warm against the cold metal of the handcuffs. The skin on Martha's wrists seemed impossibly thin and delicate. The older sister Suzanne had made threeinch lengthwise slits in wrists like these. The key clicked, and Barb reluctantly let go.

The veins of her own wrists were obscured by a layer of fat and muscle from housework. Martha rubbed her wrists where the cuffs had imprinted red rings around them.

Martha worked the handcuff key off the key chain before tossing the rest at the man's limp body. When the man didn't stir, she tossed a footstool at him, one leg of which stabbed him in the crotch. Barb flinched. The man groaned and sat up.

"What's the matter with you, a.s.shole?" said Martha.

"What the h.e.l.l's . . . ?" he moaned. "You crazy b.i.t.c.h."

"Why don't you leave, now," said Barb.

"Sure," he said. "Get me the h.e.l.l out of here."

"I'll walk you to the door," said Martha, picking his keys off the floor and pressing them into his hand. She b.u.t.toned his shirt, adjusted her cutoffs, tucked her hair behind her ears-despite her drunkenness, she was as cool as a newscaster. Barb noticed that a Page 155 leather jacket hung over the back of a chair in Martha's room, and the handcuffs and key lay on the bedside table.

Martha supported the man as they stepped out into the hall and down the stairs. Barb followed, fearing that Rebecca would appear and ask what was happening.

Barb couldn't help but notice how pretty Martha's legs were, as long and tan as a teenager's. No hint of cellulite or varicosities. Martha released the man to stumble out into the night.

"Does my face look O.K.?" asked Martha.

Barb felt a breathless panic. But this was Martha, not Rebecca. And she reeked of beer.

"He hurt you. You're bleeding a little."

"I fell off his motorcycle. Am I bad?" She reached up as if to touch the wound, but instead stuck her finger in her eye.

"It's not that bad. I'll clean you up in the kitchen."

Martha sat at the table while Barb boiled water, made chamomile tea, gathered firstaid supplies and then placed two mugs between them. The steam from their cups and the smoke from Martha's cigarette mingled on the way to the ceiling.

"Where'd that guy come from?" asked Barb.

"The Eastside Tavern."

"You just picked up a guy and brought him here?"

"I think I used to know him." She wrinkled her forehead as if actively thinking.

"So you just brought him here?" asked Barb. "To this house?"

"Hey, don't pull that s.h.i.t on me," she slurred. "This is my house too." Barb felt her own anger seep like greenish chlorine gas out from under kitchen cabinets and doors. Had Martha paid any taxes on this house? Had she ever caulked a window? Nailed sheathing? Instead, Barb said, "You don't have a daughter to worry about."

"You're right, Barb. I'm sorry. But you shouldn't try to protect Becky so much. Or else one day, boom! she'll figure it all out, and . . . " Martha trailed off, as though she had forgotten what she was going to say.