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Someday soon well have a real picnic out in the bright, warm sunshine. I thought, although I didn't know how or when.

I remembered the picnics we used to have when Daddy was alive. Noble loved them, as did I and even Mama. We were all so happy then. It was hard to believe it could ever change, that anything evil could ever touch us or harm us, and that there would be a time when we wouldn't be together. How does that feeling, that wonderful feeling, ever get captured again? Maybe it never would,

After I put Baby Celeste in bed for her midday nap. I sat on the porch with the door open and the screen door closed. I would be able to hear her if she called to me. I regretted not being able to do any work around the farm. It was sunny, but a cold front had made its way south from Canada and the afternoon temperatures were unusually low for the time of the year. It was more like a beautiful fall day, a perfect day for the kind of work I had left to do.

About four o'clock. I saw Mr. Fletcher's car turn into our driveway. I rose quickly and went into the house. Baby Celeste was still asleep. I crouched by the front window in the living room and watched as the car came to a stop in front of the house. Mr. Fletcher hopped out instantly and ran around to open Mama's door. They were both laughing at something. He opened the rear door and took out some shopping bags. I could see he wanted to carry everything into the house for her, but she told him she could manage. I knew she wasn't sure if Baby Celeste was upstairs asleep or not.

They kissed again and Mama started for the house. "I'll call you later," he sang out, got into his car, and backed it up. She stood on the porch watching him turn the car around and drive off before she entered the house. I met her in the hallway.

"Is everything all right?" she asked

immediately.

I didn't want her to know I had been spying on her through the window, but I was sure she saw it in my eyes. Sometimes I believed that what I looked at remained on the surface of my eyes and Mama could see it. It was futile to deny haying looked at

something forbidden.

"Yes. Mama."

"Where's the baby?"

"She's still taking her afternoon nap."

"Good. Here." She held out one of the shopping bags toward me. "There are some very nice new shirts for you, socks. and two pairs of jeans."

She started for the stairway.

"Where were you? I thought you were corning home much earlier." I said, following,

She turned, smiling down at me.

"You sound like my father, Noble. 'Where were you?' he would ask in a similarly grouchy tone. And he would stand just like you're standing with your hands on your hips. The men in this family are surely cut from the same cloth:"

I lowered my hands quickly. '1 was worried."

"Worried? I called. You knew I was coming home about now. Stop being such a... a nervous Nellie." She laughed to herself and continued up the stairway.

I looked back at the doorway as if Mr. Fletcher were still present and then I hurried up after her. Despite how I had cleaned up and reorganized her things. I couldn't help being afraid that when she went into her bedroom, she would know I had been there and I

had done what I had done with her makeup and clothes.

But she wasn't behaving like my insightful mother, my perceptive, gifted mother. She was acting more like a teenage girl, giggling over the events of her date, babbling to me nonstop about the way Mr. Fletcher and she had enjoyed this wonderful dinner and slept in what was often used as the honeymoon suite. She raved about the beautiful grounds.

The place had a lake. As soon as we finished breakfast, we went for a rowboat ride. I can't remember the last time I did something like that. It was like being in a Venetian gondola. There I was lying back with a wildflower in my hair and he was rowing and singing in Italian. He has a very nice voice, you know.

"I hated to leave the place, but we went to this enormous mall. I felt Eke someone from another planet, or at least another country. I couldn't get over the size of the place. Dave found it amusing, but believe me, you could spend weeks there without seeing it all. Noble, and there were so many nice restaurants from which to choose for lunch.. I had Mexican food. I hadn't had that since your father courted me.

"Anyway. I wasn't bored for a second, not a second," she said, unpacking her bag.

She looked at herself in the vanity table mirror, and for a long moment I thought she was going to realize I had been at the table, but she was really just looking at her own hair and face.

"Dave. thinks I have remarkably young-looking skin. I guess I do. Of course, that's no accident. Look at what I bought myself," she quickly added, and took a sheer, pink negligee out of her bag. She held it up against herself. "Well? Don't just stand there like someone unconscious with his eyes open. Noble. Isn't it exquisite?"

"Yes," I said, but from the smirk on her face. I knew I didn't sound excited enough for her,

"Why don't you go try on your new clothes? I might have to shorten your jeans. Go on. Put on a pair and come back here," she said with some annoyance.

She turned back to her bag, but after another pause, she continued to talk to me as if she had immediately forgotten her disappointment.