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"I helped Patsy load all her things in the van so Goblin would know I meant her no ill will. And then Patsy was off, declaring that she was never coming back, but of course she was back in two weeks, demanding to stay in the big house because she ran out of money and there was no place to go but home.

"That night, as soon as Patsy was safely away, I demanded of Goblin, 'What did you do? You almost made her fall!' But I got no answer from Goblin; it was as though he was hiding, and when I went back upstairs to my room and sat down at the computer he at once grabbed my hand and typed out,

" 'Patsy hurt you. I don't like Patsy. ¡¯

" 'That doesn't mean you can hurt her,' I wrote, speaking the words aloud.

"At once my left hand was snatched up with extraordinary force.

" 'I made Patsy stop,' he answered.

" 'You almost killed Patsy!' I countered. 'Don't ever hurt anyone. It's not fun. ¡¯

" 'No fun,' he wrote. 'She stopped hurting you. ¡¯

" 'If you hurt other people,' I answered, 'I won't love you. ¡¯

"There came a silence and a chill in the room, and then by his power the computer was tur

ned off. Then came the embrace, and with it a faint loving warmth. I felt a vague loathing of the pleasure this embrace produced in me, and a sudden fear that it would become erotic. I don't remember ever feeling that fear before.

"Patsy had called me a queer. Maybe I was one, I thought. Maybe I was steered in that direction. Maybe Goblin knew. Goblin and me together. Fear stole over me. It seemed like mortal sin.

" 'Don't be sad, Goblin,' I whispered. 'There's too much sadness as it is, at home. Go off, now, Goblin. Go off, and let me think by myself. ¡¯

"In the weeks that followed, Patsy never looked at me in quite a familiar way, but I did not want to admit to anything regarding the event on the staircase, so I couldn't ask her what she had felt.

"Meantime everybody knew that in her bathroom in the big house she was vomiting and retching in the morning, and she took to hanging about the kitchen, saying that all the food disgusted her, and Pops, driven away from the table, spent his long hours in the shed.

"He didn't talk to the men. He didn't talk to anyone. He watched the television and he drank Barq's Root Beer, but he wasn't seeing or hearing a thing.

"Then, one night when Patsy drove up late and came into the kitchen claiming she was sick and Jasmine had to make her some dinner, Pops sat down at the table opposite her and told me to get out of the room.

" 'No, you let him stay if you've got something to say to me,' Patsy said. 'Go on, out with it. ¡¯

"I didn't know quite what to do, so I stepped into the hallway and leaned against the back doors. I could see Patsy's face, and the back of Pops' head, and I could hear every word that was said.

" 'I'll give you fifty thousand dollars for it,' Pops said.

"Patsy stared at him for a full minute, and then she said, 'What are you talking about?¡¯

" 'I know you're pregnant,' he said. 'Fifty thousand dollars. And you leave the baby here with us. ¡¯

" 'You crazy old man,' she said. 'You're sixty-five. What are you going to do with a baby? You think I'd go through all that again for fifty grand?¡¯

" 'A hundred thousand dollars,' he said calmly. And then he said, 'Two hundred thousand dollars, Patsy Blackwood, on the day that it's born and you sign it over to me. ¡¯

"Patsy rose from the table. She shot up and backwards, glaring at him. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me that yesterday!' she shouted. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me that this morning!' She made her hands into fists and stomped her foot. 'You crazy old man!' she said. 'Damn you. ' And she turned and flew out the kitchen. The screen door banged shut after her, and Pops bowed his head.

"I came into the kitchen and stood at his side.

" 'She's already gotten rid of it,' he said. He bowed his head. He looked utterly defeated. He never said another word about it. He went back to his silent ways.

"As for Patsy, she did lie sick in her room for a couple of days during which Jasmine cooked for her and took general care of her, and then she was up and off in her new van for a series of country jamborees.

"I was very curious. Would Patsy immediately get pregnant just to make two hundred thousand dollars? And what would it be like to have a baby sister or brother? I really wanted to know.

"Pops set himself to solitary tasks around the farm. He painted the white fences where they needed it; he clipped back the azaleas. He laid in more of the spring flowers. In fact, he enlarged the garden patches and made them more brilliant than they'd ever been before. Red geraniums were his favorite flower, and though they didn't last too long in the heat he set out plenty of them in the beds, and he stepped back often to get perspective on his schemes.