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"I was first, not you!" he wailed.

"No, you weren't," I insisted. I shook my head, and he wailed harder and louder, and Mommy jumped up and shook my shoulders.

"Stop it!" she told me. "Don't you see you're making him unhappy? You won't have any dessert tonight for this. Meanness in, sweetness out,' she recited.

"I didn't say it to be mean. Mommy," I cried.

"Well, it was, and you did," she insisted.

She pulled Noble to her and told him Daddy was just fooling with me. Daddy didn't mean it. He was first, after all. Who knew better than she did? His sobs relented, and Mommy kissed the tears off his cheeks. I stared at her and she looked at me with those eyes that could frighten me. and I shifted my gaze quickly.

It doesn't matter what she tells him. I thought. I know I was first. Daddy wouldn't lie about it.

Now, lo and behold. Mommy was changing her story. I was more mature. I was truly born first, born to grow faster and wiser, but it didn't give me any pleasure to hear her say this now because she made it seem l

ike an added burden. An obligation that I would never shed had been attached to my being born first. I got so I wished Noble really had come before me.

I went to Noble to comfort him as she wanted me to do. however. In the end I always did what Mommy wanted. I played one of his games with him and got his mind on other things, but I couldn't stand the way he talked about seeing and hearing Daddy all the time.

"You've got to stop saying you're talking to Daddy and you're seeing Daddy, Noble. Its making Mommy very upset and it's not right to lie about such a thing," I told him one day.

"I did see him," he insisted.

"Then you must tell me where and when." I demanded and folded my arms about my chest the way Daddy would when he was angry. "Well?"

He covered his face with his hands. and I knelt down beside him and pulled his hands away. He was stronger than I was then, but he was crying now and too sad to be stronger.

"I don't want Daddy to be dead." he moaned.

"Me neither, but that's what he is," I said firmly. "Or at least his body."

"His cup," Noble muttered angrily under his breath.

"His spirit is out there. Noble, really out there, and you know what Mommy has promised us: Someday all the spirits will talk to us and we'll see them and we'll see and talk to Daddy for real again. Don't you want that?"

Noble had always been reluctant to believe in all this, but now with the possibility of it including Daddy, he had no choice. He nodded.

"When?" he asked me.

"Soon." I said. "Mommy says soon."

Not long after our little talk. Noble started to accept the truth about Daddy's death. Ironically. I was actually sorry to see him do that. Sometimes, when he had stood staring out at the driveway or watching the road, or had turned quickly at the sound of a car or truck engine in the distance, my heart would quicken its beat and I would look, too. It wasn't Noble's skepticism as much as it was hope, a dream, a prayer, but the engine sound would dwindle and die and the road would remain empty. lonely. I'd catch myself and shake my head at myself for being so foolish, so childish.

Even at that early age. I disdained looking like or behaving like a child. Mommy's constant prodding for me to be more responsible, for me to be older and more mature, had taken seed in my little body. Often now I would catch myself in the hallway mirror and see how I was standing with a military stiffness, my lips pursed, my face full of little wisdom. The little girl in me was disappearing, shrinking. She would soon be gone after far too short a childhood. The dolls on the shelves in our room stared hopelessly at me and with little expectation. They seemed to know that I'd pick them up no more for many reasons. I had no idea that one in particular was waiting for me like a patient demon.

Instead of playing with my dolls. I was busy helping Mommy with the dinner or cleaning rooms in the house, moving a vacuum cleaner about that was taller than I was. Instead of dressing my dolls and serving them tea. I was helping Noble with our schoolwork, chasing after him for not picking up after himself. By now I had a voice that was a perfect mimic of Mommy's when I wanted it to be. and I could posture like her and glare like she glared at him when she was upset. Noble even told me to turn my Mommy's eyes away from him because they burned like a flashlight in his head.

But I couldn't help it. Even when she wasn't looking at me. I could feel her behind me, watching to be sure I was being a big girl.

On the other hand. Noble seemed to be regressing. He didn't want to grow up, to be responsible, to hear about chores, and he was always angry at me for reminding him. Mommy confused me about this. Most of the time she wanted me to be the big sister, but whenever Noble whined or complained about me. Mommy wanted me to be more of a companion, a playmate.

He doesn't have anyone else yet, Celeste. You have to get along."

I didn't have the patience for Noble's childish games. but I had to swallow back my reluctance and go along with his pretend. Our house was a castle again. He made me draw a moat around it with a sharp stick. He drew a line, and I drew one about six feet or so apart from his. We went around the whole house, tearing up grass. It took hours and hours, and when I complained about my hands getting sore and I wanted to stop, he had a tantrum. There were actually calluses forming on my palms. I showed him, but he didn't care.

"We have to know where the alligators and the snakes be swimming. Celeste," he insisted, his eyes wide and full of his fantasy.

I saw Mommy watching us from a window in the house. Her face was strange, caught in a mixture of sadness and fear. It had been so long since I had seen a smile on her lips, even after Noble said something silly. I wondered if she would ever smile again or if smiles had died with Daddy. Had she opened his coffin and thrown all her happiness m' side it to be buried with him?