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"How are you, honey?" she asked, coming in.

"I'm all right," I said. "Mommy's asle

ep."

"Good. I brought some of the food back from the wake for you to have." She put the covered plates in our refrigerator. "No sense letting this go to waste."

"Thank you."

She came over to me and took both my hands in hers. Mama Arlene was a small woman, an inch shorter than I, but according to Papa George, she had a backbone tempered with steel. Although diminutive, she still seemed able to hold everyone else's troubles on her shoulders.

"Times will be hard for a while, but just remember, we're right next door anytime you need us, Melody."

"Thank you," I said, my voice cracking, the tears burning under my eyelids.

"Get some sleep, sweetheart." She hugged me and I hugged her right back. It broke the dam of tears and I started to sob again.

"Sleep," she said softly. "That's the cure. That, and time."

I took a deep breath and went to my room. I heard her leave and then all was quiet. Off in the distance, the wail of a train whistle echoed through the valley. Some of the coal in those cars, I thought, might have been dug out by Daddy before he. . . before he. .

Some place up north, someone would shovel the coal into a stove and for a while, be warm. I shivered and wondered if I would ever be warm again.

I wondered if Mama Arlene was right about the power of time. In the days and weeks that passed, the ache in my heart became a numbness. But that ache was always resurrected when my mind went to Daddy or when I heard someone who sounded like him. Once, I even thought I saw him walking along the road. I hated going by the mine or looking at the other miners. The sight of them made my stomach tighten and sent pins into my heart.

Mommy never returned to the cemetery, but I did--almost every day for the first few weeks and then every other day or so after that. Everyone treated me differently at school for the first few days after I returned, but soon, my teachers spoke to me just the way they spoke to everyone else, and my friends began to stay at my side longer, talking to me more, and laughing around me.

Bobby Lockwood drifted away, however, and seemed interested in Helen Christopher, a ninth grader who looked more like an eleventh grader. Alice, who some-how managed to eavesdrop on conversations all day long, told me Helen was even more promiscuous than the infamous Beverly Marks. Alice predicted it was only a matter of time before she would be pregnant, too.

None of this mattered. I didn't shed a tear over Bobby's betrayal. Things that used to mean a lot now seemed small and petty. Daddy's death had jerked me headlong into maturity. On the other hand, with Daddy gone, Mommy became flightier than ever. The biggest effect Daddy's death seemed to have on her was to make her even more terrified of becoming old. She spent a great deal more time primping at her vanity table, fixing her hair, debating over her makeup. She continually reviewed her wardrobe, complaining about how old and out of style all her clothes were. Her talk was always about herself: the length and shade of her hair, a puffiness in her cheeks or eyes, the firmness leaving her legs, what this bra did for her figure as opposed to what another could do.

She never asked about my school work, and between what I made for dinner and what Mama Arlene did for us, she never cooked a meal. In fact, she seldom even came home for dinner with me, claiming she'd get fat.

"I"I can't eat as much fatty food as you can, Melody," she told me. "Don't wait for me. If I'm not home by six, start eating without me," she ordered. It got so she was only home for dinner once or twice a week. Mostly, I ate with Mama Arlene and Papa George.

Even though Mommy was worried about her complexion and her figure, she continued to drink gin and smoke. When I asked her about that, she got very angry and told me it was her only vice and everyone need a little vice.

"Perfect people end up in monasteries or nunneries and eventually go mad," she explained. "I have a lot of tension now with your father gone. I need to relax, so don't make any new problems for me," she ordered. Which I knew simply meant, "Leave me alone."

I did.

I wanted to complain too: about how often she saw Archie Marlin and how often he was at our house. But I buttoned my lips and swallowed my words. It took so little to set Mommy off these days, and after she went on a rampage--shouting and flailing about--she would break down and cry and make me feel just terrible. It got so I began to feel as if I was her mother and she was my daughter.

Our bills piled up, some simply because she just never got to them. Twice, the phone company threatened to shut off our service and once the electric company came by and put a warning on our door. Mommy was always making mistakes with our checking account. I had to take over the bookkeeping, do our grocery shopping, and look after the trailer. Papa George helped me with that, but Daddy's death had had a big impact on him, too. He looked older, sicker, and much more tired these days. Mama Arlene was always after him to take better care of himself, however he wouldn't stop smoking and he even began drinking a little whiskey in the late afternoon.

There were nights when I was wakened by the sound of Mommy's laughter and then heard Archie Marlin's voice. Soon, that laughter was coming from Mommy's bedroom. I pressed my hands over my ears, but I couldn't shut out the sounds that I knew were sounds of lovemaking.

The first time I heard that, I got so sick to my stomach and I had to run to the bathroom to vomit. Mommy didn't even hear me and never asked what had happened. Usually, Archie was gone before I rose in the morning, and if I heard him moving about in the kitchen or living room, I'd wait as long as I could before rising.

All of this had happened too quickly--far too quickly for most people in Sewell. I knew there was a lot of gossip about us. One night Mommy returned from work enraged. She had gotten into an argument with Mrs. Sampler, who had always been one of her best customers. They fought because Mrs. Sampler had made a remark about Mommy's not spending enough time in respectful mourning. From what I heard afterward, Mommy had become so shrill and wild, Francine had asked her to leave.

She was fuming, and started to drink as she recited the argument. "Who is she to tell me how to act? Does she know how hard my life is? How much I suffered? She lives in her fine house and looks down on me, judging me. Who told her she could be judge and jury?"

Mommy paused now and then to make sure I was on her side. I knew it was better not to get her any more furious than she already was, so every time she looked at me with her narrowed eyes I nodded enthusiastically and acted as outraged as I could about someone openly criticizing her.

"I hate these people. They think just because they have money, they can lord it over us. They're so small-minded. They're so--" She struggled for the right word and looked to me for a suggestion.

"Provincial?"