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" These people are strangers to me, Roy," I said. "My real mother still wants the truth kept secret. What kind of an alternative is that?"

He raised his head and gazed at Mama before looking at me. I had the suspicion they might have discussed this plan before Mama even told me.

"Just think of it like you're going away to school or something," he said. "I'll come by first chance I get and someday soon we'll all be together again."

"Sure," Mama followed, practically jumping on his optimistic words. "That's a good way to think on it. You listen to your brother," she ordered. "He's a sensible young man, always was. The only thing he inherited from that no-good father of his is his good looks. Ken was a handsome man once," she added reluctantly. She was at the point where she didn't want to say anything nice about him.

"I'm far from handsome, Mama," Roy corrected.

"Don't you tell me what's handsome and what isn't. I'm not that far gone yet," she quipped. Roy laughed.

She was doing her best to keep up all our spirits. "When are you leaving?" Roy asked me.

"She's going shopping with her mama tomorrow and then the day after they're coming for her," Mama volunteered.

"I'm never going to think of her as being my mama," I vowed.

"That's something she'll have to face and change," Mama said. "If you want, you'll find a way to give her a chance."

"No," I fired back.

"Roy's right. I'm going to think of this as just going away to school and nothing more," I insisted.

Mama shrugged.

"Long as you're gone from these here streets, you can call it what you want," she said.

Then she started cooking as special a dinner as she could manage for us, her stuffed pork chops. Both Roy and I watched her try to drum up good feelings and happiness at the events that were about to take charge of our lives. We both knew she was battling inside herself, the sadness rushing at her dam of happiness and relief, threatening to sweep over it all and send her into a deep depression. Roy smiled at me when Mama turned on the radio and sang along with the music. For a few moments of time, we were thrown back to happier days, a time in our lives when there was still hope and we were all dreamers. Back then we even permitted Ken to draw up fantasies and listened attentitively to his plans of starting his own business, moving us to the suburbs, buying a new automobile, taking vacations, becoming part of the America we saw every night in television

commercials, an America with healthy children and happy-go-lucky families. For us television was a window on a Wonderland, the place where dreams come true.

At dinner Roy talked about where he was going to boot camp and what he hoped to accomplish.

"I want to get into electronics so when I come out I can get a good job," he said. "I hope I get to travel a little too, and see something else beside dumps and slums."

"You just don't volunteer to go into any fighting," Mama warned.

Roy laughed.

"You don't volunteer in the army, Mama. You're ordered to volunteer."

He talked about some of his friends who had joined and what they had told him about it. I never saw him talk so much, in fact. I thought he was doing it to keep us from having those long periods of silence when we were left at the mercy of our own bleak thoughts. Music, conversation, good food and the clatter of preparing, eating and cleaning up kept the three of us from talking about all the scary tomorrows that were about to begin. Once in a while, we heard footsteps in the hallways and paused to see if Ken was going to come through the door. Mama had a frying pan she vowed she was going to use to drive him back out.

"Once you two are gone," she said, "he can have this pleasure palace all to himself, for I'll be on the train to Raleigh."

That set Mama talking about Aunt Sylvia and some of her memories from her own youth. For a while it seemed like we would never leave each other. We would stay around the kitchen table until the first light of morning. Suddenly though, Mama sighed deeply and scrubbed her cheeks with her palms.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm thinking about going to sleep. This seemed like a day with forty-eight hours, not twenty-four."

"I'm tired," Roy admitted.

"What's Slim say about your leaving him to join the army?" I asked.

"He's upset, but he told me to come around every time I get leave and work for him. I told him I don't exactly see myself spending leave time back here. Not with Mama down in Raleigh and you just outside of Richmond. At the end of the day, he told me he was happy for me and said he would do the same damn thing if he was young enough. He's been robbed twice this year, you know," Roy told us.

Mama shook her head. She rubbed Roy's head like she used to when he was much younger and then all of a sudden, as if by reflex, he seized her hand and pulled her to him. He held her in his arms tightly. She fought back her tears as hard as she could, but it was a battle she was doomed to lose.

"Get on with you," she muttered and turned away quickly. We watched her go into her bedroom and then we looked at each other, sadness making both our faces long and hollowed eyed.