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He didn't laugh. He said nothing.

"Duncan?"

"I'll see. I have a few things I promised I'd get done around the house."

"I'm not going anywhere today," I said. He was silent again. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I just . . . yes, I'm okay. Forget what I said. I'm sure I'll be tied up with all this. We have a serious plumbing problem. Our submersible well."

"Maybe you should call someone."

"I can handle it," he said defensively. "Forget I called. Sorry," he said and hung up.

"Duncan? Damn," I muttered and hung up the receiver. He was so complicated. One moment he was hot and then he was cold and it was almost impossible to anticipate when and why he would change. What's more, I had no idea what would make him change. It didn't have to have anything to do with me or what I said. He could be hearing voices only he heard. I should know about that.

I thought about my conversation with my aunt Zipporah. She was so right, I had to start thinking more about myself. 1 was getting in too deeply with someone who had as many, if not more, problems as I did.

Don't bite off more than you can chew.

It was good advice.

If you did bite off more than you could chew, you'd only choke.

And I didn't come here to choke.

I came here to be free and happy, to be that baby the stork left on the doorstep, to be my own person.

Maybe it was mean, but I was hoping he wouldn't come to see me.

To shove away my conscience, I dove headlong into my drawing and my painting. Happily, I quickly lost myself in my own imaginative world.

My grandmother didn't realize it when she gave me my name,. but I was Alice and my art was truly my Wonderland.

16 Peeping Tom

. Duncan didn't come around at lunchtime. In fact, I was so involved in my work that I forgot about lunch and didn't think about it at all until I had a bubbling in my stomach and realized that I was getting hungry and hadn't eaten. It was midafternoon by then. I paused to go into the house to get myself something to eat and decided that I would work on stocking my own little kitchen space in the studio to avoid long interruptions. I quickly ate half of a peanut butter sandwich and returned to the studio.

Because there was no phone in the studio, neither my aunt nor Duncan could speak with me. It didn't occur to my aunt until she started calling to see how I was doing, expecting that I would be in the kitchen around lunchtime. She drove Tyler so crazy with her concern that he finally sent her to the house to check up on me by late afternoon. When I heard footsteps behind me, I thought it was Duncan. I was sure anyone could read the disappointment in my face.

"Have you been at it all day?" she asked, smiling to hide her concern.

"Yes. I did eat something," I added quickly. "Can I look at your work?"

"It's hardly anything yet," I said.

I stepped back from the easel, and she gazed at my work in progress.

"That's interesting, Alice. Your doe has an almost human face."

I looked at it myself. I hadn't realized it.

"It's going to he something," she said. She looked around. "You've been at this since you got up this morning?"

"Yes."

"Aren't you getting a little tired?"

"I guess. It's usually not until I stop that I realize it, however."