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With the music, the conversations, the tinkle of

champagne glasses, and the peals of laughter trailing behind us, we slipped out of the ballroom and down the corridor to a sitting room in the rear. Troy pushed opened the double doors. The floor of the room was inundated with wedding gifts, some piled three or four

feet high.

"Look at all of it!" he exclaimed. "Tony said we

can help open everything up later."

I could only nod in awe. There was so much.

Troy marched through the corridors of gifts, touching

some, gently tapping on others and then placing his

face against the sides of the boxes to listen and get a

clue about the contents of each. I laughed and shook

my head.

"Are you happy, Troy? Happy now that your

brother has a wife and my mother will be living here

with him?" He stopped his inspection of the wedding

gifts and glanced at me with dark eyes and a somber

face. "Troy? You're not happy?"

He was still silent.

"But why not?"

"Your mommy doesn't like me," he said,

looking as though he would cry.

"What? Why do you say that, Troy?" He

shrugged. "Tell me, please."

"She looks at me with growls in her eyes," he

said quickly. "Growls? What's growls?"

He growled like a dog.

"Oh." I started to laugh, but saw he was very

serious.

"Oh, I'm sure she doesn't mean that, Troy. It's

just that . . just that she's never had a little boy before.

She's only had me and she's not used to little boys.