All the way home to Ludway Set wandered the labyrinth of her mind, unable to find the path back to her original thought. The thought had not been an idea as such, but words, simply words that turned over and over in her head, stupidly, mechanically, as she drove in no light, then gray dawn, and finally under a pewter sky that domed this Thanksgiving morning. Once she had even said the words out loud, into the air, as she scraped her windows, the car rumbling with hot chemical fumes. "Seems, Madamn, I know not seems," she said, tugging at a frozen wiper wand. "Tis not alone my inky cloak . . ." and when she heard her voice emerge from the muffler's chug, she was embarrassed. Embarrassed alone. She had found herself lately doing that, suddenly talking aloud. So what, she had thought. But still a latent fear rankled when she considered that these episodes might occur in the presence of others. She knew she would either laugh it off as an eccentricity or try to work the vagrant words into a logical path of conversation with whoever stood near. In the meantime, these vocal solos occurred without warning.
     As she drove, following the snow canyons created by the big yellow plows, Hamlet appeared again, leaning against the proscenium, dark, sullen, insulated, head in the shadows.
     

     Tis not my inky cloak, good mother,
     Nor customary suits of solemn black,
     Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
     

Set could never remember the next line--she duh-duhed an iambic meter for the space.

     Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
     That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
     For they are actions that a man might play:
     But I have that within which passeth show;
     Dudu-dudu-dudu and suits of woe.
     

Who read it yesterday in class, she wondered. And then she remembered the video. And then her mechanical words took an idea's shape, Hamlet lifted his head, and his face was David Owen's. "These but the trappings and the suits of woe," she corrected the du-duhed line. That's what it is, the trappings and the suits of woe. But that's not right; his trappings are glossy and showy, like her own. But inside, inside, he wore the suits of woe. And she loved him for his sorrow covered by meticulous form, the cloth of much thought, the tapestry of calculated effect.
     And she feared him--not for killing Nate Sowders--she no longer considered that real; besides, that would not have been an objectionable fear, she shocked herself by admitting. No, she feared David Owen because he was kind and cruel, and she feared her own hypnotic reaction to this paradox. Could it be true, the old conundrum about women being attracted to men who bully and command, who take charge, who tell their women where to be? And just when she had been recognizing the full legitimacy of feminist concerns? She had taken charge of her own life for years and felt she had achieved a most acceptable combination of boldness and feminine style. She had even come to believe that the Nosehairs--this was her witty epithet for ugly, intellectual women--were sisters of the Cause. But then she remembered the way she twisted her long leg to lure him, and her ridiculous, hyperactive waiting for his arrival, and the way she could not maintain a firm argumentative stance when he laughed at her during one of her philosophical comebacks. She felt little and stupid, and wanted to fling herself at him, and make him not think of the others--if there were others.
     So, what he said about earnest and ardent was true and the entire Victorian spectrum of claw and tooth, of survival for the fittest, was a possibility, and she, September Hunt, was a prime player. She who hated Ed Louden for his pompous nose, and his dull belief that he could lead; she who criticized her friends and colleagues for coming back to school Monday mornings without rancor; she who reveled in the revolution of Margory's caboose--she herself was sickly of resolve and worth in the chance meeting with a man who did not appear greatly affected by her presence at all--or lack of it.
     But that was the rub--in her presence he might begin to rage, to be the fire of passionate involvement with her, Set Hunt. With her he might be the instantaneous partner in pain. With her he might connect and pour it all into the air, and it was all for her and with her. But then she beat the steering wheel--it was like the second old conundrum--if nobody is listening, will the falling tree in the forest make a sound? She knew that any slice of mad beauty she might accidently receive from David Owen would be offered if she were there or not.
     The clouded sun had painted its gray patina by the time Set had gone forty miles. All the disparate parts of the past week wove themselves into a luxurious nubby tapestry of anger, need, fear, and something like furious desire. But now as Ludway got closer and she began to recognize the familiar cement way stations, pull-offs, roadway parks, and big green exit signs on 75, an uneasy anger raveled out the ends of the rich cloth of East Worthy. Now it was polyester shine and discount bolts and its color was beige. Cylindrical stacks belched white smoke into the metal webbing of electrical lines and tall heraldic signs for fast food joints and motels. Main electrical barracks marched indiscriminately diagonal across fields. Round, white sugar towers and oil towers punctured the earth and between them lay drab wastefields of clonish weeds and scraped gravel. Even the snow was not enough to blank out the barren industrial horizon.
     This is what I am, she thought, these stupid nowhere, dime-a-dozen rest stops. If Mother gives me that look when I pull up I don't know if I can contain myself. Leanne's probably been endearing herself to her and everything's just hunky-dory with them. And then I'll get the look. Because I didn't make it last light. Last night. Last night.
     He had gone soon after his heart stain, carrying his journal under his arm. He did not seem angry or cruel at the end, only distant. A light peck on her cheek and a obligatory Thanksgiving wish about turkey and home ended the flurry of emotion and he was gone in the night, kicking through one webbed corner of snow, calling back to her, "You might need help in the morning." She had assured him that she could wield a shovel if necessary and, besides, the gravel pull-up where her Toyota sat never drifted.
     The rest stops on 75 weren't drifted at all. Set could never remember that they had been. The snow was there, between the cement curbs and borders, but it seemed to know how to melt away appropriately from lanes of travel. There's probably something in the concrete that keeps snow from piling outrageously, turning the abstract downy drifts into puddles that drain away into the efficient gravel, maintaining the borders, keeping it clear. The whole damned interstate was a hermetically sealed world of cement paths leading to cement centers like Ludway. While out beyond these banked and littered passages lay the webbed corners of the country, of the caboose. The weird thing about this morning's drive was that the cement world seemed to maintain itself--without human interference. She had passed only three cars before the interstate and now only two vehicles rolled ahead of her under the gray morning dome.
     Set passed one, a battered Chevy or Ford, very slow moving, a little girl in a fuzzy white hat leaning from the back seat into a woman's neck. They seemed determined to get somewhere. Neither looked happy. The other car, shiny, blue, and big, a Lincoln Town-car, framed a prosperous looking man and woman, huge blonde hair and gray distinguished coif. They sat upright and smiled at Set when she passed. Set slowed, wondering why she was passing anyone to get to Ludway.
     By fits and starts the stage of her mind became increasingly Ludway and less East Worthy. She rehearsed her first smile as she would come through the door, her dad sitting in the brown recliner, his hands clasping the remote control or the Ludway Examiner, John's kids playing Monopoly on the floor. John would be perched neatly, soporifically in another recliner across from his dad, his hands, mirroring his father's, folding a computer digest. Her mother, Nadine, and Leanne would be around the corner in the shiney refurbished kitchen, new cupboard fronts, light oak, from Sears, and Nadine would look up from dipping moist mounds of dressing into a casserole. Now it would get more difficult--the smile--and she would have to think about her tone, her voice, get it right and maintain. Leanne would be sprawled in a floral something or other, probably a skirt, with long earrings jiggling into her auburn hair, laughing, her feet propped on a chair. She'll offer to help, something vague, unnamed, something that she can't do, and no one expects her to do, anyway. Mom will say there's nothing now and ask her to keep them company in the kitchen.
     Set's heart beat faster and she looked up in a heat realizing she was passing a huge truck, Peterbilt. A greasy pudge face leered down at her, suggesting, grinning, sideburns curled at the edges. He puckered his lips in a lewd kiss and Set pulled her legs together. The gesture was an uncomfortable reminder of the world to which she drove. Where are the farmers of East Worthy, the men, dignified, driving through the summer air, or perched high in their winter cabs? Their countenance kept order, courtesy, an assurance that she was a woman, and they were the keepers of the fields. Set loved to be delayed on the roads by monstrous rows of metal teeth, swung high above, like Medieval armor at rest. She would wave and smile as she pulled slowly past, edging far to the left to show her respect for the profession. No male, not even the most pubescent, pimple-faced boy, rocking in his tractor seat, had ever been less than hero to her. They went to join the earth, thrusting their very lives into the breast of the globe, noble, and protective. Above her the wet smile flattened and she pressed the accelerator hard. Was it possible that if that oily head and its slick body was straddled across a John Deere, it too would acquire the majesty of the fields? Or, more disturbing, if the farmer were to mount a Peterbilt, would he shrink to rat-like form, liquid and mean?
     The exchange of properties was complete when she pulled the Toyota squarely behind John's clean Chevy, light blue, late model, no frills. Not square, and with one tire turned askance into the demarcation of white snow-yard and black-topped drive, stood a coupe-shaped mismatched vehicle with temporary tags. Leanne. See my new toy she would say and all would goggle and laugh at her wayward, flighty impetuosity.
     Set pulled her Pierre Cardin overnighter from the passenger seat, walked toward the brick ranch house and assumed a defiant discomfort. She glanced in the backseat of the Chevy. A symmetrically-placed Kleenex box in the window and one package tied and small on the woven seat cover made her cringe with guilt. Nothing else accept clear space for children's shoes and thermal plastic casserole holders. Because she could not keep her eyes from it, she looked through Leanne's windows, and recognized the usual collage of dirty clutter--old papers, lumpy clothing--today a red sock and a velveteen vest, candy bar wrappers wrinkled in wads on dirty carpet, several sketch books and an apple box brimming with twisted paint tubes. Artist brushes bristled together from a coffee can. Isn't that cute, just cute of Leanne, so delightfully scattered and artistic, so open and charmingly askew. Anger. Anger at chaos. Ridicule of chaos. Envy of chaos that makes its own way. Fear of chaos. Desire for chaos. Controlled chaos. I am me, Set thought. Just me, I, I can be no more.
     Bill Hunt met her at the storm door. "Well, we're glad you're here. Mother was beginning to worry. Do you have more to bring in, September?"
     "Hello, Dad. Happy Thanksgiving. No. Oh, yes, my garment bag. Hanging in the back, but I can get it," she said with medium enthusiasm. Her voice sounded bland in her ears. She turned numbly after her father as he stepped toward her car. "Everyone here?" she asked, not going in.
     "The whole gang's in there," he grunted from inside the backseat car, tugging after the body of clothes. "Go on in. Leanne's been asking after you." Set had never noticed how small his legs were. Like bird legs in knit folds, above, a little paunch held taunt by a safe brown belt. Bill Hunt looked tidy, thinning hair moderately clipped, and slicked back, not wet like the Peterbilt, not big like Nate Sowders, not wild, glossy strength like David's. Just expected, sixtyish.
     When he arrived at the square of cement porch, Set moved in, pushing the door with her elbows, trying to make her luggage seem more than it was. Her senses choked her in the empty room, a void of symmetry, spotted with beige rockers and big-box tv, turned low.
     "Hi, Aunt Set," the smaller boy said, looking up from a board that marked a rectangle of color on the cream, sculpted wall-to-wall carpet.
     "Well, hi, guys. Wow, Jason, stand up. You, too, Mark. Let me see. You must have grown two inches both of you since, let's see, was it July?"
     "June. It was June fifth when Dad had his surgery. And we all got together down here. How ya doin, Sis?" John Hunt moved cautiously toward his sister and they stood awkward a foot apart for several seconds. Then, instead of something else, John patted Jason's head. "Yeah, Nadine measured them both last week and little one there shot up an inch and three-quarters while his brother has gone two. Mark, tie your shoe." Set felt it all coming on. Drugged, held, angry and poisoned with gloom. The turkey lay a heavy veil over the furniture and crept between the family photos on the television. It wound its steamy way out to the kitchen where Set was bound to go. "Nadine, Set's here. They're brewin' something up in there." Set smiled weakly.
     "September Hunt, my favorite sister." A tall dark red-haired woman leaned around the corner. "It's about time. We need your domestic prowess in the kitchen." Leanne laughed her guttural laugh and gave Set a quick, nervous hug. It was not a floral skirt, but a long, sweeping waist-less dress in dark blue, embroidered heavily with geometric patterns in red. Her earrings, longer than Set had seen before on her sister, touched her shoulders in brass intertwining circles. "Do you like it?" she said whirling around, holding her skirt out. "I see you eyeing it so you must have an opinion."
     "It's different. Looks faintly, faintly . . . ah, Tibetan?"
     "Afghani. Isn't the embroidery gorgeous? The slopes, wild and wintry of Afghanistan. Romantic, calling." She flopped into a side chair. "I'd love to try that next. But isn't there some kind of conflict or something going on over there now?"
     "Yes, Leanne. Probably best described as a war. The boys have been talking about it at home. From their Weekly Readers. Go on, Mark. Tell your Aunt Leanne about what Mr. Riley and your class have been discussing." He leaned down to touch his son's shoulder and his slightly balding center spot shown like a shadow image of his own father's advanced balding. Their scalps looked dry, the blonde stringy hair, vaguely damp. Like two peas in a pod, one each to a wall, holding sentinel around the flashing TV screen.
     "Ah, Dad, not now. We're right in the middle of a . . .
     "Certainly, you can take some time from a game for your family. After all, you don't get to see your Aunt Leanne and Aunt Set very often." His repetition of the relationship in "aunt" infuriated Set and she hoped the kid would win the issue. But with a twisted mouth at his brother he began.
     "I don't know that . . . Grandma, you need something?"
     Set looked up to see the look she dreaded. Her mother stood with a plate and dishtowel in her hands. Alice Hunt's mouth looked still and pinched although the edges turned up. "Well, Set, I'm glad you could make it this morning," she said, swirling the towel slowly around the plate's dry edges. "Your father and I were concerned after you called last night." Set, still holding her carry-all, felt a pressure rise in her throat. No, Mother, please, don't. Let me be. Let me be home. It's hard enough to see you all. Don't make me, don't make me. . . She couldn't think the word.
     "I knew you'd be worried, Mother. That's why I called." She dropped her bag at Leanne's feet. "I'm a forty-year old woman. I can make decisions." She tried to pass it off as a joke as her mother had tried to pass hers off as love. "But now I'm here. Can I help with the bird?" she said pitching her voice higher, happily forward.
     "No, Set, most everything's ready. Nadine, could you take the foil off the cranberry salad, there by the microwave? Boys, clean up your game. We're almost ready. Leanne, perhaps you can show your sister where to put her things." She looked straight and level into Set's face. "We've changed things somewhat. I hope the fold-a-way's alright with you this time. Leanne's staying on during the week." Alice Hunt stepped back into the source of turkey heat and a diminutive, pixie-faced woman, early thirties, took her place.
     "Hi, September. John and I have talked about you a lot during the last months, haven't we, John? Your ears must have been burning." Her voice sounded like cotton candy, airy, sweet, ordinary, at the carnival.
     "Why have I been in your conversation, Nadine? Of course, more than usual," Set answered, trying to swim with any current that swept her way, trying to keep afloat in the dangerous undertow.
     "Well," she said, squirreling her words into a candy introduction, "the boys have really gotten involved in some presentations at the church, where they really've been shining. Why, I think Jason's won three--or is it four, dear?"
     "It's three, Nadine. Jason's won three and Mark two," came the mild irritated answer from the recliner.
     "Well, anyway, Flora Ricker, who's the group leader for Loving Lips, the alatory, oh, John, I can never remember the word . . ."
     "Elocution, Nadine."
     Nadine giggled a candy sound. "See, I never can remember those big words. Anyway, we were wondering if you might give them some little pointers, maybe even today, on, you know, how to hold their hands, and what words to say. Flora says they have real talent." Neither boy looked up from the Monopoly board.
     "Yeah, let's see you take me with the railroads and utilities under my control," Jason snarled.
     "Didn't your grandmother tell you five minutes ago to put the game up?" John said. He lunged forward and the recliner deposited him like a wet fish near the sprawl of arms and legs that radiated from his sons. "And get that shoe, like I asked before."
     "John, don't let them leave scuff marks in the nap. Try to smooth it out with your feet," came a call from the kitchen. "We're all ready so if you'll please find a place. Boys, at the card table please." And with this enjoinder, Set and the others moved like sleepwalkers to the tables and to the lulling sedative of Thanksgiving dinner.
     The soft clash of heavy bowls and platters, interspersed with beginnings of introductory conversations that never developed into pertinent information, carried the soporific affair forward on turkey breath. The oven had opened its steamy mouth to release the tripod of November cuisine--dark and white bird meat, heavy dressing, and sweet gravy.
     Set thought of the familiarity of tribal members who sit together feeling little expectation, lacking that delighted anticipation one feels in the theatre; the disappearance of props, the dwindling of persona, the lull of intermission-all this came to fruition during the meal. But this easy slow-down, this familiarity did not release the desirable her; in fact, it was not the real her. None of her most private thoughts and desires were advanced on the tribe members because she would not chance the slightest pounding down of her dreams. So, her graceful gliding under the golden glass at Shequonur's conservatory, her pronouncement of brute beauty and fire below the cupola, her auction adventure with Darby, where the Amish horses stood in frosty rows, her red knife cut of needling thought about David Owen, her peacock lamp, her words, her words, would not, could not be laid bare on the Thanksgiving table. Not a hint. Not a clue.
     "Say, Set, you still fixing up that place of yours?" Bill Hunt asked innocently. "You know, I told Dale Labber out at the shop last week and he said his brother-in-law over at Freemound had fixed up an old caboose. New plumbing. Completely gutted the inside. Added a garage. I guess folks came from miles around to see it. Anyway, he was pretty impressed when I told him about what you been doin'. Asked if he could see it some time."
     "Yeah, Sis, you're gonna have to start tours through that thing soon. You could charge and make a pretty penny," her brother laughed, looking about the table to conscribe the tribe.
     "Well, I think it's neat. I was floored when I saw the design and thought, the clever approach to undefined space, that Margory-is that her name, Mom-" Her mother nodded. "That Margory achieved. Folksy, yes, but at least the old broad-Sorry, Mom-at least she had an eye for color." Leanne filled her mouth with dressing, moist, celeried. Her words became thick as she went on. "Mom, was she your aunt or your cousin? I can never remember."
     Alice Hunt gave that funny click with her tongue and remained silent until she had drawn up a paper napkin and wiped her lips. "Margory Dunlap was my mother's sister and that-"
     "She's your aunt, Grandma," Mark enthusiastically assisted and then followed with his skinny body a glimmering chunk of cranberry salad that slid from his fork to his shirt sleeve and then on to the cream carpet. He looked up with the face of a cringing dog, shaken and afraid.
     "Oh, Mark, I told you to watch, to be extra careful. You know Grandma just got new carpet. And now look here, already," Nadine said, deflecting injury from her son. Alice Hunt gave three clicks with her tongue and rose silently. She disappeared into the kitchen, followed by tribal eyes, and returned carrying high a yellow sponge. While she knelt and daubed at the red stain the others jerked about straightening bowls and adjusting forks, giving quick looks toward the kneeling figure.
     "It's alright, Mark," Set said, placing her hand on his shoulder.
     "No, September. It is not quite alright. You may be able to look at carpet stains in your place-you certainly have the right to live any way you choose-but I can't live this way. Mother kept our home place neat as a pin. With seven children." She made several muscular jabs at the spot.
     "Look, Mom, they've got stuff these days that can take stains out of anything. Get some industrial strength carpet cleaner," Leanne said. She had lost some of her casual air, although she continued to fork dressing into her mouth.
     "Fred, could you at least give a hand?" But before he could manage to kneel, his son was swiping at the spot with a wet napkin.
     "See, Mom, it's almost out. I can probably get the rest this afternoon." John lifted his mother from her knees, and she disappeared into the kitchen. The others looked at one another, setting off a domino of emotion around the table. They did not lift eyebrows or frown, but instead emitted frantic wide-eyed checks at one another's emotional status, cleaning up the moment, waiting for the return. Set was determined.
     "These little things happen. I'll run over to Conway's. They were always open on holidays. Still are, aren't they? I'll work on the stain this afternoon. Between John and me that stain doesn't have a chance." She patted her mother's hand and noticed the taut, fragile skin stretched across her delicate bones. Flecked with liver spots, the hand made Set turn away quickly, frightened. "By the way, Mom, I had a question about Aunt Margory," Set diverted her own plunging thoughts. "Just last week someone mentioned to me a friend of Margory's. A Doris Meeter. Ever heard of her?"
     "Why would anyone be discussing Doris Meeter in East Worthy?"
     "Oh, so you know her?"
     "I met her once. The reason I remember at all is because she was so different from Margory. Mother took me and Margory and her friend somewhere-a picnic, I think, out to Moraine Lake." Alice Hunt warmed to her subject, inexplicably. "This Doris noticed me--that's how she was different from Margory--and told me how to take care of poison ivy. From head to foot I was covered with welts and bumps. I think it was the worst case I ever had. Even in my eyes. Anyway, she was kind. She said baking soda would do it. Every summer after that Mother had a huge box of soda just for me." A faint smile turned at her mouth. "So that's how I remember. And I never open the Arm and Hammer without seeing her face." She turned to Set. "Who asked? What'd they say?"
     "One of the older people in town. But what I was wondering, is it possible that Doris is still living?"
     "Soland. That's it. She lived in Soland. We picked her up and went on over to the lake." The rest of the table had settled again into easy gluttony and the somnambulism was restored. Set had endured the ceremonial blade of re-admittance into the tribe. Exchange was easier now that pain had been administered and withstood. "But that was years ago. Doris Meeter had to have been about Margory's age. Why, she'd have to be almost ninety by now."
     "I'd like to find her, talk to her, if she's still around. Maybe we could drive over on Saturday?" Set addressed her mother who looked pleased. Leanne and John were discussing Indonesia. Another international foray, Set thought. Not deep, just wide. Leanne's skimming the surface, looking for another adventure. Alice pulled a telephone book from the cupboard and while she thumbed the pages her speckled hands ripped at Set's mind.
     "Meeter, Calvin. Meeter, Deloros. Mrs. D. Meeter. This might be it. If that's her, why she'd have to be over ninety," Alice repeated. She eyed Set curiously. "Why do you want to see her?"
     Set had thought this part out, anticipating the question. "I just wanted to talk to someone who knew Aunt Margory and I found some old clippings in . . ."
     "I thought you said somebody talked about Doris last week."
     "That, too," Set corrected herself. "Since I have such an intimate relationship with the product of Aunt Margory's mind, you know, the caboose, and since it's so unusual . . ."
     "That's for sure," John sputtered out with laughter, nodding to Nadine.
     Set ignored the interruption. "And since you don't seem to remember much about Marjory. . ."
     "I didn't say I don't remember," Alice said, punctuating herself with a drink of cider. "She just wasn't a very good influence on our family. Mother almost refused to say her name. When she did, she cried. The few times I saw her she was big and loud and bossy.
     "What about the picnic with Doris Meeter?"
     "I don't know. Maybe Mother was trying to make up with her. I just remember that she didn't want us kids around when Margory was there. Like I said, even her name upset Mom."
     "Grandma, could you pass the turkey? Or just put some white meat on my plate," Jason said, passing his plate along.
     Alice carefully forked several wafers of turkey onto the plate, finally wiping with her napkin cranberry residue that had crept too close to the edge. "I don't see why we can't take a drive over to Soland. There's a woman over there who has a cross stitch shop. Evelyn Randall told me about it last month and I've been dying to go ever since. I can't find Fostoria Blue and Russian Red and Evelyn says she has every color you can think of. We could kill two birds with one stone."
     Set settled valid and tribal into the beige walls. But she kept her secret thread of tragic possibilities wound tight about the drive to Soland. Turning to the boys, who were flailing skinny elbows, she asked, "So, guys, you've been winning contests at the church?"

Between Thursday's dinner and Saturday's drive, the hours cranked in a mechanical haze. The machinery was efficient and unadorned-dishes rinsed and put away, television humming with football and parades, boys instructed for inflection and gesture, brother courteously queried about innovation in software, his wife encouraged to vent emotion on current country crafts, sister emotionally paid off with provocative travel questions, mother handled and stroked into a semblance of maternity, pulled up from a cauldron where anger and undefined pain kept her swirling weeks at a time.
     Only Set's father did not change; because he was not encouraged to change; because he did not need the stroking or the paternal blossoming or the courtesy. For with or without these encouragements Bill Hunt would remain unmoved, smiling weakly, pointing the remote control into the air like a black-buttoned wand. She had years ago given up the sculpting of her father; she did not understand him and, most importantly, she had ceased to care if she understood. But on Saturday morning a shot pierced her mind, like it had with her mother on Thanksgiving. She saw her father lift his spoon from a cereal bowl. and suddenly brown flecks, like hundreds of weak eyes, stared out from his hand. Again, when he zapped the screen and Jason cried out, "Oh, come on, Grandpa, 'Mud Dumpsters' is on. Channel seven, please," she could not take her eyes from his thin, spotted hand, as it flicked the wand.
     "Dad, how's your arthritis? Any eruptions like you'd been having?"
     "I'm feeling much better since the surgery. Must have taken care of the old bones, too, huh?" he returned pleasantly, not taking his eyes off the large animated recycling bins with hands and feet that strode over a one-dimensional landscape.
     "Do you do the exercise the doctor prescribed?"
     He turned toward her with sustained grace, giving form, maintaining his uncommitted air, moderate. "Your mother insisted on a treadmill. I'm up to twenty minutes." He laughed gently, with a hollow resonance. "I'm practically a Jack-What's-His-Name."
     "LeLanne. That's good, Dad, and you look good. You've lost those bags under your eyes," she noted, as she kept her own eyes from his hands that lay limp on the arms of the recliner.
     Later, because of her parents' spotted hands, Set trembled internally as she twisted the ignition key. A lump of something more than fear lodged in her throat. Alice Hunt would not see the creases of sorrow behind mute eyes that wandered as little as possible to the passenger side. An enforced cheeriness filled the Toyota on the way to Soland. The morning lay angled in bright snow and clear highway. "So, you've been doing a lot of cross stitch, Mother?"
     "I've been trying to get a piece done for each of you kids and each of the grandkids. I'm done with John and Nadine's, and Leanne's," Alice said, animated in her element--the vagaries and crises of cross stitch. "I'm working on yours now." She looked over at Set and their eyes met awkwardly. "I had a real time in coming up with the right picture for you. Because I couldn't figure out what would look right in your place." Set heard it coming. "With all that business on the walls, I had to choose something toned down. Well, I finally found it and, you might know, it takes some special colors. So I'm hoping that Country Crossings will have what I need." She chuckled, seemingly oblivious to wounds she inflicted, loosening with her subject. "Every color you can think of, Evelyn said, and a few you can't think of."
     "Aunt Margory really had a vision, didn't she?" Set assumed a jaunty air. "How her mind must have worked to create those walls. And in a caboose. Isn't that creative, Mother?" She cast a sideways looks. "Why would Grandma have been so upset with her sister?"
     "I don't know, September. Only that there was always talk about men--you know she was never married. And then, her friends--I mean women friends--well, they were peculiar. Or that's the sense I got from Mom. I don't know that I actually heard her say anything. But I do know that the few times I saw Marjory, she was, well, not very nice."
     "You mean that she was loud and bossy?"
     "And that she didn't seem to see me, or any of us kids. She was abrupt. Like we weren't there."
     "That's strange, don't you think? So many years an elementary teacher. In East Worthy people stop me all the time to say what a good--"
     "In East Worthy it was a different picture. They didn't know her, the real Margory Dunlap, not the way her family knew her. She must have put on some front for a lot of years. It's amazing."
     "But how could she, Mom? How could she put on a front, like you said, all that time? Maybe that Margory Dunlap--that one in East Worthy--was the real Marjory Dunlap, the one in the caboose, and maybe the other one--the one her family saw--was, well, not fake, but the one that was less Margory. A side, but not the predominate her."
     Alice Hunt clicked her tongue. "There you go again, September, thinking you know better than I, than those who were around her, from a long time back."
     "But you said that you didn't really see her that--" Set stopped, realizing the angry whirlpool was rising and drawing them both down into acidic waters. Alone, together, on the road to and from Soland, they would not be able to escape the dragging rush. The subject was insignificant compared to the injury created by the flaming acid behind the lips. In past years she would have insisted, would have thrust home her point, but now the wounds did not seem worth parrying with this little woman, this tightly bound purveyor of spots and spills, stains, this mother with flecked hands. She gazed out on a snow-framed billboard, advertizing a McDonalds in two and one-half miles, and asked about shading in cross-stitch compositions.
     Russian Red and Malichite Green. Green the color of her sleeping room awash with words and agitated beauty, messy lines, alive, and Set, still beside her mother, thought of herself as a child--that distant girl who yearned for something she could not name. Always the unnamed thing had escaped from her and she could not say if the thing that drew away escaped through her eyes or her ears or tongue, or even her nose. It was as ephemeral as a scent in the air. Before she saw Margory's caboose she had felt crippled by a sickening need for the unnamed entity. Her home, her Ludway house, was riveted down in functional colors that did not show dirt, and her earliest desire, one that she thought at the time must have been absurd--silly was her child's word--was not satisfied by that soil- retardent beige. She was guilty, filled up with self-disdain, until the day she walked into the chaos of color in the caboose. For a moment the tight holding back was released.
     Finally, when she had grown and her appetite was surfeited in color and wild form, that too sent out another appetite, a need, a longing that she at first could not understand. Though it had rankled before, she felt it most strongly on a Saturday in October soon after she had moved to East Worthy.
     That day had been cool and dry. Set, exploring her new world, walked and kicked bank weeds near Puck-a-chee Creek that ribboned through the meadow below Shequonur's tower. At last, she thought, beauty is real and I am walking here, right here, in it. It stretches everywhere, from the caboose to the fields and tower, on all sides, and I am a part of it. Satisfied and composing an interior script as she went, she finally perched, smiling, on the rough outcropped root of a tree that hung on the sloped bank. She spread her green plaid skirt over the roots and looked up into the crossed branches where red leaves dangled and released in the wind. As she gazed upward, relaxed and creating this singular perfection, light filled the patches between leaves and in a crimson prism she suddenly sensed fear. A gnawing discomfort replaced perfection, like a kalidescope's intricate design suddenly jarred to distortion, and she heard her own voice. "What is it?" the voice asked. "What more?"
     Beauty was too hard and rupturing. Keats was right, pushing his tongue against the grape that split on his fine palette. Set split the tree on her fine palette and it was bark and leaf, something three-dimensional, filling her space, just beyond her hand, a hand that could have reached out to touch rough shaggy bark. All at once, the shocking mystery was the unreality of the real, the absolute startling beauty of the actual flying world, as it tilted and rode in time and space. Her eyes looked up into near trunk and leaves, branches waving in perspective just beyond, further branches and small yellow leaves shuddering like wings but with no purpose other than beauty for her eyes; and beyond that the gray and white sky, aimlessly tufted in birds and clouds.
     Add to this then the other senses, the sound of leafy wind, the odor of dogs, the warm smooth skin of a creek stone. This real space, at least what she had formerly identified as reality, seemed unexpectedly fictional, and specifically because it was so real, so substantially, gorgeously there before her as she sat on the root of a tree. Now that she owned this perfect reality, she realized that all of her life she had created fictions more substantial than this scene, and this tree root grasping the side of Puck-a-chee did not belong to her. Because she did not deserve it. Teaching at Ludway in the early days she had first taken her most beloved poems and novels as landscapes, built them into small, secret domains. Beautiful words became the hills and valleys and furniture of her mind. Shakespeare and Hopkins, Wordsworth and Coleridge and Yeats provided the syllables and sounds, the acute philosophies, that she pushed around and arranged into the terrain of her land.
     Now on this October day, she realized with alarm that her two worlds--one of paper language, the other of tactile space--were reversed and she could not shake them back. And because she could not return these two realms to their appropriate regions, even when she sat in what was obviously exquisite natural beauty, she felt unworthy of the world's real space. And she did not know why. She only understood in a sickening flash that the two-dimensional was more approachable than the three-dimensional. Keats's nightingale, Catherine's bed at Wuthering Heights, and Yeat's hazelwood were more familiar and substantial than these dry leaves and damp root.
     Set thought that maybe she had come to this pass because she was better able to maintain order in her two-dimensional world, arranging words, examining characters, parading alliterations at a moment's notice or need. In the other world--the one she had let go, her three-dimensional land--characters did not respond to need and landscapes did not mound up with mystery and green. But now, she also understood that not only had she reversed language and space, but had also inadvertently shut herself out of the glittering, corporeal world, with her belief that all others--the persona of East Worthy and Ludway and beyond--could, unlike herself, accurately assess fiction and reality, could determine in their bold, little ways the difference between the dimensions. Somehow those men and women and children who rushed by in cars, or the imagined face who watched from the tower beyond, or the dog sniffing weeds on the opposite side of Puck-a-chee, or even the mysterious peoples who had walked there two-hundred years before--all of these were able to breathe in the three-dimensional tree and all of these knew they had a right to sit near it. Because they were three-dimensional, too, and could be, by that natural authority, a portion of beauty. They believed in it; that's it, they, without analysis, simply believed and accepted beauty and walked with hard leather shoes and dirty feet on its face. Set was too careful, too tedious, balancing this horizon with that field, that clump of weeds with this pile of stones.
     Or perhaps, Set thought, she could not own the three-dimensional because she was unable to work through a horror--that eyes registering such scenes so casually, effortlessly, would, in like casual manner and in certain time, close down in the dust like a dog's; or like a raccoon or a groundhog hit on the road, lie down and cease seeing forever the perspective of the tree with its shuddering leaves. Why should a rat, a rat, have life and not Cordelia? It was all so off-hand, random, and unalterable. To see it and to die. With no effort.
     Paradoxically now, her own prodigious effort to accumulate a literary word-cache blocked the tree and strained to hold back the physical, rambling scene. It was too outrageously condensed, too potent for her weak blood. It overwhelmed her. No wonder Emily Dickinson peeked around corners at visiting friends, could bite off only small portions of life. Because it was all so overwhelming. One moment could activate pulsations like a hummingbird's wing. The poet's fine palette could not endure more than a single grape.
     But I am not a New England recluse and I am here and I see, she thought, and I am a legitimate actor in beauty. This perfection. Set wrapped her skirt around her and stood, grabbing out at a low branch, ripping off several crimson leaves. She tossed them into the air but they drifted unceremoniously against her shoe. In defiance she scraped several small stones from the bank and threw them over-handed in feeble aggression against her isolation. Sliding down the bank in a radical last effort to belong, she accidently slipped in mud and her hair tangled in the shrubby growth. But she shouted across Puck-a-chee, "You see, I am here, too, and I'm beautiful. See how I've prepared myself. Like the Duchess of Windsor, I keep myself. I'm real and I belong." Set's face felt hot and she realized she had said something, or had released some mumbling sound.
     "What'd you say, September?" Alice said. Her eyes looked round and surprised, uncalculating.
     "O, nothing." She pressed the accelerator.
     "Yes, you did. You said something. Something about the Duchess of Windsor. I'm sure you did."
     "Did I? I probably was going over some of my notes for Monday. After a holiday I pull out all the stops to get the attention of my class," Set said. "Can you believe it's Saturday already? I'll be facing my little urchins before you can turn around." Before you can turn around. She hated that phrase, but since Thursday Set had increasingly lost the poetry of East Worthy and lapsed into Ludway lingo. Ludway lingo. Even her thought process seemed parroting and mechanically numb as she eased her mother with familiar phrases.
     "Well, here's the Soland exit. And if you'll just drop me off at the cross-stitch shop, I'll get my business done while you're finding what you want." Exits, cement, business done--words and landscape melded into one gray matter through which Set plunged to the home of Doris Meeter.

Set heard the beep and looked in her rearview mirror to see an agitated teenager jamming his hand furiously at the window. Peering at a street name, she had waited after the light had turned green, with the outraged boy behind. His long oily hair and his chained black jacket announced his peers and his behavior to Set. But still, she was embarrassed and hurt when he roared around her, almost skimming her fender, lifting his middle finger in a rude salute.
     This was not a good beginning. Adding to her consternation, she noticed when he passed that he was not a teen, but a grown man. She had difficulty identifying ages these days, which gave her a vague uneasiness about her own position with others, men particularly. Often now she calculated ages by certain wrinkles about the eyes, or a stoop in shoulders, or a slight paunch. Shockingly, her innate reaction to others had been off by as much as fifteen years. Why should that bother her, that she couldn't tell. She heard herself repeating inside, "Why, everyone's getting younger." Just like an old woman, a teacher. Thinking again, too much, act, don't think.
     In a wild rush of revolutionary revolt against her own tedium she pulled off at a seedy downtown grocery. A cup of coffee from a grocery deli. That would be different, unusual, and she would mingle with the masses, show that she was bold in action, present a mystery to the dumpy housewives who would stare at her elegance, her shining blonde hair and her fitted forties jacket.
     But inside the Bart Clifford Market Set saw no one who looked like a housewife, or any kind of wife at all. In fact, the entire dirty-floored space seemed traversed by peculiar bodies, humps, and twisted feet, needle-thin men with odd grasping claws and old toothless women wearing toboggans pulled low. Every aisle revealed some new deformity, something not right, something beyond the sphere of the mundane. At first Set thought she was overwrought with her Thanksgiving weekend, that it was one of those times when on a certain street, or in a particular room, everyone momentarily looks freakish, odd, with a limp, or spinach caught between teeth, or a strange gait--a sensation that everyone else in the world inhabited a twilight zone at which she looked on. Later these sensations could be attributed to her own troubled mood.
     But today the mark of something surrealistic could not be explained away. The distorted persons shuffling through the aisles of the Bart Clifford Market were there beside her, around her, pushing outrageously high carts. Even the size of the carts was not normal. They were too high, too deep, and too wide. The creatures, handling heavily the canned beans and spaghetti boxes, were dwarfed by these cartoonish carts at which most stood hopeless and intent. No one noticed her hair or her jacket, nor did she desire the attention of these dirty, scarred, and humped forms. Each of this wandering, mismatched band continued his seemingly drugged deliberation upon a can of soup or a box of macaroni. Except for one stringy-haired derelict who stood stark still before Set in the middle of the aisle, between the Jello and generic puddings. A long wrinkled hand, tipped with yellowed nails, fumbled at his collar and then pushed back a gray felt cap, below which opened two eye sockets. One eye was coated, a dim, gray mucous veil stretched across the pupil. He looked dumbfounded and drugged, too heavy-spirited in his skeletal body to lift his large shoes so that he could turn. One trembling hand, holding a can of pears, let go its contents. The can rolled toward Set's feet and the gray veil blinked slowly.
     "Oh, here. Let me get that for you," she said without thinking. She placed the can in the high cart and the bony face creaked into a smile. And then it spoke.
     "That was a kind thing, a good thing, dear heart. This tired, old man thanks the lovely lady." His voice was a shock, mellow and low, beautiful, rich, sonorous. Refined. Set smiled shortly, frightened, and passed him. She felt him behind her trying to turn his shoes, but she was gone, turning two aisles back at the fresh fruits and vegetables. Even they looked wilted and strange. Once part of a growing, natural field, she felt somehow that they were being held captive by this alien world.
     She fled to the checkout where she grabbed a Snickers and when she looked up nervously she saw a face vaguely familiar. A young man, bagging groceries, tied at the middle with a smudged white apron, gave her a knowing look. As he deftly juggled the groceries of an obese woman, wearing high top tennis shoes and swathed in a huge blue dress spotted with red and white daisies, he watched Set, smiling. The fat woman lifted one larded, rolled arm and the stench made Set reel. While she turned her head to cough, in order that her own hand might cover her nose, the bag boy continued to smile.
     "Miss Hunt. I knew it. I knew it was you," the young man said as the fat woman staggered beyond him, out the aisle, her gargantuan rear rolling obscenely against candy bars and gum. His voice was familiar, his face vaguely telling of some other time. In Set he registered a hazy hostility, but he was not deformed, so this interchange triggered some touch with a solid world beyond the checkout at the Bart Clifford Market. The boy appeared a bridge to normality, a point at which one eases up into reality, and into the light of the mundane and clean. "Bet you don't remember me. I'm the one that made your life miserable. You remember, back of the class, me and Jason Richards?"
     A name materialized among the rooms and desks in Set's mind. The shadow of a name merged with a shadow of a look behind the eyes of this pert boy. Raymond. Raymond. Nothing else came. "Rayond, is it Raymond? I'm sorry, I can't remember your last . . ."
     "Dye. Man, I thought you'd never forget that fourth period English class," he said. His manner was familiar and friendly. He held fast to his memory of a meaty time when he was more than a bag boy.
     "Ah, now it all comes back," she said, although it did not, the scene he described simply a replica of a hundred English classes. But she lifted her eyebrow with mock seriousness, making him feel important, as if his wayward days had significantly marked her mind. But then a fragment appeared, a window and books and Raymond Dye. "Didn't you guys have a little problem with a window? Like some books disappeared from your desks?" Raymond looked pleased and relieved.
     "Knew you'd never forget that one. Yeah and then that time with old man Flinkman. I got a lot of detentions out of your class." He took the Snickers from a bored, haughty girl at the cash register. Set hadn't noticed her before. She wondered if the clerk, clad in her brown smock uniform, belonged closer to the escape hatch out of the crawling market labyrinth or within the labyrinth itself, a full member. The girl looked away, her lip curled; her pronouncedly stooped shoulders and bleached upper-lip hair were abominable, but would not in most cases cause stares from passersby. She belonged to the escape hatch area. "Wanta bag for your candy?" Raymond said with male churlishness, trying to regain his fourth period fervor, but suddenly he marked for Set a dismal emblem of that which metamorphosises into emptiness, years of sameness and tow the line. She would have preferred the teenage stud he once was, filled up with a rascal's energy, flavored with sex and hard language, quick and out of line. Now he stood tied in by a dirty white apron, carefully handling egg cartons and cans, shifting lettuce and bags of carrots, remembering the days when he could make her flare with anger, and she would rather have been angry in that moment than pitying. On his left hand Raymond Dye wore a gold ring and the realignment of age shook her again. Old enough to be married? How does he see me? I thought he was a kid. He must think I'm, I'm . . .
     "Are you married, Raymond?"
     "Yeh, got two kids. Me and the wife had it real good until about four months ago. Pelman shut down. Been there six years, too." He looked sheepish and then hostile, a flickering ember of the stud. He returned to sheep when he spoke. "You remember Becky Sidler?" Set did not but looked involved.
     "Was she a grade behind you, with blonde hair?"
     "You're thinking of her sister Sara. Becky graduated in eighty-five." Set felt the cold, hard pressure simultaneously with Raymond's outbreak. "Charlie, now get back. You know better than that." When Set put her hand to her neck where she felt the pressure, she touched a dry finger, a hand, the yellow nail. She muffled her own squeal. The man with the heavy shoes stood like a pedestal behind her, as if he could not move, smiling. "Charlie, I'm gonna have to call the manager on you. That's the second time this week. You're gonna be on report and then your privileges are gonna be taken away. You know better than that."
     "But the lovely lady understands I meant nothing. The lovely lady is kind and generous. A gift of beauty." His articulation was distinct, his choice of words a refined flow from a broken-toothed orifice. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."
     "No. You can't put your hands on people. Now stand back and wait over there by the magazine rack. You'll have to talk to Fred. Miss Hunt, I'm sorry. He's harmless. And he's been gettin real squirrelly lately. But he's one of the better ones."
     "What do you mean, better ones?" Set watched the skeletal man struggle with his shoes as he moved to the rack.
     "O, I thought you knew, that everybody knew. Around here it's nothin'. State hospital ‘bout three blocks down. A whole crew walks down here every day. I guess I don't even notice any more. They all look normal to me. But then I graduated from Ludway-Louten. I can handle it." Raymond was pleasing himself again with his teen persona, but the humor fell askance as Set looked from his apron to the man at the rack, who now stood with a blank face, eyes peering over the Inquirer and World Star to the window, out to the street. The surrealistic riddle was solved. The clientele of the market explained away. But still the man at the rack. His voice, his words.
     "But Charlie--he appears to be, that is, he sounds so . . . so educated, Raymond. You see, he was quoting . . . " She left off the Keats reference name for the boy's sake. "He was quoting a famous poet." Three persons now formed a line behind Set and Raymond needed to bag. But he was adept, skilled at his job. He talked.
     "Yeah, probably is. When I first got here, some of the others called him The Prof, or something like that. You remember that, Missy? Didn't they call Charlie the Prof?"
     The haughty girl cracked her gum three times in an ugly barrage of blows, her tongue agile in this oral feat. "Prof, Teach, something. I keep the whackoffs as far away as possible. I don't really wanta know their names." She cracked and tore three checks from a booklet of foodstamps handed to her by a short woman. This woman seemed normal, only short, her head barely reaching above the handle of the outrageous cart. "Louise, now go on now. Raymond will put your bags in the wagon. Do you have it outside the door?"
     "Mother's outside with it. She said she'd wait. Nice day, too. She didn't mind waiting in the nice weather." Raymond picked up three bags and followed the short woman through the automatic door, the hatch. Set met him when he returned, herself fleeing the heavy shoes and the high carts, the haughty gum-cracking clerk and Raymond tied up in his white apron, and short Louise who pulled a red wagon, alone, up the sidewalk, alone.
     "Good to see you, Miss Hunt." Raymond's step activiated the glass and metal open. As they interchanged positions, he gave Set a sickening, roguish wink. "And you look real good. Yours was my favorite class. You were real good." Set grabbed up the hint of sexual admiration from this boy, but then flung it back, into the labyrinth of the Bart Clifford Market, all its separate parts, pathetic and inexplicable.

Doris Meeter was practically deaf. Within a few minutes after this fragile woman met her at the door, Set had increased her own volume, slowed her pace of speech, and maintained a position facing Doris so that the octogenarian could read her lips. When Set became adept in these gestures, the interview proceeded almost normally. Except she noticed her own voice jarring, loud and driving, driving into the old woman, who eventually relaxed from what must have been years of straining to hear.
     "Who?" Doris shouted in a dry, soft voice.
     "Margory Dunlaps's niece. From East Worthy." Set moved her lips hard.
     "Oh, Margory." Doris lit up behind gray cataract eyes that blinked through thick glasses. Clasped at the limp white collar of her blouse was a pin, a cheap metallic hummingbird with a blue glass eye. "You say you’re Margory's niece? Well, come in. Come in."
     The furniture was pushed to the wall, shelves with framed photographs, knick-knacks--a china ballerina and a red-collared dog, a short pile of Guideposts, and a black box to adjust the TV antenna. Several potted plants thrived in a window where the blind was exactly half-closed. Each item was absolutely established where Doris had obviously placed it, tended it, dusted it, lined it up, and watched it. In this downstairs apartment, a complex of rooms, there was little else for an eighty-year old woman to do.
     "You have a good voice to talk with. I can understand you. So many people don't speak up. Lots of people just mumble nowadays."
     "I know," Set shouted. "And if you can't hear, you just feel left out." Doris agreed with ancient enthusiasm, shaking her permed white halo of curls.
     "You know, I don't even like to go out to eat anymore. The others, well, I think they get irritated. And then I'm on the outside, with all the rumble of waiters and the other tables. People are so loud these days." Doris looked at the half-closed blind. "It's lonely," she said, giving Set a startled looked.
     Set increased her volume. "I know." Her voice was cheery, bright. "Sometimes when I can't hear in a restaurant or at school, I just give up. It takes so much strength to try to hear." She kept it up, loud. "It's one thing to hear the words and then react. But if you have to determine the word itself, which is one process, and then react afterwards, with clever comebacks, it's exhausting."
     "You say you're a teacher?" Set nodded. "You know Margory was a teacher. That's how we met. Taught all three of my kids. She was good, your aunt. I can still see her sitting there, where you are, talking with her hands. She always used her hands." Set looked down at the faded blue mohair. "Always had an opinion about everything." Doris giggled apologetically for her friend. "But I liked that. We always got along." She wiped her nose roughly with a bird-like claw, a delicate embroidered hankie the incongruous swab for that motion. The hefty gesture made Set sorrow, for it hinted at former strength, the time of Doris Meeter when she had the sap of life, when she could wipe her nose ferociously, in a firm body, and pad with strong calf muscles to the kitchen, and be filled out, and pour milk for three children, and laugh with her friend on the mohair couch. Doris talked on and Set saw it all, the plump, blooming form calling from the kitchen. "Can I get you something to drink?" a dry voice asked.
     "Oh, no, thank you, Doris. I just appreciate the time you're giving me." Set smiled with her introduction-to-transition smile. "Actually, I wanted to ask you something about Margory. I found some letters the other day in the caboose--You know I have Aunt Margory's home--and they mention you, I think, and--well, I want to know more about Margory. She gave me the caboose, you know?" Set pressed home her right to know about the letters.
     "So you're the one? Margory told me that she had picked out someone just right. Someone who would appreciate. And I thought she said a niece, but I never thought to be able to . . . You know, that was one of her ideas, what she did there in the caboose. Whew." She passed her hand before her in a shadowy figure of former vigorous times when she raged with her friend. "She was firm about that one, about the letters on the wall."
     Set thrilled with the entrance to Margory's mind. "Oh, Doris, what did she say about it, about the way she painted the walls. Ever since I saw them, when I was a little girl, I loved them."
     "Well, now, you see, your Aunt Margory knew you did. She said there was someone . . . someone, after she was gone, who wouldn't chop it up and lay it out for the vultures." Doris looked intensely at Set, through her thick lenses, straining her neck forward, causing the metal bird to angle awkwardly sideways. Set thought Doris was trying to see into her visitor's eyes. After several protracted seconds, Doris settled back and placed her hands over the hankie, which was folded now into a damp square. The hummingbird had returned to an upright position and Set watched it as it dug into the swaying flaps of skin at Doris's throat. When the old woman showed no response to pain, Set looked away. "That's what she always said, Chop it up and lay it out for the vultures." She giggled the apology again. Then with a childish wheedling she asked, "Do you know what she meant by that?"
     Following the lead of the old woman, Set answered as an infant interlocutor. "I think that she probably meant that she didn't want people handling the things she loved and not understanding. Don't you think?"
     "See there. Margory did get the right one. She always did exactly what she wanted. Now, I don't mean that she was unkind to others, but when she got an idea--like the walls--she was bound and determined to go ahead. So when she got the caboose, she could just go to town. You know, she started her wall idea even before she left Soland." Her forehead tightened. "She said she wanted to make the word a thing. Those were her very words, make the word a thing. People thought she was odd. Never did get along with her family." Doris stopped short realizing her error. "O, but now I'm telling stories out of school."
     "No vulture will ever besmirch the name of Margory Dunlap while I occupy the caboose. I treasure it, Doris." Set smiled and cleared her throat. "These letters I found . . ."
     "O, yes. You did mention some letters. You say they're from me?" Doris crinkled her ancient forehead and appeared to strain under a headache.
     "No, they mention you, but they're from someone else. Do you remember an Ivy Gilchrist?"
     "Who'd you say?" Doris said cupping her hand over her right ear. Set had dropped her voice.
     "I-vy Gil-christ."
     Doris looked startled.
     "Say now, I would be telling stories out of school. What did the letters say? Were they from," she paused. "Were they from Ivy Gilchrist to Margory?"
     "Please, Doris." Set could see that Doris would protect her friend, would maintain an old code of silence. "It's alright. I'm sure Margory would not care. And I promise I will not use what you tell me to hurt anyone. Just knowing what happened, and I think I already really know, will let me help a friend." Even though Set did not fully know what she herself meant by that statement she sensed it was the truth. "Did Ivy Gilchrist come to stay with you when she was pregnant?"
     "O, dear, dear, I knew someday. . . Margory thought it would be alright. Ivy was such a lovely girl." Doris wiped her hands with her hanky square. "Come here, girl, come over here close. I don't want to say these things loud." She roughed up her red-veined nose again. "I don't want to say them at all. But Margory gave you the caboose. So if it will help your friend," she patted Set’s shoulder--Set had knelt beside Doris's chair--"and since you're family, I'll tell you what happened. But don't tell. I'm an old woman and I don't want this to be on my conscience." Doris's eyes looked wet.
     "Margory brought Ivy to me because of her condition. She was six months and couldn't wait any longer to, well, leave East Worthy. Because of the situation and all." She looked toward the half-closed blind. "It all went well, Ivy couldn't have been a better roomer, why she'd have the dishes washed up and the kitchen tidied before any the rest of us was up. And with the children she . . .
     "Did she have the child here then, Doris?"
     "O my, there was such a day. With the Reverend here. And his wife having a fit, just beside herself. When I brought the baby out--I did midwifing in those days--why, I thought the missus would break her heart. She took the baby right from me, right away, and practically crushed it with her holding and crying. The Reverend spent most of that morning with Ivy. Goodness knows, he should have. What a time, what a time." She shook her head back and forth, the hummingbird plunging grotesquely into her neck with each turn.
     "And so the reverend was here to help Ivy get through this terrible time, or bless the child, or . . " She stopped because she wanted Doris to go on and fill in the blank.
     "Well, goodness knows, the father should have been here, don't you think?" Doris raised her self in geriatric disgust. "After what he had put the poor girl through. And then with the plan and all. I know Ivy had thought it out. She always did just that--thought things out--but it was still hard for her. And with that big, that big," Doris was searching for the word, "that big lug of a man in there praying with her, like he was somehow right and Ivy . . . Oh, I don't know. I just had to go into the kitchen and keep away while that part was going on."
     "So Ivy's baby . . ?"
     "They took him away that day, the Reverend Eli Sowders and his wife, just like Ivy had said, but Margory and I knew it . . . We only heard her cry once. She was a strong, little girl."
     "Reverend Sowders was the father of Ivy's baby?"
     "O, gee, I hope you can help your friend if I tell." She swished her hand over and over before her face as if she was shooing mosquitoes. "Sowders was the father, plain and simple. Got Ivy in trouble and in those days. . . . you just didn't have a baby with, you know. His wife raised the child, said it was hers. To my recollection, she had, the wife, that is, lost a baby herself just a few months before. That's what Margory said." Doris was wrinkling here forehead again, searching.
     "Doris, what was, or did they name the baby before they took it? What happened to the child?"
     "As far as I know, the child was raised in East Worthy. I really don't know what happened. Margory didn't say much about it and I didn't ask a lot of questions. We didn't like to bring it up. But, as I recall, Margory said the child was getting on ok. But that was shortly afterwards. After that, I don't know." Doris Meeter strained toward September now with her cataracted eyes. She was spent, shaking her head, and patting Set's hand on the chair. "You say this might help your friend?"
     "A name, did the baby get named on that day?"
     "Not by Ivy. She was ready for that. She said the child must not belong to her, must have a fresh beginning without her, you know, could be raised clean from his beginnings, by the Sowders. She wanted Mrs. Sowders to really be its mother. So she wouldn't name it."
     Set felt a quick kick of disappointment at not closing this scene, finalizing her thought.
     "So that's just what she did. Before they left there was some kind of ceremony and that woman, practically choking the poor little guy, gave him a name. I remember because I liked it so well. She said real soft, but right in the baby's face, Nathan Bartholomew Sowders, and I thought at the time, 'That's some grand name. I hope it helps you through, little soul."