"I can't," she said.

"What?"

She cupped the mouthpiece with her free hand. "I was wondering," she said. "Do you think you could come to supper tonight?"

"Tonight? Well, I was sort of planning on-"

"It's important," she said.

"How come?"

"Well, it just is," she said, playing for time.

She had a decision to make, here. She could pretend it was on Daisy's account, for Daisy's going away. (That was safe enough. In spite of their childhood squabbles he was fond of Daisy, and had asked her only last week whether she would forget him after she left.) Or she could tell him the truth, in which case she might set in motion another of those ridiculous scenes.

But hadn't she just been saying it was time to cut through all that?

She took a deep breath. She said, "I'm having Fiona and Leroy to dinner."

"You're what?"

"Don't hang up! Don't say no! This is your only daughter!" she cried in a rush.

And then glanced anxiously toward the door, fearing she'd been too loud.

"Now, slow down, Ma," Jesse said.

"Well, we're up here in Pennsylvania," she said more quietly, "because we happened to be going to a funeral. Max Gill died-I don't know if Daisy's had a chance to tell you. And considering that we were in the neighborhood...and Fiona told me in so many words that she wanted very much to see you."

"Oh, Ma. Is this going to be like those other times?"

"What other times?"

"Is this like when you said she phoned and I believed you and phoned her back-"

"She did phone then! I swear it!"

"Somebody phoned, but you had no way of knowing who. An anonymous call. You didn't tell me that part, did you?"

Maggie said, "The telephone rang, I picked it up. I said, 'h.e.l.lo?' No answer. It was just a few months after she left; who else could it have been? I said, 'Fiona?' She hung up. If it wasn't Fiona, why did she hang up?"

"Then all you tell me is: 'Jesse, Fiona called today,' and I break my neck getting to the phone and make a total fool of myself. I say, 'Fiona? What did you want?' and she says, 'To whom am I speaking, please?' I say, 'G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Fiona, you know perfectly well this is Jesse,' and she says, 'Don't you use that language with me, Jesse Moran,' and I say, 'Now, look here. It wasn't me who called you you, may I remind you,' and she says, 'But it was you, Jesse, because here you are on the line, aren't you,' and I say, 'But G.o.dd.a.m.n it-'"

"Jesse," Maggie said. "Fiona says she sometimes thinks of sending you another telegram."

"Telegram?"

"Like the first one. You remember the first one."

"Yes," Jesse said. "I remember."

"You never told me about that. But at any rate," she hurried on, "the telegram would read, Jesse, I love you still, and it begins to seem I always will Jesse, I love you still, and it begins to seem I always will."

A moment pa.s.sed.

Then he said, "You just don't quit, do you?"

"You think I'd make such a thing up?"

"If she really wanted to send it, then what stopped her?" he asked. "Why didn't I ever get it? Hmm?"

"How could I make it up when I didn't even know about the first one, Jesse? Answer me that! And I'm quoting her exactly; for once I'm able to tell you exactly how she worded it. I remember because it was one of those unintentional rhymes. You know the way things can rhyme when you don't want them to. It's so ironic, because if you did want them to, you'd have to rack your brain for days and comb through special dictionaries...."

She was babbling whatever came to mind, just to give Jesse time to a.s.semble a response. Was there ever anyone so scared of losing face? Not counting Fiona, of course.

Then she imagined she heard some change in the tone of his silence-a progression from flat disbelief to something less certain. She let her voice trail off. She waited.

"If I did happen to come," he said finally, "what time would you be serving supper?"

"You'll do it? You will? Oh, Jesse, I'm so glad! Let's say six-thirty," she told him. "Bye!" and she hung up before he could proceed to some further, more resistant stage.

She stood beside the bed a moment. In the front yard, Ira called, "Whoa, there!"

She picked up her purse and left the room.

Fiona was kneeling in the hallway, rooting through the bottom of a closet. She pulled out a pair of galoshes and threw them aside. She reached in again and pulled out a canvas tote bag.

"Well, I talked to Jesse," Maggie told her.

Fiona froze. The tote bag was suspended in midair.

"He's really pleased you're coming," Maggie said.

"Did he say that?" Fiona asked.

"He certainly did."

"I mean in so many words?"

Maggie swallowed. "No," she said, because if there was a cycle to be broken here, she herself had had some part in it; she knew that. She said, "He just told me he'd be there for supper. But anyone could hear how pleased he was."

Fiona studied her doubtfully.

"He said, 'I'll be there!'" Maggie told her.

Silence.

"'I'll be there right after work, Ma! You can count on me!'" Maggie said. "'G.o.dd.a.m.n! I wouldn't miss it for the world!'"

"Well," Fiona said finally.

Then she unzipped the tote bag.

"If I were traveling alone I'd make do with just a toothbrush," she told Maggie. "But once you've got a kid, you know how it is. Pajamas, comics, storybooks, coloring books for the car...and she has to have her baseball glove, her everlasting baseball glove. You never know when you might rustle up a game, she says."

"No, that's true, you never do," Maggie said, and she laughed out loud for sheer happiness.

Chapter 2.

Ira had a way, when he was truly astonished, of getting his face sort of locked in one position. Here Maggie had worried he'd be angry, but no, he just took a step backward and stared at her and then his face locked, blank and flat like something carved of hardwood.

He said, "Fiona's what?"

"She's coming for a visit," Maggie said. "Won't that be nice?"

No reaction.

"Fiona and Leroy, both," Maggie told him.

Still no reaction.

Maybe it would have been better if he'd got angry.

She moved past him, keeping her smile. "Leroy, honey, your mother wants you," she called. "She needs you to help her pack."

Leroy was less easily surprised than Ira, evidently. She said, "Oh. Okay," and gave the Frisbee an expert flip in Ira's direction before skipping toward the house. The Frisbee ricocheted off Ira's left knee and landed in the dirt. He gazed down at it absently.

"We should have cleaned the car out," Maggie told him. "If I'd known we would be riding so many pa.s.sengers today..."

She went over to the Dodge, which was blocked now by a red Maverick that must be Mrs. Stuckey's. You could tell the Dodge had recently traveled some distance. It had a beaten-down, dusty look. She opened a rear door and tsked. A stack of library books slumped across the back seat, and a crocheted sweater that she had been hunting for days lay there all squinched and creased, no doubt from being sat upon by Otis. The floor was cobbled with cloudy plastic lids from soft-drink cups. She reached in to gather the books-major, important novels by Dostoevsky and Thomas Mann. She had checked them out in a surge of good intentions at the start of the summer and was returning them unread and seriously overdue. "Open the trunk, will you?" she asked Ira. could tell the Dodge had recently traveled some distance. It had a beaten-down, dusty look. She opened a rear door and tsked. A stack of library books slumped across the back seat, and a crocheted sweater that she had been hunting for days lay there all squinched and creased, no doubt from being sat upon by Otis. The floor was cobbled with cloudy plastic lids from soft-drink cups. She reached in to gather the books-major, important novels by Dostoevsky and Thomas Mann. She had checked them out in a surge of good intentions at the start of the summer and was returning them unread and seriously overdue. "Open the trunk, will you?" she asked Ira.

He moved slowly toward the trunk and opened it, not changing his expression. She dumped in the books and went back for the sweater.

"How could this happen?" Ira asked her.

"Well, we were discussing her soapbox, see, and-"

"Her what? I mean it came about so quickly. So all of a sudden. I leave you alone for a little game of Frisbee and the next thing I know you're out here with beer on your breath and a whole bunch of unexpected houseguests."

"Why, Ira, I would think you'd be glad," she told him. She folded the sweater and laid it in the trunk.

"But it's like the second I shut the door behind me, you two got down to business," he said. "How do you accomplish these things?"

Maggie started collecting soft-drink lids from the floor of the car. "You can close the trunk now," she told him.

She carried a fistful of lids around to the rear of the house and dropped them in a crumpled garbage can. The cover was only a token cover, a battered metal beret that she replaced crookedly on top. And the house's siding was speckled with mildew, and rust stains trailed from a fuel tank affixed beneath the window.

"How long will they be staying?" Ira asked when she returned.

"Just till tomorrow."

"We have to take Daisy to college tomorrow, did you forget?"

"No, I didn't forget."

"Aha," he said. "Your fiendish plot: Throw Jesse and Fiona together on their own. I know you, Maggie Moran."

"You don't necessarily know me at all," she told him.

If things went the way she hoped they would this evening, she would have no need of plots for tomorrow.

She opened the front door of her side of the Dodge and sank onto the seat. Inside, the car was stifling. She blotted her upper lip on the hem of her skirt.

"So how do we present this?" Ira asked "'Surprise, surprise, Jesse boy! Here's your ex-wife, here's your long-lost daughter. Never mind that you legally parted company years ago; we've we've decided you're getting back together now.'" decided you're getting back together now.'"

"Well, for your information," she said, "I've already told him they're coming, and he'll be at our house for supper."

Ira bent to look in on her. He said, "You told him?"

"Right."

"How?" he asked.

"By phone, of course."

"You phoned him? You mean just now?"

"Right."

"And he'll be there for supper?"

"Right."

He straightened up and leaned against the car. "I don't get it," he said finally.

"What's to get?"

"There's something too simple about it."

All she could see of him was his midsection-a hollow-looking white shirt wilting over a belt. Wouldn't he be baking? This metal must radiate heat like a flatiron. Although it was true that the air had grown cooler now and the sun was slightly less direct, already starting to slip behind a faraway scribble of trees.

"I'm worried about that Maverick," she said, speaking to Ira's belt buckle.