Jenny said, "I'd choose the cafeteria."

"You know, my darlings," Pearl told them, "how I always say your father's away on business."

"But off-campus they might pay more," said Cody, "and every penny counts."

"At the cafeteria you'd be with your cla.s.smates, though," Ezra said.

"Yes, I thought of that."

"All those coeds," Jenny said. "Cheerleaders. Girls in their little white bobby sox."

"Sweater girls," Cody said.

"There's something I want to explain about your father," Pearl told them.

"Choose the cafeteria," Ezra said.

"Children?"

"The cafeteria," they said.

And all three gazed at her coolly, out of gray, unblinking, level eyes exactly like her own.

She dreamed it was her nineteenth birthday and that devilish John Dupree had brought her a tin of chocolates and a burnt-leather ornament for her hair. "Why, John, how cunning! Have a sweet," she told him. In the dream, it puzzled her to know that John Dupree had been dead for sixty-one years. He was killed in the Argonne Forest by the Huns. She remembered paying a visit of condolence to his mother, who, however, was not receiving guests. "It's all been a mistake, apparently," Pearl told John Dupree. And she fastened up her hair with the burnt-leather ornament.

"There's no question," Jenny said. "We have to call an ambulance. What's got into Dr. Vincent? Is he senile?"

"He does all right, for his age," Ezra said. As usual, he seemed to have missed some central point; even Pearl could see that. Jenny sighed, or perhaps just made some impatient rustling sound with her clothes.

"It's lucky you called me," she said. "I come and find everything falling apart."

"Nothing's falling apart."

"And why is she lying flat? She's obviously having trouble breathing. Where's that big green cushion Becky made her?"

Pearl had been skidding through time, for a moment-preparing to go by ambulance to have her arrow wound treated. She was braced for the precarious, tilting trip down the stairs on a stretcher. It was mention of Becky that set her straight. Becky was her grandchild, Jenny's oldest daughter. "Jenny?" she said.

"How are you feeling?" Jenny asked.

"Is Cody here too?"

Apparently not. Jenny leaned over the bed to give her a kiss. Pearl patted Jenny's hair and found it badly cut, choppy to the touch, but for once she didn't scold. (Jenny had lovely thick hair that she tended to ignore, to mistreat, as if looks didn't really matter.) "It was nice of you to come," Pearl told her.

"Well goodness, I was worried," said Jenny. "You're the only mother we have."

Pearl felt she had come full circle. "You should have got an extra," she said.

"Excuse me?"

She didn't repeat it. She turned her face on the pillow and was overtaken by a sudden jolt of anger. Why hadn't they arranged for an extra? All those years when she was the only one, the sole support, the lone tall tree in the pasture just waiting for the lightning to strike...well. She seemed to be losing track of her thoughts. "Did you bring the children?" she said.

"Not this time. I left them with Joe."

Joe? Oh, yes, her husband. "Why isn't Cody here?" Pearl asked.

"Well, you know," said Ezra, "it's always so hard to locate him..."

"We think you should go to the hospital," Jenny told Pearl.

"Oh, thank you, dear, but I don't believe I care to."

"You're not breathing right. Where's that cushion Becky made when she was little? The one with the uplifting motto," Jenny said. "Sleep, o faithful warrior, upon thy carven pillow." She gave a little snort of laughter, and Pearl smiled, picturing Jenny's habit of covering her mouth with her hand as if overcome, as if struck absolutely helpless by life's silliness. "Anyhow," Jenny said, pulling herself together. "Ezra, you you agree with me, don't you?" agree with me, don't you?"

"Agree?"

"About the hospital."

"Ah..." said Ezra.

There was a pause. You could pluck this single moment out of all time, Pearl thought, and still discover so much about her children-even about Cody, for his very absence was a characteristic, perhaps his main one. And Jenny was so brisk and breezy but...oh, you might say somewhat opaque, a reflecting surface flashing your own self back at you, giving no hint of her her self. And Ezra, mild Ezra: no doubt confusedly tugging at the shock of fair hair that hung over his forehead, considering and reconsidering..."Well," he said, "I don't know...I mean, maybe if we waited a while..." self. And Ezra, mild Ezra: no doubt confusedly tugging at the shock of fair hair that hung over his forehead, considering and reconsidering..."Well," he said, "I don't know...I mean, maybe if we waited a while..."

"But how long? How long can we afford to wait?"

"Oh, maybe just till tonight, or tomorrow..."

"Tomorrow! What if it's, say, pneumonia?"

"Or it could be only a cold, you see."

"Yes, but-"

"And we wouldn't want her to go if it makes her unhappy."

"No, but-"

Pearl listened, smiling. She knew the outcome now. They would deliberate for hours, echoing each other's answers, repeating and rephrasing questions, evading, retreating, arguing for argument's sake, ultimately going nowhere. "You never did face up to things," she said kindly.

"Mother?"

"You always were duckers and dodgers."

"Dodgers?"

She smiled again, and closed her eyes.

It was such a relief to drift, finally. Why had she spent so long learning how? The traffic sounds-horns and bells and rags of music-flowed around the voices in her room. She kept mislaying her place in time, but it made no difference; all she remembered was equally pleasant. She remembered the feel of wind on summer nights-how it billows through the house and wafts the curtains and smells of tar and roses. How a sleeping baby weighs so heavily on your shoulder, like ripe fruit. What privacy it is to walk in the rain beneath the drip and crackle of your own umbrella. She remembered a country auction she'd attended forty years ago, where they'd offered up an antique bra.s.s bed complete with all its bedclothes-sheets and blankets, pillow in a linen case embroidered with forget-me-nots. Two men wheeled it onto the platform, and its ruffled coverlet stirred like a young girl's petticoats. Behind her eyelids, Pearl Tull climbed in and laid her head on the pillow and was borne away to the beach, where three small children ran toward her, laughing, across the sunlit sand.

2.

Teaching the Cat to Yawn

While Cody's father nailed the target to the tree trunk, Cody tested the bow. He drew the string back, laid his cheek against it, and narrowed his eyes at the target. His father was pounding in tacks with his shoe; he hadn't thought to bring a hammer. He looked like a fool, Cody thought. He owned no weekend clothes, as other fathers did, but had driven to this field in his strained-looking brown striped salesman suit, white starched shirt, and navy tie with multicolored squares and circles scattered randomly across it. The only way you could tell this was a Sunday was when he turned, having pounded in the final tack; he didn't have his tie pulled up close to his collar. It hung loose and slightly crooked, like a drunkard's tie. A c.o.c.ks...o...b..of hair, as black as Cody's but wavy, stood up on his forehead.

"There!" he said, plodding back. He still carried the shoe. He walked lopsided, either smiling at Cody or squinting in the sunlight. It was nowhere near spring yet, but the air felt unseasonably warm and a pale sun poured heat like a liquid over Cody's shoulders. Cody bent and pulled an arrow from a cardboard tube. He laid it against the string. "Wait, now, son," his father said. "You want to do things right, now."

Naturally, this would have to be an educational experience. There were bound to be lectures and criticisms attached. Cody sighed and lowered the bow. His father stooped to put his shoe on, squirming his foot in without undoing the laces, the way Cody's mother hated. The heel of his black rayon sock was worn so thin it was translucent. Cody looked off in another direction. He was fourteen years old-too big to be dragged on family outings any more and definitely too big for bows and arrows, unless of course you'd just leave the equipment to him and his friends, alone, and let them horse around or have themselves a contest or shatter windowpanes and streetlights for the h.e.l.l of it. How did his father come up with these ideas? This was turning out to be even less successful than most. Cody's mother, who was not the slightest bit athletic, picked dried flowers beside a fence. His little sister b.u.t.toned her sweater with chapped and bluish hands. His brother, Ezra, eleven years old, chewed a straw and hummed. He was missing his whistle, no doubt-a bamboo pipe, with six finger holes, on which he played tunes almost ceaselessly. He'd smuggled it along but their father had made him leave it in the car.

At this moment, Cody's two best friends were attending a movie: Air Force Air Force, with John Garfield and Faye Emerson. Cody would have given anything to be with them.

"Now, your left arm goes like this," his father said, positioning him. "You want to keep your wrist from getting stung, you see. And stand up straight. It was archery gave us our notions of proper posture; says so in the instruction book. Used to be that people slouched around any old how, all except the archers. I bet you didn't know that, did you?"

No, he didn't know that. He stood like something made of clay while his father poked him here and prodded him there, molding him into shape. "In the olden days..." his father said.

Cody let go of the bowstring. Thwack Thwack. The arrow hit the edge of the target, more sidewise than endwise, bounced off harmlessly and fell among the tree roots. "Now! What'd you go and do that for?" his father asked him. "Did I tell you to shoot yet? Did I?"

"It slipped," said Cody.

"Slipped!"

"And anyhow, it couldn't have stuck in the target. Not with that hard fat tree trunk behind it."

"It most certainly could have," his father said. "Like always, you just had to jump on in. Impulsive. Had to have it your way. When are you going to start keeping a better rein on yourself?"

Cody's father (who never kept any sort of rein on himself whatsoever, as Cody's mother constantly reminded him) lunged off toward the target, muttering and grabbing fistfuls of weed heads which he then threw away. Seeds and dry hulls spangled the air around him. "Willful boy; never listens. Don't know why I bother."

Cody's mother shaded her eyes and called, "Did he hit it?"

"No, he didn't hit it. How could he; I wasn't even through explaining."

"People have been known to hit a target without a person explaining it beforehand," Cody muttered.

"What say?"

"Let Ezra try," Cody's mother suggested.

His father picked up the arrow and jammed it into the bull's-eye, dead center. "Want to tell me it can't stick?" he asked Cody. He pointed to the arrow, which stayed firm. "Look at that: steel-tipped. Of course it sticks. And spongy bark on the tree. I chose that tree. Of course it sticks. You could have lodged it in easy."

"Ha," said Cody, kicking a clod of earth.

"What say, son?"

"Let Ezra try," Pearl called again. "Beck? Let Ezra try."

Ezra was her favorite, her pet. The entire family knew it. Ezra looked embarra.s.sed and switched the straw to the other side of his mouth. Beck waded back to them. "Oh, I don't know, I don't know. I wonder sometimes," he said.

"Ezra? See if you can hit it, honey," Pearl called.

Beck's glance at Cody might have been sympathy, or else disgust. He pulled another arrow from the cardboard tube. "All right, Ezra, come on and try," he said. "Just don't get carried away like Cody here did."

Ezra came over, still nibbling his straw, and accepted the bow from Cody. Well, this would be a laugh. There was no one as clumsy as Ezra. When he took his stance he did it all wrong, he just looked looked all wrong, in some way you couldn't put your finger on. His elbows jutted out, winglike; his floppy yellow hair feathered in his eyes. "Now, wait, now," Beck kept saying. "What's the trouble here?" He moved around realigning Ezra's shoulders, adjusting his grip on the bow. Ezra stayed patient. In fact, he might have had his mind on something else altogether; it seemed his attention had been caught by a cloud formation over to the south. "Oh, well," Beck said finally, giving up. "Let her fly, I guess, Ezra. Ezra?" all wrong, in some way you couldn't put your finger on. His elbows jutted out, winglike; his floppy yellow hair feathered in his eyes. "Now, wait, now," Beck kept saying. "What's the trouble here?" He moved around realigning Ezra's shoulders, adjusting his grip on the bow. Ezra stayed patient. In fact, he might have had his mind on something else altogether; it seemed his attention had been caught by a cloud formation over to the south. "Oh, well," Beck said finally, giving up. "Let her fly, I guess, Ezra. Ezra?"

Ezra's fingers loosened on the string. The arrow sped in a straight, swift path, no arc to it at all. As if guided by an invisible thread-or worse, by the purest and most natural luck-it split the length of the arrow that Beck had already jammed in and it landed at the center of the bull's-eye, quivering. There was a sharp, caught silence. Then Beck said, "Will you look at that."

"Why, Ezra," Pearl said.

"Ezra," their sister Jenny cried. "Ezra, look what you did! What you went and did to that arrow!"

Ezra took the straw from his mouth. "I'm sorry," he told Beck. (He was so used to breaking things.) "Sorry?" said Beck.

He seemed to be hunting the proper tone of voice. Then he found it. "Well, son," he said, "this just goes to show that it pays to follow instructions. See there, Cody? See what happens? A bull's-eye. I'll be d.a.m.ned. If you'd listened close like Ezra did, and not gone off half-c.o.c.ked..."

He was moving toward the target as he spoke, oaring through the weeds, and Jenny was running to get there first. Cody couldn't take his turn at shooting, therefore, although he was itching to. He was absolutely obligated to split that second arrow as Ezra had split the first. It was unthinkable not to. What were the odds against it? He felt a springy tw.a.n.ging inside, as if he himself were the bowstring. He bent down and pulled a new arrow from the tube and fitted it to the bow. He drew and aimed at a clump of shrubbery, then at his father's dusty blue Nash, and then at Ezra, who was already wandering off again dreamy as ever. Longingly, Cody focused on Ezra's fair, ruffled head. "Zing. Wham Wham. Aagh, you got me!" he said. Imagine the satisfaction. Ezra turned slowly and caught sight of him. "No!" he cried.

"Huh?"

Ezra ran toward him, flapping his arms like an idiot and stammering, "Stop, stop, stop! No! Stop!" Did he really think Cody would shoot him? Cody stared, keeping the bow drawn. Ezra took a flying leap with his arms outstretched like a lover. He caught Cody in a kind of bear hug and slammed him flat on his back. It knocked the wind out of Cody; all he could do was gasp beneath Ezra's warm, bony weight. And meanwhile, what had happened to the arrow? It was minutes before he could struggle to a sitting position, elbowing Ezra off of him. He looked across the field and found his mother leaning on his father's arm, hobbling in his direction with a perfect circle of blood gleaming on the shoulder of her blouse. "Pearl, my G.o.d. Oh, Pearl," his father was saying. Cody turned and looked at Ezra, whose face was pale and shocked. "See there?" Cody asked him. "See what you've gone and done?"

"Did I I do that?" do that?"

"Gone and done it to me again," Cody said, and he staggered to his feet and walked away.

On a weekday when his father was out of town, his mother shopping for supper, his brother and sister doing homework in their rooms, Cody took his BB gun and shot a hole in the kitchen window. Then he slipped outdoors and poked a length of fishing line through the hole. From the kitchen, he pulled the line until the rusty wrench that he'd tied to the other end was flush against the outside of the gla.s.s. He held it there by anchoring the line beneath a begonia pot. When his mother returned from shopping, Cody was seated at the kitchen table coloring a map of Asia.

After their homework was finished, Jenny and Ezra went out back. Ezra had been showing Jenny, all week, how to hit a Softball. (It seemed her cla.s.smates chose her last whenever they had a game.) As soon as they had walked through, Cody rose and went to the window. He saw them take their places in the darkening yard, bounded on either side by the neighbors' hedges. They were a comically short distance apart. Jenny stood closest to the house and held her bat straight up, gingerly, as if preparing to club to death some small animal. Ezra tossed her a gentle pitch. (He was no great player himself.) Jenny took a whizzing swing, missed, and retrieved the ball from among the trash cans beside the back door. She threw it in a overhand so stiff and deformed that Cody wondered why Ezra bothered. Ezra caught it and pitched again. As the ball arched toward the bat, Cody felt for the fishing line beneath the begonia pot. He gave a quick tug. The windowpane clattered inward, breaking in several pieces. Jenny spun around and stared. Ezra's mouth dropped open. "What was that?" Pearl called from the dining room.

"Just Ezra breaking another window," Cody told her.

One weekend their father didn't come home, and he didn't come the next weekend either, or the next. Or rather, one morning Cody woke up and saw that it had been a while since their father was around. He couldn't say that he had noticed from the start. His mother offered no excuses. Cody, watchful as a spy, studied her furrowed, distracted expression and the way that her hands plucked at each other. It troubled him to realize that he couldn't picture his father's most recent time with them. Trying to find some scene that would explain Beck's leaving, he could only come up with general general scenes, blended from a dozen repet.i.tions: meals shattered by quarrels, other meals disrupted when Ezra spilled his milk, drives in the country where his father lost the way and his mother snapped out pained and exasperated directions. He thought of once when the Nash's radiator had erupted in steam and his father, looking helpless, had flung his suit coat over it. "Oh, honestly," his mother had said. But that was way back; it was years ago, wasn't it? Cody journeyed through the various cubbies and crannies of the house, hunting up the trappings of his father's "phases" (as his mother called them). There were the badminton racquets, the b.u.t.terfly net, the archery set, the camera with its unwieldy flashgun, and the shoe box full of foreign stamps still in their gla.s.sine envelopes. But it meant nothing that these objects remained behind. What was alarming was his father's half of the bureau: an empty sock drawer, an empty underwear drawer. In the shirt drawer, one unused sports shirt, purchased by the three children for Beck's last birthday, his forty-fourth. And a full a.s.sortment of pajamas; but then, he always slept in his underwear. In the wardrobe, just a hanger strung with ties-his oldest, dullest, most frayed and spotted ties-and a pair of shoes so ancient that the toes curled up. scenes, blended from a dozen repet.i.tions: meals shattered by quarrels, other meals disrupted when Ezra spilled his milk, drives in the country where his father lost the way and his mother snapped out pained and exasperated directions. He thought of once when the Nash's radiator had erupted in steam and his father, looking helpless, had flung his suit coat over it. "Oh, honestly," his mother had said. But that was way back; it was years ago, wasn't it? Cody journeyed through the various cubbies and crannies of the house, hunting up the trappings of his father's "phases" (as his mother called them). There were the badminton racquets, the b.u.t.terfly net, the archery set, the camera with its unwieldy flashgun, and the shoe box full of foreign stamps still in their gla.s.sine envelopes. But it meant nothing that these objects remained behind. What was alarming was his father's half of the bureau: an empty sock drawer, an empty underwear drawer. In the shirt drawer, one unused sports shirt, purchased by the three children for Beck's last birthday, his forty-fourth. And a full a.s.sortment of pajamas; but then, he always slept in his underwear. In the wardrobe, just a hanger strung with ties-his oldest, dullest, most frayed and spotted ties-and a pair of shoes so ancient that the toes curled up.

Cody's brother and sister were staggeringly un.o.bservant. They flitted in and out of the house like birds-Ezra playing his whistle, Jenny singing parts of jump-rope songs. Cody had the impression that musical notes filled their heads to overflowing; they left no room for anything serious. Auntie Sue got dressed in blue Auntie Sue got dressed in blue, Jenny sang, put on shoes and rubbers too... put on shoes and rubbers too... Her plain, flat voice and heedlessly swinging braids somehow rea.s.sured him. After all, what could go so wrong, when she skipped past with her ragged rope? What could go so very wrong? Her plain, flat voice and heedlessly swinging braids somehow rea.s.sured him. After all, what could go so wrong, when she skipped past with her ragged rope? What could go so very wrong?

Then one Sat.u.r.day she said, "I'm worried about Daddy."

"Why? "Cody asked.

"Cody," she said, in her elderly way, "you can see that he doesn't come home any more. I think he's left us."

"Don't be silly," Cody told her.

She surveyed him for a moment, with a composure that made him uneasy, and when he didn't say any more she turned and went out on the porch. He heard the glider creak as she settled into it. But she didn't start singing. In fact, the house was unusually quiet. The only sound was his mother's heels, clicking back and forth overhead as she put away the laundry. And Ezra wasn't playing his whistle. Cody had no idea where Ezra was.