Quickly, Marianne had learned to watch out for Dr. Whittaker West who'd impulsively hired her, hired and fired at Stump Creek Hill as he liked to boast (but whom had he ever fired, however incompetent? Irma couldn't name a name) so she could stay out of his careening way if at all possible. Rhoda, Trudi, Irma, Gus, Steve, Wiggles-they were always a.s.suring Marianne, "Whit doesn't mean it, that's just how he sounds." She knew he didn't mean it, yet what he might mnean was couched so slyly in what he didn't, like wheat kernels amid chaff, she was left unnerved. There was an erotic, s.e.xual swagger to the man, in her presence-wasn't there? Or did she imagine it? How much more pleasant to observe Whit un.o.bserved, at a safe distance: the way he walked, the slight stoop of his shoulders and neck, the angle at which he wore one or another of his grimy STUMP CREEK HILL-SU1'I'ORT 'EM! hats; the jerky motion of his hands, arms, legs. The back of his head. Marianne admired even his shadow! Yet she found it disagreeable to look Whit in the face when he spoke to her. She feared him gazing impudently into her soul and finding her out, whoever she was-as Penelope Hagstrom had done. For Whit too was a poet. Not of language but of gesture. The way he comforted animals so terrified their bodies shook like vibrating motors, his battered big-knuckled hands holding them firm. Murmuring and cajoling and even joking with theni. The way he wielded a needle, injecting vaccine or drawing blood-the delicacy, the unerring firmness. The way, gripping an animal's taut jaws from below with his left hand, he could position a capsule on the animal's tongue so that the animal would swallow it effortlessly-the most skittish and panicky of animals. When m.u.f.fin began at last to fail, the second time, Whit insisted upon teaching Marianne this technique, for the cat was susceptible to infections and required antibiotics several times a day. At first, Marianne's touch was too hesitant-m.u.f.fin shook her off, squirmed out of her grasp panicked and tried to run away. "I'm afraid of hurting him," Marianne protested.

"Oh, don't be silly. It isn't that easy to hurt an animal," Whit said. He petted m.u.f.fin briskly to calm him and expertly gripped his jaws from beneath and pried them open. "See? Your turn, Marianne." So Marianne, shaky-fingered, tried, and tried, and at last succeeded; and m.u.f.fin swallowed his capsule. "Animals are basically wildlife," Whit said, with an air oi approval. " 'Domestic' cats, dogs-just the surface ten percent is domesticated. The rest is nature. Right, Muf?" He rubbed the cat's ears and m.u.f.fin blinked up at him.

Marianne thought They understand each other. But what is it they understand?

And when finally m.u.f.fin did die, a few months later, very thin, his eyes tawny-yellow with jaundice, it was in Marianne's arms, as Whit injected him with a medicine that stopped his heart instantaneously. He had weakened, at the end, swiftly, in a matter of days. He'd simply stopped eating. He had not crept away to die in the woods as Marianne feared, had never ventured outdoors much at this new place, shy of the numerous feral cats who lived on the grounds; but dozed for long hours atop Marianne's bed, on her ragged old quilt. At night, he'd slept pressed against Marianne's leg, breathing thinly, twitching from time to time in such a way that Marianmie, lying awake, wondered if he would live until morning. Marianne told Whit now, "We're ready. We're prepared for-it." Whit said gently, "m.u.f.fin is, Marianne, but are you?" She did not answer. Yet as Whit samik the thin needle into m.u.f.fin's bony shoulder, and the cat cringed, and went rigid, and immediately then limp, lifeless as a rag doll-Marianne held him firmly, and did not break down. 0 my G.o.d, can this be? Can this really be happening? She stared in astonishinent at the now dead cat in her arms, his eyes open, blank. Yet she did not break down, at least at this time.

Whit was sitting on the edge of Marianne's bra.s.s bed, stroking m.u.f.fin's fur that was so soft and fine. Marianne could not bear to look at him yet saw a glistening on his cheeks. Whit said, "m.u.f.fin wasn't your only friend, Marianne." Marianne said calmly, "Well, I know that." Whit said, "He wasn't the only one who loves you, Marianne." "Well," said Marianne, now just slightly hesitating, as if at the edge of an abyss, yet calmly enough, "I know that, too."

INTENSIVE CARE.

Was that Judd?-_-that tall, lean-limbed, stanng young man?-waiting in the hospital corridor for Marianne, to hug her, and lead her into the intensive care unit, and was that Corinne?-hair gone unevenly gray, a powdery-pebbly gray, a hectic flush in her thin cheeks-rushing at Marianne, embracing her so hard Marianne felt the breath squeezed from her. "Oh, Marianne! Thank G.o.d you're here, honey! Dad's just waking up." The air in this place was chilled as a refrigerator. There was a humming on all sides. Marianne couldn't stop shivering. She and her mother were staring at each other with widened amazed eyes. Corinne whispered, "Don't be surprised, Marianne. Dad has had surgery to remove a cancerous lung, he's been delirious off and on since yesterday. He isn't the way you remember him." Marianne was dazed with exhaustion. She'd driven from Stump Creek Hill to the Medical Clinic, University of Rochester, three hundred miles nearly nonstop, more than six hours in the rattling Chevy pickup and much of the route along narrow country highways and in Rochester she hadn't known where the Medical Center was so she'd had to stop to ask directions several times, intimidated by so much traffic, intirmdated by the size and complexity of the city in which she had never driven before and by the nightmare network of elevated expressways, on and off ramps, exit only lanes, praying aloud in a child's scared voice "Dear G.o.d, dear Jesus don't let my father die" and now as in a dream others had somehow entered and even appropriated she was being led forward by her mother, Mom she loved so! Mom she'd missed so! Mom gripping both Marianne's hands in hers, such cold anxious fingers!-and Marianne found herself inside not a room but a cubicle staring at a person in a raised bed amid glittering beeping instruments. Why, he was no one Marianne knew-was he? An ashy-skinned sunken-eyed sunken-cheeked man of some age beyond age. His hair was thin tin-colored strips across the waxy, vein-splattered dome of his scalp, there were clawed- looking creases in his cheeks, his eyes peered out wildly from deep bruised sockets. A transparent tube ran into his left nostril and tubes were attached to his shrunken arms and disappeared beneath the bedclothes covering his flat, yet bulky body. Marianne stared in disbelief even as Corinne murmured eagerly, "Michael? Darling? See who's here! She's come such a long way! It's Marianne." The man who was Michael Mulvaney Sr., the man who was Dad, Dad so changed, squinted at Marianne, as if a light blinded him. He tried to move his head on the raised pillow but the tube that ran into his nostril seemed to hold him in place. His right eye was badly bloodshot and not in focus. The air hummed with cold, with ventilators, with machines; a computer screen registered nervous zigzaggy blue lines. There was a subtle smell as of rotted oranges which Marianne recognized from the office at Stump Creek Hill and did not wish to identify.

Corinne urged Marianne forward. Marianne dared to take her father's hand that groped along the bed rail-such a thin, cold handl-the bones seemingly hollow!-yet the fingers closed about hers with unexpected strength, urgency. Michael tried to speak, tried very hard but the sound came out garbled, a sound like drowning, terrible to hear. Marianne said, leaning over the bed, anxiously, yet smiling, "Daddy? It's me." He tugged at her hand as if by sheer strength he hoped to lift himself from the bed and break free of his restraints that seemed to confound him. At last he managed to mutter coherent words, phrases-"Where?-didn't want to-so tired- I want-G.o.d help-where is?-so tired so tired-" and abruptly then his strength waned, he sank back and shut his eyes, his breath hoa.r.s.e. His grip on Marianne's hand loosened; she continued to hold it tight. "Daddy? Oh, Daddy, I'm so sorry," she said, resolute she would not cry, and for what seemed a long time the three of them waited for Michael to open his eyes again as he lay there in his bed drifting in sleep yet not peaceably, mouth working, eyeb.a.l.l.s moving jerkily behind shut lids. He twitched, moaned, seemed to be arguing with someone. He was like one who has sunk beneath the surface of consciousness as beneath the surface of water floating there gathering his desperate strength to reemerge, to save himself How close the surface was, yet how tough the membrane that trapped him beneath it! A nurse entered the cubicle and told them to wait outside and so they did, and again Corinue gripped Marianne's hands, staring at her almost greedily. It had not been clear to Marianne initially that her mother was so exhausted, even as she spoke in a strangely exhilarated voice, "Marianne, mny goodness you're so grown up!-isn't she, Judd?-and your hair, oh dear your hair, oh but how pretty you are, Marianne-I know you're exhausted-I know this is a terrible surprise-Marianne you aren't married are you?-are you married, honey?-no?----I just, I- wondered-I mean, it's been so confused-I'm sorry not to have been a better mother but-I don't know what happened exactly-it was just something that happened, wasn't it?-no one ever decided-I never decided-I love you honey, thank you for coming-your Dad does want to speak to you, he told us-didn't he, Judd?-oh what a sad, terrible time for us-we can pray, that's all we can do, but it's a sad time, we have to be prepared the nurses have warned us. They've been so nice, so understanding, haven't they, Judd?" her eyes a pale wan blue washed out with fatigue, strangely lashless, naked in the bright fluorescent overhead light, and even as Judd murmured a reply she continued in her bright tumbling way, "Dad's been awake off and on since the surgery-you know his lung was removed?-a cancerous lung removed-that was nine days ago, imagine!-and he has recognized Judd and me most of the time-he has said some things we can understand and I know he can hear us and understand us, isn't that right, Judd?-but he's been angry, he doesn't know why he's here-he's angry too about someone stealing from him, taking money and snapshots from his room-oh, that terrible room!-Dad was staying at this terrible filthy hotel downtown, he'd collapsed on the Street and had been here in the hospital for more than a week before anyone took the trouble to look through his things and call me-his own wife! his nearest of kin! Imagine!" turning to Judd who shrugged, as if embarra.s.sed, and who said to Marianne, "Dad's 'indigent,' he's an alcoholic, a charity case, frankly I think we're lucky he's had this much care at all," and Corinne said quickly, "Oh yes, thank G.o.d, you're right, Judd is right of course, thank G.o.d his things weren't just duniped out on the street and my name and address lost, I'm grateful someone fromn the hospital did call, I'm grateful the doctors took him in and operated though there doesn't seem_now_anybody for inc to talk to, exactly-the surgeon is never available-I never spoke with the surgeon at all-but the nurses are nice, so understanding and kind-and Dad isn't really insured any longer, I'm under a medical coverage with the county-where I work-but not Dad-oh Marianne, they removed a lung but they said it's too late, the cancer has spread to his brain, his kidneys-'metaSiZed'-" and Judd said, gently, " 'Metastasized,' Mom. " "'Metastasized'-Of course." Corinne had begun to cry silently, in that way that Marianne recalled for the first time in years; a mother's crying, stifled, soundless, secret so as not to disturb. If you cried so others could hear you were crying to be heard but a mother's crying was just the opposite, crying not to be heard. Yet, now, Corinne could not hide from her adult children. Judd said matter_of-factly to Marianne, in that way that was Whit's too, much of the time, as if the worst, the bluntest truth might as well be acknowledged, "He's just worn down, worn out. His liver has been affected, his heart-all the years of heavy drinking. Smoking caused the cancer but-it's obvious he'd been killing himself for years. Poor Dad!" Corinne said vehemently, tugging at Marianne's arm, "Oh he was a good man and he loved you, he loved you all, it was just he was led astray. He's only sixty-one years old, Marianne. Imagine1 That's not old at all."

Marianne heard herself say, scarcely knowing what the words meant, "No, Morn. That's not old at all."

Later that day they returned to Michael Mulvaney's bedside in the chilled humming cubicle amid the bustle of Intensive Care. And another time Michael fought his way to the surface of consciousness, fixing his good, focussed eye upon Marianne, struggling to speak. Marianne said, "Daddy? I love you. Don't tire yourse]f- Daddy, just rest. Daddy, I'm so sorry." But Michael was squeezing her hand, trying with such urgency to speak, out of a garble of noises syllables of words emerged like pebbles in a rushing stream, and Marianne believed she heard her name__"Mari_flfle"---- ss it was "Marian"-but a name very like hers, almost identical, and clearly her father was looking at her, staring at her, he had recognized her, Marianne-hadn't he?

There caine a final, feeble spasm of strength, his fingers clasping hers. Then again the dying man lost the thread of consciousness and sank back on the pillow.

In one of the patches of waiting that were like pleats in time, while Corinne remained at their father's bedside in case he should wake, Marianne andJudd, faint with hunger, had a quick meal in the hospital cafeteria; and afterward, grateful for each other's company like old friends who'd somehow forgotten how much they liked each other, went outside to walk for a half hour in the bright windy autumn air. How strangely vivid, how vast the world was-the sky so steeply overhead, just there. In a fluorescent chil-huninung room, you could easily forget how the world, the sky were-there Marianne said wonderingly, "Daddy did recognize me, I think. He did, Judd, didn't he? I'm not just imagining it?" and Judd said, "Yes, of course he did." Marianne laughed, embarra.s.sed, biting at a thumbnail. "He called me 'Marian'-I think. Did you hear it?" Judd said, frowning, "He called you 'Marianne.' That's what I heard." Marianne said, "I guess he's forgiven me? I mean-he loves me again, he's not ashamed of me?" and Judd said, "Dad always loved you, Mananne. He wasn't ashamed exactly, it was-well, like Mom said it was just something that happened." Marianne repeated slowly, " 'Just somnething that happened.' " Judd said, "It's the way famnilies are, sometimes. A thing goes wrong and no one knows how to fix it and years pa.s.s and-no one knows how to fix it." He spoke quickly, almost combatively. Marianne said, "Dad saw me. I'm sure he did." Judd said, "Marianne, for G.o.d's sake he said your name. Morn heard him, and so did I." When Marianne didn't reply, walking now swiftly with her head lowered, plucking at her long, untidy ponytail blowing in the wind, he added, with brotherly indulgence and impatience, as if this was an old family issue once again resurfacing when it ought to have been settled long ago, "He'd been asking for you, that's why Mom called you. He asked for 'Marianne'-I heard him, I swear-and he didn't ask for any of the rest of us, his sons, by name. Mom and I kind of worked out what he was trying to say, he wants to see Mike and Patrick, too, but couldn't remember their names exactly, or couldn't p.r.o.nounce them-we're pretty sure. But your name, Marianne, he knew. Don't you believe me?"

So Marianne decided yes, she would believe him.

GONE.

Cremate my body and scatter my ashes and that's the ki-idest thin,- you can do for me. Amen.

That gusty October morning. The sky pebbly-pale with streaks of vivid blue like swaths of a housepainter's brush.

Wind, wind. A high keening sound. Rocking the car as we ascended. On the rear seat of Mike's car, between Mariantie and me, the box containing the remains of Michael Mulvaney Sr. Of about the size and proportions of a hat box

I'd peeked, I had to know: these were sizable bone fragments, grit like chunks of gravel, as well as powdery fine "ashes."

It was the morning following the funeral in Rochester. We were silent mourners.

There was little to say that had not been said.

I did not say, bitterly 14/here the h.e.l.l is Patrick! I hate that b.a.s.t.a.r.d. We pa.s.sed High Point Farm on our left but I was looking resolutely away and did not see. Or my eyes may have been shut tight.

Abruptly then High Point Road narrowed and became more rutted, jolting. In winter, snowplows wouldn't bother much with this stretch.

Dust rose in angry swirls in our wake.

By instinct Mike was taking us to the perfect place. I knew exactly where he'd park. No houses for miles, no one to drive by gawking curiously at us. Mulvaneys? Back? What on earth are you doin-c- here?

A high windy glacier ridge overlooking a near-vertical drop of hundreds of feet, scarred-looking boulders strewn below, vivid patches of scarlet sumac. It was fall, a cold-tasting fall, the leaves having quickly turned bright, brilliant shades of orange, yellow, russet-red, to be quickly torn from the trees.

Dad's voice Caine teasing in my ears. Be sure to keep the wind at your back, kid! Don't err at such a crucial time, you're not going to get a second chance.

Scattering the earthly remains of Michael John Mulvaney, Sr. to the wind. And how swiftly the wind tore at them, a savage appet.i.te. Hyena-keening, roaring up out of the Valley.

Mom said suddenly, "I can hear Dad laughing, can't you? Oh, this is funny--somehow. He'd think so."

Mike and I lifted the clumsy box, shaking out the last of the grit and ashes. As the wind took them, so roughly.

And gone.

EPILOGUE.

The phone rang. I picked it up and it was Mom, breathless and hopeful as a girl-"Come for a Fourth ofJuly cookout, Judd! Come for a Mulvaney family reunion! Come help Sable and me celebrate Alder Antiques and independence!"

It was mid-June, weeks ahead of time. Remarkable for my mom who usually telephoned to invite me over at the last minute. I said yes, of course I'd come, sounds like a great idea I said, but what's this about a Mulvaney family reunion? Mom insisted it was so-"All of you are coming. Including Patrick."

This, I let pa.s.s in silence. I asked what would she and Sable like me to bring? and Mom said, "Just yourself, honey! And, you know, if you had a, a-"

"A girl? But I don't."

"Well-you know."

"Maybe I'll acquire a girl between now and then," I said, teasing, "-how's that?"

"Bring yourself and whoever you'd like. This will be our first annual Mulvaney family reunion."

I must have sighed. Did I believe for a fraction of a second that Patrick would show up? After fourteen years?

Marianne and Whit, sure; Mike and Vicky, yes probably; but Patrick?-never.

Mom said reproachfully, as if i'd spoken aloud, "Judd, this time he's promised. We were just now talking on the phone."

Mom and Patrick were in touch sporadically. The last news I had of Patrick firsthand, he was living in Berkeley, California and training to be a therapist of some kind. Or was he training others to be therapists? So far as I knew he'd never finished his degree at Cornell. He'd been out of contact with us at the time of Dad's death, which was why he hadn't come to the funeral and helped us scatter Dad's ashes-though possibly he wouldn't have come, anyway. All these years, he hadn't come east to see us and if Mom suggested flying out to see him he'd seem to vaporize, disappear. I had a picturc of swirling molecules where a human figure had been, so dissolved into its elements there could be no ident.i.ty.

Still, Mom had gotten it into her head that Patrick would be coining for the reunion on July Fourth. Yes he'd promised, and he was even planning to bring a friend; a woman friend, Morn believed, though she was vague about this as no doubt Patrick had been purposeflilly vague in telling her. He'd be traveling all that distance by motorcycle, backpacking en route. "Can you imagine, Judd? P.J. on a motorcycle!" Mom was incredulous and hopeful as a girl.

I said, "Frankly, Mom, no, I can't imagine."

In Chautauqua Falls where I now live, and work as editor of the Chautauqua Falls Journal, I went shopping on the morning of July Fourth, buying a bushel of sweet corn at a farm stand, selecting the ears individually, carefully. I went to our local beer and Wine store and bought six-packs of beer, ale, soda pop. Then to a food Store filling the cart with giant bags of potato chips and pretzels, costly little containers of dip ("Mexican Fiesta Hot Sauce," "Spicy Authentic Indian Cuny") feeling generous, elated, giddy and anxious, and the girl at the checkout counter, who knew me, laughed and said, "Looks like you're going to a Fourth of July cookout!" and I said, proudly, "That's almost right, yes. It's a family reunion, too."

My fingers so mysteriously numb, one of the tins slipped and tumbled to the floor.

Mom's new home, which she shared with her friend Sable Mills, was on a hillside on New Canaan Road, about six miles south of Mt. Ephraim and eighteen miles southwest of High Point Farm. I'd seen my morn's place a number of times of course, since Chautauqua Falls was oniy forty miles away, and in fttct I'd helped her move in; I'd helped her and Sable fix up the property, and given my advice about whom to hire for renovations. (Not that they listened, much. And if they'd asked my advice at the outset, which of course they had not, I'd have advised them not to buy the property at all. I suppose I take aller my dad, viewing ramshackle "quaint" farms in the Valley with an unsentimental male eye, not my mom's romantic farm-girl eye.) Still, I have to admit the place is attractive. The house and outbuildings and pastures, what you can see from the narrow country road. That pert little barn freshly painted an eye-catching royal blue with the sign ALDER ANTIQUES prominently displayed.

"My dream," Mom would say, giving her voice a lightly ironic lilt so you'd know she meant to make fun of herself, even as it was all so terribly serious, "-my heart's desire. If only we don't go bankrupt!"

Oh, it was just a coincidence, Mom insisted, that Alder Creek, beautiful Alder Creek, narrow and treacherously swift-flowing, was less than a mile away from the property, traversing New Canaan Road; the same Alder Creek that ran through our old High Point Farm property to the north.