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“How is everyone?” she asks, searching for an opening to tell Melva what's happening. “How's Daddy?”

“We're doing fine. It's not us you need to be worrying about.”

Shit. There's no mistaking her mama's tone. “You've heard? You know what that asshole Billy's gone and done?”

“Watch your language, Raylee. You know I won't stand for cursing.”

“But you know what he's done? Right?”

“We know he's trying to bring our boy back where he belongs. That's what we know.”

“Where he
belongs
? He belongs with me. That's where Zack belongs, Mama.”

“That's a matter of opinion.”

“Well, Billy's dead wrong if he thinks he can make me come back there by blackmailing me with the threat of custody.”

“I don't think Billy is the least bit interested in bringing
you
back here, Raylee. I think you've tried his patience on that matter. You've wrung the last bit of patience out of all of us.”

“I thought you'd be on my side, Mama. I'm your flesh and blood.”

“Zack's our flesh and blood, too. We're backing Billy one hundred percent on this. Until you get some sense in your head, I've got nothing more to say.”

“No one's going to take Zack from me. I'm his mama.”

“You're stubborn and foolish. That's what you are. That always was your mistake. Now you're heading for trouble, and I swear I won't shed a tear. The way you're heading, you're going to end up just like May.”

“Why is it always me, Mama? Why am I always the one in the wrong?”

“Don't you be getting sassy with me. And if you think we'll just sit by and do nothing while you ruin Zack's life, you are sadly mistaken.”

“I'm not ruining anyone's life. Zack and I are doing just fine.”

“I don't think so. I think you've got your head turned round and you wouldn't know straight if it walked up and bit you.”

“That's not true, Mama. We're happy here and things are fine. Why can't you see the truth?”

“The truth? Since when did you become reacquainted with the truth?”

“I can't talk to you when you're like this,” Opal says. “I'm going to hang up, Mama.” No sense talking anymore. No sense in trying to get the last word in on her mama. No one ever has.

CHAPTER 28

ROSE

“SO,” NED SAYS. “WHAT'S ON THE AGENDA FOR TODAY?” “The dentist,” Rose tells him. She waits, takes a breath, and plunges in, “Then I thought I'd take the bus over to Springfield.”

“Springfield?” Ned gives her a sharp look. If he were a suspicious man, Rose would have cause to worry.

“I thought I'd do a little shopping at the mall. Maybe buy a new bedspread. Ours is worn thin. The fact is we could use some new towels, too.” She can barely look at him.

But now he is smiling like a crazy man. He's already looking ahead: She's back working at Fosters, measuring out seersucker and calico, selling pink satin for prom dresses, bringing home the odd yard or two at the end of a bolt, sewing herself a skirt.

“That's great, Rosie,” he says. His pleasure, his
hope
shames her. “Do you need money?”

When she called the Women's Health Services she hadn't asked about fees. She hasn't the slightest idea what it will run, and she can't go by what Doc charges. Doctors now charge an arm and a leg. She can't use insurance. That would lead to forms coming to the house. Paperwork Ned might see. If things get complicated—if it's
malignant
—there will be plenty of time for insurance.

He pulls out his wallet and insists on giving her a twenty.

“What time's the appointment?”

“Appointment?”

“The dentist.”

“Ten o'clock.” For a terrible moment she fears he's got it in his head to drive her.

HE LEAVES, WHISTLING, HAPPY AS A LOON 'CAUSE SHE'S GOING off to shop for a bedspread, the first step down the road to being her old self. She skips most of her regular chores, using the time to shower and change into panty hose, a dress. She's ready early, waiting in front of the house for Willis to show up with his cab.

“Federal Savings,” she tells him.

Years ago, when she was pregnant with Todd, she started a bank account. Every week she'd slip something in from the household money. Tight weeks no more than a dollar. Other times as much as a ten. And the birthday and Christmas envelopes from Ned—
I never
know what you'd like, Rosie, so take this and get yourself something you
want
—all those crisp twenty- and fifty-dollar bills went straight into the account. Her dream account. What she was dreaming of was a good start for Todd. College, if scholarships didn't cover everything. Anything left over, she and Ned would take a vacation. Travel to different parts of the country. Her whole life she's wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Those dreams are so far in the past, they belong to a different woman.

It has been five years since Rose has made a deposit, and it takes a few minutes for the computer to tally all the interest she's accrued. It nearly fills the whole passbook. When she slides it through the window, Rose can hardly believe what she sees: $10,434.50.
Ten thousand
dollars.
For dreams that are dead. She withdraws one hundred. She can't imagine it will cost more than that for a doctor to take a look at her mole. The whole thing shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes. What could they charge for that?

The bus is on schedule. She recognizes the driver, the same man who drove the run to Pellington, and she concentrates on getting the token in the coin box. The bus is nearly empty, no more than a dozen passengers—mostly students and middle-aged women like herself. She walks to the rear, takes a seat, plops her handbag down on the space next to her. She doesn't want any Chatty Cathy sitting down and making conversation all the way to Springfield.
Do you have children?
How does she answer?
No.
And erase Todd, as if he's never been.
Yes.
And leave her open to more questions.
One. A boy. He would have been
twenty-one. Accident. Sixteen.
And suffer the inevitable, suffocating sympathy.

There should be a name for people who have lost a child. If your husband dies, you're a widow. If your parents die, you're an orphan. But there is no word in the dictionary that can be used to describe the limbo of losing a child. Maybe in another language. One of those tongues that has seventy words for love, one hundred words for snow. Maybe the Eskimos have a word to describe a person who's been robbed of her child.

SHE CAN SEE AT ONCE THAT THE CLINIC IS A MISTAKE. IT'S located in a storefront on the edge of the downtown district. The floor is covered with that cheap indoor-outdoor stuff they use that wears like iron and doesn't show stains. Ugly as sin. The place is filled with pregnant women and kids with colds. Most of the children are sprawled on the filthy carpet playing with a crate of toys. There is a poster on the wall promoting flu shots and another says something about AIDS. Heavens.

“Can I help you?” The receptionist has yellow hair straight from a bottle—the cheap color that should come with a free pack of chewing gum attached. A placard on the counter advises that all bills must be paid at the time service is rendered.

“I have an appointment,” Rose says.

“Name?”

“Rose Nelson.” She waits while the woman checks the schedule.

“New patient?” She hands Rose a clipboard. “Have a seat and fill out this form. Front and back.”

Rose scans the form.
Personal medical history. Family medical history.
What does it matter if she had chicken pox when she was eight or that she never had mumps? Venereal disease? Even if a person had it, Rose can't imagine anyone actually checking that off. She's stuck at
Reason
for appointment
. Inflamed mole? Skin condition? Rash? Finally she settles on “skin irritation.”

She returns the papers to the desk.

“Insurance?”

“No.”

The receptionist taps the sign with the eraser end of her pencil. “We require full payment at the time of your visit.”

Rose nods.

“Have a seat. We'll call you.”

One of the pregnant women makes room for her on a wooden bench. Rose sits, leaving space between them. The outer door swings open, and a skinny woman enters. She has the vague, floating walk of an ex-drinker. Rose stares straight ahead. She doesn't touch the magazines. She can imagine the germs.

At a quarter to eleven, she approaches the desk. “Will it be much longer?”

The woman checks the schedule. “Shouldn't be more than another ten or fifteen minutes.”

“My appointment was at ten-thirty.”

“I know. We're running late.”

Twenty minutes later she is called. She rises, embarrassed by the sound of her name still echoing in the room, and follows the nurse down the hall to a small examining room. She sits while the woman takes her temperature—98.6, right on the dot—and blood pressure.

“One hundred forty-six over ninety. Is that about normal for you?”

Rose has no idea. “Yes.” Why they need all this is beyond her. She's here for a mole on her stomach.

“When was your last exam?”

She hasn't been to a doctor since right after Todd died, when Doc gave her those pills. Why can't they just look at the itchy mole and let her go? “Last year,” she says.

“Regular mammograms?”

She hasn't had one in years. Apparently it isn't her breasts she has to worry about. “Yes.”

“Generally, would you say you're in good health?”

“Yes.” She's healthy as a horse. Except for the itch.

“And let's see—” The nurse checks the form she's filled out. “You're here about a skin irritation. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“On my stomach.”

She's handed a smock. “Put this on. It ties in the back. The doctor will be right in.”

Rose folds her dress and slip and places them on the chair. She rolls down her panty hose, folds them, and tucks them out of sight beneath the dress. The tile is cool beneath her feet. Should she remove her bra and panties? She slips the smock on over them, then sits on the edge of the chair, avoiding the paper-covered examining table.

There's a wait of several more minutes before there is a brief rap on the door.

A woman enters, extends her hand. “Hello,” she says. “I'm Dr. Nutt. Two Ts.”

A woman doctor? Thank God she's kept the panties on.

The doctor looks over her chart. “You've come about an itch?”

“Yes. On my stomach.”

“Well, let's take a look.” Dr. Nutt pats the table. “Have a seat here.”

The paper makes a crinkling sound when Rose sits down. Her pulse pounds.

The doctor takes a minute to wash her hands in the little sink. She dries them, then rubs them together briskly. “Okay,” she says. “Lie back while I have a look.” When she touches Rose, her fingers are warm. Rose remembers all the times she's jumped from Doc's cold hands.

Dr. Nutt runs a fingertip over Rose's mole. “How long has this been bothering you?”

Rose counts back to the fall. To September. Seven months. It doesn't seem possible.

“And has it been inflamed all that time?”

“You mean red? Yes.”

“Has there been any pain?”

“No. It just itches. I bought something at the drugstore, but it didn't really help.”

“And has the diameter of the inflamed area increased?”

“Maybe a little.”

Dr. Nutt palpitates the area. “Is this sensitive?”

“No.”

She adjusts the smock, checks over Rose's entire abdomen and chest. “Okay. You can sit up now.” She slides an arm behind Rose, helps her up. “Why don't you get dressed, and then I'll come back and we can talk.”

“I think it was smart to come in,” Dr. Nutt says when she returns. She looks down at Rose's chart. “There's been no history of melanoma in your family, which is good, but there's definitely something going on around that mole. What I'd like to have you do is see a dermatologist, get a biopsy. Just to be safe.”

Biopsy.

“Do you know someone you'd like to use? Or if you prefer, we can make a recommendation.”

Rose feels faint. “A recommendation, I guess.”

“I'd suggest Dr. Murphy. He's the best in the area. If you like I can have the desk call over and make an appointment before you leave.”

Rose wants Ned. He'd know what to do. She could lean on him. It was a mistake to have come alone.

CHAPTER 29

OPAL

THE PROBATE COURT IS NEW. A BRICK BOX OF A BUILDING, soulless as a shoe box. Opal is late and so sweaty her blouse sticks to her skin. She is dressed according to Vivian's directives. Think mature, think responsible, the lawyer advised on the phone earlier in the week. What Opal thinks is that she looks as if her mama picked out her clothes. The white blouse and navy skirt are drop-dead boring, and the panty hose and black flats don't help. Her hair, also tamed according to the lawyer's instructions, is held back in one thick braid. She feels like she's wearing someone else's skin.

“How do I look?” she asked Ty before she left the house.

“Great,” he said. “You're going to do just fine.”

When she gave Zack a final kiss and warning to be good for Ty, he reached up and patted her cheek. “Don't be scared,” he said, which just about killed her.

He thinks she is going to a meeting. She hasn't told him anything about Billy wanting custody, but she wonders how much he's overheard. She's doing her best not to bad-mouth Billy in front of him.

SHE THREADS HER WAY PAST THE SMOKERS CLUSTERED AT the entry.

Inside, the corridors are crowded. She scans faces, each looking sorry-ass or lost. Or angry. Attorneys and clients cluster in last-minute conferences, and as she makes her way down the hall Opal catches phrases of their conversations.
Restraining orders. Drunk. Custody.
Bastard. Deposition.
There is a whole Nashville of songs in this one corridor.

She gets directions to the courtroom where their hearing will be held and spots Vivian.

The lawyer, dressed in a pantsuit that looks like it was born wrinkled, nods her approval at Opal's appearance. “How you doing?” she says. “You okay?”

“Just tell me there's no fucking way he's going to get Zack,” Opal says. “That's when I'll be okay.”

Vivian takes her arm, leads her to a vacant corner. “You want to win this?”

“Of course.”

“Then clean up your language. Swearing doesn't make you an unfit mother, but it will prejudice the judge against you. She's a stickler about comportment in her courtroom. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She checks her watch. “Let's run over it one more time before we go in. I'll do most of the talking. If the judge asks you a direct question, you respond, but keep it short. Don't ramble. Don't give extra information. Answer just what she asks. That's where people get in trouble. If you're not sure, keep quiet. And don't attack Billy. You want to look like the rational one here.”

They've been over this ten times already.

“Remember, this hearing is only to present the petition. Nothing's being decided here. It's just the first step.”

“He threatened me,”
Opal hears a woman say. She turns to look at the speaker, a hard-faced woman in jeans. Another woman, an older version of the speaker, enters the conversation. “That man has intimidated the whole family. We can't take a breath without being afraid. She should have left him years ago.” The lawyer—a moon-faced woman who already looks tired—takes notes on a yellow pad.

“And remember,” Vivian is saying, “no matter what the opposing council says, keep your temper.”

“Okay.”

“We're second on the agenda, which is good. We won't have to wait around getting nervous.”

As if her last nerve isn't already shot.

“The first petition—the paternity issue—is straightforward. We're not disputing that. On the custody petition, today is just the first step. There won't be a ruling on that. The judge will listen to the petitions, set a date for the trial, appoint a guardian ad litem.”

“Fuck that!” a woman shouts. Heads turn. The frazzled-looking woman starts crying.

Vivian rechecks her watch. “Need to use the bathroom before we go in?”

“Oh, God.”

“What? What's wrong?”

Of course she should have been prepared, but she isn't. No way. “It's them,” she says.

“How do you want to handle this?” Vivian asks. “Your choice. You want to talk to them?”

“Not Billy.” Talk? She wants to kill him. There are five of them: Billy, her parents, and two others, a man and a woman, both well dressed. Attorneys.

Before she can even think, her daddy is there, holding her.

“Hi, Opal,” he says.

“Hi, Daddy,” she says. She inhales his Old Spice, is comforted by the familiarity.

“Raylee,” Melva says. One word that says it all as far as Opal is concerned.

Billy and the lawyers don't approach.

“It's time to go in,” Melva says.

The courtroom is cavernous, with high ceilings and blond veneer walls. A bank of narrow windows looks out on a lawn and, beyond that, the parking lot. The judge's bench, flanked by two flags, occupies the front of the room. In front of the oak benches—pews, Opal thinks, like church—there are two long tables. Two officers in uniforms stand at one side laughing about something. Pagers and holsters are strapped to their belts.

There are already more than two dozen people in the room. She had not realized the hearing would be open, that strangers would be there, listening. Until now—in spite of the legal papers, the meetings with Vivian—it hasn't seemed serious. She has been thinking of it as a private matter between her and Billy—a direct and sorry result of Billy's mule-headedness.

The assistant clerk, a balding man in a worn gray suit, enters and takes his place at a small table directly beneath the judge's bench. He leafs through a pile of papers. Except for the muffled conversation of the officers, the room is deathly still.

“All stand,” one of the officers says as a man in a black robe strides in through a door behind the bench. He has black hair and a trim beard and is younger than Opal had expected.

“Shit,” Vivian mutters.

“What?”

“Wait here.” She slides out, approaches one of the court officers, whispers, and a moment later is back beside Opal.

“What's the matter?”

“They've shifted schedules. Judge Caryle had a family emergency. Judge Bowles is sitting today.”

“Is that bad?”

“It isn't great.”

Opal looks at the judge, who is conferring with the clerk. He looks impatient, tired. The room has grown so still she can hear the sound of the flagpole lanyards clanging on the lawn outside.

The first case is called.
Vierra versus Vierra.
A matter of unpaid alimony. While the lawyers begin, Opal studies Judge Bowles. He seems alternately bored and impatient. She wonders if he has children and what kind of father he is and if being a man will prejudice him in Billy's favor. Judges are supposed to be impartial, but she doesn't think that's possible. They're human. A woman judge would be better. But maybe not. Most women have a built-in prejudice against her, and she doesn't know if a judge would be any different.

She sneaks a look over at the other table. Opal can't believe how much it hurts to see her daddy there, taking Billy's part. Her daddy. Another man against her.

But of course it is Melva who is behind this. She can see her mama's hand at work, clear as crystal. She can just imagine the arguments her mama and daddy have had over this. Why should she be surprised that her mama won? Melva holds all the currency in their marriage.

What do they all want from her? Why can't they leave her alone? Do they really think she will return to New Zion? Melva won't be happy until she's back there
behaving
herself. Her mama probably will ask the judge to make her change her name back to Raylee Gates. To Tammy Raylee Gates.

Tammy Gates.

Opal was twelve when she decided to change her name. She was in eighth grade at New Zion Middle School, and Sujette Davis was her best friend. They both had a killer crush on John David Elwood. It was late October and someone—they later discovered it had been Suzanne Jennings's older brother Willy—had called in a bomb threat. Since there was only one full class left, they let everyone out early. Sujette wanted her to come home with her, but Opal had her bike and decided she'd ride over to her daddy's office and surprise him. Sometimes he let her hang around there, and if he could get away, he'd take her to the soda shop for a sundae. This is what she had in mind when she pedaled over to his office, her book bag swinging on the handlebars, the air charged with unexpected freedom.

She left her bike leaning against a parking meter in front of his building and went right in, but the place was empty. Her daddy's door was closed. She slung her book bag on a chair and wandered over to the bulletin board. The board covered most of the wall and held photos of all the property for sale in New Zion and the surrounding county. She could remember always staring at those houses, trying to decide which one she wanted. She used to think her daddy owned them all and if she wanted one all she had to do was ask and he would give it to her.

Would she choose a farmhouse—a big, sprawling place that came with a barn where she could keep horses? Or one of the ranch houses with a pool in back? Or a brick colonial all neat and precise, with tall windows on the front? Each house suggested a whole life that matched it.

She was inspecting a small wood-frame house with a porch on the side, a porch that would get just the right amount of shade from the overhanging limbs of a copper beech, when she heard a sound from behind her daddy's door.

“Tammy,” her daddy said.

At first she thought he had heard her in the office and was calling to her, but his voice was thick and choked, like he was swallowing food and trying to talk at the same time. The sound of it made the hair on her arms stand straight up.

He was groaning. Maybe he was having a heart attack. Melanie Scott's daddy had had a heart attack, and he was only forty—two years younger than her daddy.

She would
save
him, she would be the heroine, everyone in New Zion would be talking about how lucky it was that she had gone to her daddy's office instead of home with Sujette and how brave she had been and how she had saved her daddy's life. She was crossing to the door, all these thoughts swirling through her brain, when she heard another voice: a woman calling out her daddy's name. Then she heard more of the moaning noises and the woman making little puppy-like yips.

She backed away, face suddenly hot. For months, sex had been the primary topic of conversation between her and Sujette, and they both agreed it was totally creepy to think of their parents
doing
it, that they probably didn't
do
it anymore. Now here was her daddy,
doing
it with Tammy Lee Roscoe, her mama's old friend and a woman so plain no one could believe she was married to that good-looking Vance Roscoe, the town druggist, even if she was rich.

She fled, pumping the bike so hard that her calves were sore for three days after. She sang an old Elvis song over and over—the hound dog one her Aunt May loved—practically screaming it. But it didn't stop the chatter in her mind. Her mind just wouldn't shut up.

When her daddy came home for dinner, he carried her book bag. She stared straight at him, but he looked the same as always. Her good-looking daddy who most folks said could charm the legs right off a fly leaned over and kissed her mama on the top of her head and sat down to eat just as if it were a regular night. Her mama recoiled just the tiniest bit, and Opal understood her mama knew about her daddy and Tammy Roscoe.

The next day she demanded to be called Raylee. And she began to keep a list of possibilities for later, when she was old enough to change her name entirely.

WHEN HER ATTENTION RETURNS TO THE PROCEEDINGS, THE judge is ordering Mr. Vierra to pay five thousand in back alimony.

“I can't, Your Honor,” he says. “I don't have it.”

“If you don't pay it, I'll have to find you in contempt of court. If you're in contempt, I am going to sentence you to fourteen days in jail. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Honor. But I can't pay what I don't have.”

Right in front of his ex-wife and everyone in the courtroom, the judge sentences him to fourteen days in the county House of Correction. The man is handcuffed and led away. This judge is no one to screw with.

The clerk checks through his stack of papers. “Docket number 5P754,” he says. “
Steele and Gates versus Gates.
Appearances?”

Opal can't move.

“Come on,” Vivian says, taking her hand, leading her to the table vacated by Mrs. Vierra. She sets her briefcase on the table, motions for Opal to take a seat. Four feet away, her parents and Billy and the two lawyers stand at the other table. There is a momentary wait while one of the officers brings over a fifth chair. Billy stares straight ahead, ignoring her completely. She might as well be on Mars as far as he's concerned.

“Vivian Cummings here,” Vivian says. “Appearing on behalf of Opal May Gates. Miss Gates is present.”

At the other table, the woman does the talking. “Appearing are William Steele, Melva Gates, and Warren Gates, and on their behalf attorneys Steven Lodge and Carla Olsen.”

Opal takes in the smooth voice, the shiny shoes, the woman's perfect helmet of blond hair. No chain smokers there. No wrinkled suits. And she's damn sure they don't operate out of a rundown storefront office. These people mean business. A cold nugget of fear lodges directly beneath her breastbone.

She feels the judge sizing her up and is relieved when his gaze travels to the other table and lands on Billy. “Let's begin,” he says.

Everyone nods.

“This is the mother?” he asks, looking again at Opal.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Vivian says.

“And the father? And—” He checks his notes. “—the grandparents?”

“That's correct, Your Honor.” Again it's the woman, Carla Olsen, who answers.