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For once I was glad my family didn't have money for vacations and like that. I'm
ashamed at how easy it was to lie to her and how easy it all came out of me that way. But, it
worked. She wrote back saying she was sorry. The children had really been looking forward to it,
which I thought was silly because they didn't know anything about the ocean and were still little
enough to not care about going someplace. I figured that was Mandy's way of telling me how
disappointed she was.

I was relieved. The day I got the first letter from her was just a terrible shock and the
second letter was a great relief. The time in between was awful.

Sewing the frontpiece of
Beach
kept me busy. It was a joy, as I was making this
with David. But most of the time I was alone.

I could feel my belly growing larger with each week. I'd see little poke- outs on my
tummy when I was sitting--his foot as he stretched his leg, an elbow when he turned--this baby
was telling me he needed more room. I would shift and the bump would go away but it would
remind me that he--or she--was growing and was going to have to come out someday. I'd break
out in a sweat when I remembered Mandy's birthings. She hadn't had any bad trouble, but I could
see it wasn't a comfortable experience. Hadn't bothered me when it was her. It was different now
that it was me.

When I made the backside of the quilt, I changed my mind about the solid gray. I pulled
out the patterned materials I'd stuffed back into the bag. The old cloth with family memories
gave me comfort. Everybody had troubles; most made it through. I made large squares of crazy
quilt with the patterns and joined them together. When I closed up the whole thing I made a
frame for both front and back from Zack's gray Army blankets. Later, I embroidered yellow suns
around the edges.

I was pregnant, I was alone, I was afraid, and I despaired that David would ever be
mine. The nights were long and so lonely. But, like everything else, I lived through it. The
change when it came took me by surprise, though why I can't say now, as I should have been
expecting it.

David usually did get what he wanted.

The more bored and lonely I got, the more David insisted I come with him and Amy. I
was strong willed, but, I tell you, Annie, to me nothing was worse than that continual fog and
rain. If I'd been well, maybe I could have stood it, but I had heartburn, my legs cramped up at
night, my back ached and I was so bloated I felt about to bust sometimes. Still I might of stuck it
out 'til the baby was born if I hadn't fallen.

I was coming back from the woodshed, my arms full of wood for the fire so I could fix
David's lunch. I slipped on the dang beach grass and landed flat on my rump. I didn't hurt myself,
but David was just coming down from his place and saw me fall. He helped me up and made
sure I was all right but didn't say anything about it. That should have been a warning, because
David could carry on something fierce about the littlest problems I had.

That evening there was a light knock on the door. I thought David was being gentle
because he didn't want to disturb me in case I was asleep.

When I opened the door a woman was standing there. I knew immediately she was
Amy. She was not a timid woman. She stepped into the room. Right off I sensed the power and
downright good sense of her. She was shorter than me, but not little. That night she had on a dark
green cape that showed her eyes were more hazel than the brown Willie had described. She fixed
them on me as she shut the door behind her. Standing just inside the door she undid the ties of
her cape, still silent. The hood fell back. She shook her hair to lift the blond curls of her bangs
where the hood had flattened them. I guess her hair had grown since Willie had seen her on the
beach with David. She'd pulled it up into a soft bun from which some strands had escaped,
falling down onto her shoulders. She was a pretty thing.

She took the cape off and laid it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Of all things,
she was wearing a crème colored silk blouse that she'd tucked neatly into a tailored brown
skirt. She was wearing pearls, for Pete's sake. Dressed to kill--only time I ever saw her dressed
like that. Usually she wore her hair in braids and plain cotton clothes for working around the
house. She was sensible though. Her shoes were sturdy black oxfords. She wouldn't have slipped
coming down the path from their place.

I'd moved over back up against the table when she reached for me. I couldn't move.

"Dear Sophie," she said as she took my hand.

Dear?

She plunged to the point. "David tells me you fell today. Certainly you know you cannot
be alone any longer. It's totally unnecessary." The small movements on my part to pull my hand
from her grasp were ignored.

"David wants you with us..."

"Did he send you?" I was angry at this woman. And David. She was upsetting all my
notions about her. I preferred to think of her, when I allowed myself to think of her at all, as a
woman desperate for her husband's love. A woman willing to do as he bid her. A meek,
submissive little nobody who secretly hated me but desperately kept it from David with her
soups and sweet inquiries about my health.

"No. He didn't." She released my hand. "When I told him I was coming he tried to stop
me, and then he wanted to come with me. But the talk we must have can't be done with him
around. Now..."

She sat down, completely at ease. She motioned me to do the same.

That irritated me. It was, after all, my house. In defiance I chose to sit on the edge of my
chair, to show I would do as I pleased in my own home, not as she bid me. I wanted her to know
that I was not as malleable as she.

"I understand from David that you think his idea of us all living together is crazy,
perhaps immoral. Gosh, I hope you're not right. As you know, David isn't like other men. That's
why I love him so. If we're going to make this all turn out so that no one gets hurt--well, no more
than can be helped--we're going to have to do something unusual. And we have the baby to think
of."

I sat quiet, no words in me, as she explained what she wanted me, us, to do, and why.
Punkin Sue Tiger lay curled up behind the door, among my boots and clamming gear, waiting for
the stranger to go away. His eyes were fixed on Amy as she talked.

"For as long as I've known him, David has approached things with a different viewpoint
from most people. He proposed to me when he was seven and I was only five. Even then I knew
he was different. He watched everything everyone did and knew instinctively which things made
people happy and what tormented them. He had a reverence for marriage and love that you
probably find confusing, considering the circumstances you find yourself in. But David knows
that the only way to hold a love is with open arms. There is the danger your mate will fly away,
yes, but what's sadder than an animal caught in a trap? I've seen it in the eyes of too many people
wedded for life to their one-and-only."

She almost made sense. I thought of my sister Mandy and her husband, of my mom and
dad. I'd seen the look. But I'd never known what caused it. Maybe Amy and David were right. I
never knew a happier married couple.

"Maybe it makes a little more sense to you now." She saw my hand trying to cover the
big belly that seemed to me to fill the room. "That is not the point right now.

"If you don't move up with us, one of us will have to come down here and be with you."
She was stating it as a fact, unquestioned. She wasn't asking if I agreed.

I could have argued. I could have refused, like I had with David, but what good would it
have done? I'd still have had to see them every day--both of them--I was sure Amy wouldn't let
me be alone now.

Before I gave in, I had a question that had been bothering me from David's first mention
of me living with them. Her frankness made me bold. Okay, I might live with them, but...
"Where-where would I...?"

Amy raised her eyebrows. "Where would you sleep?"

I felt my face flush. I looked over her shoulder, at the wall, at the dark window, at
Punkin Sue Tiger peeking out from between my beach boots. Everywhere but at her, especially
not at the clear gaze of her eyes. If I thought my stomach seemed big before, now it was gigantic,
the only thing in the room.

She knew I was embarrassed, but she just shrugged her shoulders, and laughed, a little
shakily. "Frankly that has bothered me, too. But I think that if we face it head on we'll be okay."
Quickly, as if to get the pain over as fast as possible, like ripping off a cover over a sore, she told
me I'd be sleeping in what had been the storage room. It was all ready for me with my own bed,
and had been for weeks.

As for where David would sleep..."The only way to prevent problems between us, you
and me, is to share him."

"You know." Again that quiet laugh. "This is the first time I've ever had to actually
practice what David, and I preach. I hope you'll help me."

I was anxious to have her keep talking, I nodded.

She looked really uncomfortable when she rose and stood at the window, looking out
into the now-dark night.

"David will spend one night with you, the next with me, and then with you again." She
took a deep breath. "And so on." She turned toward me again. No tears. There was a sadness in
her eyes that had not been there before.

I suppose she'd dealt with her own devils long before tonight. After a quick sigh the look
was gone; I only saw it once again.

Oddly, it was that quick look of sadness that convinced me. Up 'til then I'd feared that
Amy, like David, saw no pitfalls in this scheme. She knew as well as I the dangerous thing we
were attempting, but she was willing, for David's sake, and the baby's, to give it all she had.

And I knew at that moment with an intuition rare to me, that she would do whatever she
needed to do to save her marriage. That's when I put away the last small hope I had that I could
wiggle David away from her.

I was lighter, my belly felt normal, baby-sized again. It took little effort to go to her,
take her hands in mine and say, "Okay. We'll do it." She knew I meant she and I, not David. She
squeezed my hands, sealing our bargain. I pulled my hands away, wanting now to get this
closeness over with.

While she waited and played with Punkin Sue Tiger, I gathered up my nightclothes and
a few toilet articles. I hesitated a moment, then blew out the lamp and followed her out the door.
The path was dark, and slippery. This way was new to me. She reached around, took my hand
and led me. The surf pounded below us, the only sound in an otherwise soundless night. The
only light in our dark world came from the house she was leading me to.

My mind was spinning. I realized we'd left Punkin Sue Tiger in the house and started to
turn back to get him. She misunderstood my move and tightened her grip. I didn't explain. He'd
be all right tonight, I could get him in the morning.

The morning. The night. Right now, I didn't know which I feared more.

I concentrated on the sound of the waves landing on the sand to avoid thinking about
what she was leading us to. My instinct was to turn and run.

Amy's hand tightened on mine. The light from the house grew brighter as we got
closer.

Just as we got to the door Amy stopped. Through a fog of near-panic, I heard her say,
"Tonight, he's yours."

She gave me no time to answer, her hand turned the doorknob. With her palm strong on
my back, we entered her home, together.

Once Aunt Sophie started reliving the days of sixty years ago, it was as if her dammed
up memory started flooding. She continued talking as we picked the rest of the berries, took them
home, washed and picked them over.

From the basement I could hear her talking while I packed a few boxes with empty jars.
Upstairs she interrupted her story only to direct me in scrubbing the dusty jars and sterilizing
them in boiling water to make them ready for the bubbling jam. We put up fourteen jars and had
enough leftover to make three small pies for the freezer.

The kitchen was small and old-fashioned, like the house. It belonged to my Uncle Boyd,
Mandy's fifth child, whom Aunt Sophie had declared would probably turn out to be
undependable, a roving artist perhaps. He certainly would not be the one to support Granny
Mandy in her old age.

He delighted Aunt Sophie by walking and talking early, and he became her favorite
nephew. Because he was her favorite, and perhaps reminded her of her own child, she had given
him more attention and was harder on him than any of the others. As he grew, and his talent for
drawing and comedy became more and more pronounced, she encouraged and, some say,
harassed him to apply himself to his talents and his studies. Through her influence he finished
high school two years early. And then to her dismay, he left home, or fled, to wander about the
country, picking up work where he could.

Boyd had a curiosity about people that, coupled with a fascination about how they
governed their lives, led him to watching more closely the activities of those who are entrusted
with power to govern for all: politicians. He sought jobs with small town newspapers. His knack
for discovering who really ran what, and why, and reporting it clearly and humorously in
succinct cartoons, led him to Washington, where he drew his cartoons for the most loved, or
most hated, paper in the Capital.

Nationally famous, he turned homeward to the person responsible for developing his
close observation of people, his discipline, and his unwavering honesty--Aunt Sophie. On one of
his trips he decided to buy a parcel of Oregon, to come home to, he said. He found the small
house with a few apple trees, plum and peach trees, and edging the property, blackberries. There
was also a Royal Ann cherry tree, and a pear. A small stream ran through the back. Aunt Sophie
fell in love with the place, so Uncle Boyd asked if she would do him a favor, live in it and take
care of it for him. There's no doubt in me that he planned it all along.