This material is copyright, 2010, by Uther
  Pendragon. All rights reserved. I specifically
  grant the right of downloading and keeping one
  electronic copy for your personal reading so long
  as this notice is included. Reposting requires
  previous permission. 
  If you have any comments or requests, please e-mail
  them to me at nogardnePrethU@gmail.com .
  All persons here depicted, except public figures
  depicted as public figures in the background, are
  figments of my imagination. Any resemblance to
  persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
  
  
  Formez vos Bataillons
  Uther Pendragon
  nogardneprethu@gmail.com
  
  MF MF
  
  
  "Maman," Cat called from the train aisle. A woman
  ahead of them was nursing a baby.
  
  "Come back here, mon chat. Yes, it is a beautiful
  sight." Jeanette wasn't going to let the poor woman
  think that she was doing wrong. "But it is a
  private event. When I fed you that way years ago,
  other people left us alone. Come back to your seat.
  Maybe when they are quite finished, she will let
  you see her baby then."
  
  "Sometimes, Cat," Bob added, "curiosity is good.
  Sometimes it is wrong." He pulled his feet back so
  that Cat could get inside to sit beside him. The
  train was far from full, and they had taken two
  facing seats for the three of them. "Curiosity
  about the world is wonderful. Curiosity about other
  people sometimes makes them feel bad." He was much
  more concerned about his daughter's keeping the
  curiosity about the world. But child rearing is a
  joint task, and Jeanette was in charge. She had
  more tact than he ever had, and she was likelier to
  be blamed for Cat's not acting tactfully.
  
  'Now,' Jeanette thought, 'he's teaching her that
  one shouldn't watch a woman nurse when it makes her
  uncomfortable. Too bad he didn't practice what he
  now preaches. Oh well, it's better than now
  preaching what he'd practiced. And, after all, he'd
  only leered at us in private.' She waited until the
  woman had burped the baby and put him to the side
  before she got up and nodded to Cat.
  
  "I'm really sorry," she said. "Cat has great
  curiosity and no manners. Wait six years. She does
  want to look at your baby."
  
  "I heard. That's quite all right." The woman moved
  as far back as she could in the seat. When Cat
  stood against the seat back, she moved her knees to
  allow her closer. Cat stared; the baby seemed
  indifferent to the attention. He was in a car seat
  with some toys dangling from the rim, and those
  were taking his attention now.
  
  "I think this is enough, mon chat."
  
  "Thank you for letting me see your baby."
  
  "You're welcome." And they trailed back to their
  seats.
  
  "Happy Cat?" asked Bob. He was less worried than
  Jeanette that Cat would annoy another passenger.
  Passengers who were easily annoyed by first-graders
  deserved little consideration. He was more worried
  that Cat would explore some mechanical device on
  the train that would hurt her.
  
  "Elle est tres belle."
  
  "Vraiment, a moins qu'il soit tres beau." Actually,
  Jeanette didn't think the baby was particularly
  cute, though it was a cuter boy than a girl.
  
  "Maman! est-ce-que vous croyez le bebe est un
  garcon?" Actually, Jeanette hadn't any evidence.
  The clothes looked more like a boy's baby clothes,
  but it wasn't as if he were dressed all in blue.
  
  "Je ne sais pas." And when Cat looked about to go
  ask. "Nous avons gene la bonne dame trop. Peut-etre
  *je*, ta maman, demandai plus tard. Tu ne demandas
  jamais." As Bob said, inquisitiveness was all very
  well, but it could easily become rudeness. Bob and
  she tried to keep the rule that Cat could ask them
  anything, but she would have to learn that she
  couldn't ask other people too many questions. The
  problem was that once that was established, what
  you could ask whom was a whole universe. Anyway,
  she'd told Cat to let that one woman alone.
  
  They'd brought some books, both old and new, to
  read to Cat to keep her amused. Bob was reading one
  of the old ones and Jeanette was deep into a
  mystery from the library when Cat's attention
  wandered.
  
  "Can we go eat now?"
  
  "Are you hungry?" There was a snack car on the
  train. While they had brought their own food, the
  tables were probably necessary. "We can eat when
  Maman gets to a stopping place." Jeanette found a
  stopping place before Cat started to nag her. She
  took Cat to the ladies' where they both relieved
  themselves and washed their hands. When Bob and Cat
  got to the snack car, the mother and the baby were
  there.
  
  "Is your baby a girl or a boy?" Cat asked. So much
  for 'jamais.' 'Never' had come quite soon.
  
  "He's a boy. His name's Billy."
  
  "Hello, Billy. My name is Cat."
  
  "And my name is Bob Brennan. I'm sorry our daughter
  has been bothering you."
  
  "I'm Grace Johnson. It hasn't been a bother."
  
  "Vous avez eu raison, Maman," Cat told Jeanette on
  her arrival. "Il est un garcon."
  
  "English, mon chat. It is not polite to speak a
  language in front of other people which they do not
  understand."
  
  "You were right. He is a boy. His name is Billy."
  
  "Hello Billy."
  
  "And this is Mrs. Johnson," put in Bob. "My wife
  Jeanette."
  
  "Hello," said Jeanette. "If you can tolerate us a
  bit longer, do you mind if we join you? Pulling Cat
  from this table would be a struggle."
  
  "Go right ahead."
  
  "We have carrot and celery sticks. You're welcome
  to them. They're not on Billy's diet right now, I
  can tell." Mrs. Johnson accepted some carrot
  sticks. Cat, who was much more interested in Billy,
  did not. She waved a finger within his reach.
  
  "Cat, no!" Jeanette said, pulling the arm back.
  "You don't touch another person without his
  permission."
  
  "I wasn't touching him. He wouldn't grab my finger
  if he didn't want to." And, of course, Maman had
  touched her without her permission. But Maman made
  rules; she didn't follow them.
  
  "In this case, Mrs. Johnson is the one to ask
  permission. And ask it first."
  
  "Mrs. Johnson, do you mind if Billy grabs my
  finger?"
  
  "That's all right, Cat, but don't let him put it in
  his mouth. He's teething."
  
  "Yes, ma'am." Cat went back to waving her finger in
  front of Billy. He smiled when he grabbed it.  She
  pulled it back, but only enough to keep the game
  going. Mrs. Johnson watched for a moment, then
  checked the change in her purse.
  
  "Do you think you could watch Billy for a minute
  while I get another burrito?"
  
  "No." Bob thought the checking the change suggested
  that she might be running out of money. "You watch
  Billy, and I'll get the burrito. Anything else I
  should know?" With her head-shake, he went to the
  machine. In his opinion, nursing mothers deserved
  all the help they could get. Nursing mothers who
  could keep Cat amused were worth gold. He brought
  back the burrito and gave it to her. When she
  offered him the coins, he shook his head. "It's a
  small recompense for the intrusion you suffered,
  and for your graciousness about it. Besides, we
  invested more in things to keep Cat amused, and
  they provided less amusement." He nodded towards
  the car seat.
  
  Billy was finding Cat as fascinating as Cat was
  finding him. When he tried to pull her finger into
  his mouth, Bob tapped the car seat to his right,
  when that caught his attention, Bob tapped the car
  seat to his left. He let go of Cat's finger to
  search for the new sounds.
  
  "Two fingers, Cat, like this." He held up two
  fingers together. She followed his direction, and
  Billy caught them again. When she wouldn't let them
  in his mouth, though, he began to get bored.
  
  "Let it go, Cat. Ta memere told ton pepere that one
  should always quit playing with a baby before the
  baby gets bored. Then he might be interested next
  time."
  
  When Mrs. Johnson gathered up her child to return
  to her seat, Cat started to follow her.
  
  "Mais non, mon chat. You wanted to come eat. Now
  eat."
  
  Cat sat with ill grace, but the first bites of food
  tasted good. She ate some carrot sticks, a piece of
  celery stuffed with peanut butter, and half a tuna
  sandwich. Jeanette put the other half away for
  later. Cat was easily filled, but she emptied out
  quickly. Last, she gave Cat a pickle slice that
  she'd packed especially for her. Cat accepted the
  dictum of 'dessert last,' and she enjoyed pickles
  for dessert. By the time they passed him on the way
  to their seats, Billy was asleep. The adults nodded
  to Mrs. Johnson. She got off somewhere in Virginia,
  and Bob got up to help her get a suitcase down from
  the upper rack.
  
  By that time, Cat was tired of sitting. Bob would
  really rather walk, himself, and Cat gave him a
  perfect excuse. He walked with her the length of
  the train until they couldn't go forward. When they
  had walked all the way back, he held her up to see
  the rails and ties running away from them.
  
  "Sot Papa," said Cat. "They aren't moving, we are."
  Then she leaned back against his chest and looked
  her fill. Papa might be silly, but he was also big
  and strong.
  
  Bob enjoyed the feel of Cat in his arms. Sure, she
  was heavy, and he wasn't as strong as he had been
  once. But he could remember holding Cat when she
  was tiny, so tiny that her diaper in his palm would
  put her neck in the crook of his elbow. Those days,
  she used to look up at him in absolute trust. He'd
  never betray that trust, even if she called him
  silly now. The problem, of course, is that
  fulfilling that trust meant letting her run free.
  And, when she ran free, he couldn't really protect
  her. Well, he'd enjoyed her infancy. He'd enjoyed
  her as a toddler. He would enjoy her as a grade-
  schooler as long as she was one.
  
  He had been bitter once -- once? he'd been bitter
  for decades -- about how his father had gone off on
  business trips for most of his childhood and Vi's.
  Now, he saw how much his father had missed. The old
  man had made his choices, and he'd regretted his
  choices, but he hadn't chosen selfishly.
  
  By the time they had eaten a second snack -- mostly
  celery for Bob and Jeanette -- and returned to
  their seats, they had time for only two books
  before they pulled into Southern Pines. Kathleen
  was there to meet them.
  
  "Alone?" Bob asked.
  
  "Catherine Angelique, look how big you are now."
  And, after the kiss, "There is only so much room in
  this car, Bob. Charles stayed back so you could
  have the leg room. Try to get all the luggage in
  the trunk, though." Almost everything fit. The rest
  went between Jeanette and Cat except for Cat's back
  pack. That went behind Bob's legs while he enjoyed
  the leg room. At home, there were greetings before
  they started unloading the luggage.
  
  "Je vous aime. Memere," Cat said to her
  grandmother. Having been warned minutes before, she
  walked to her decorously and hugged her legs. Kate
  returned the hug. "Sharl!" Cat then cried. She
  raced to him and collided with him. It was
  something between a hug and a tackle, but Charles
  could handle it. He lifted her for a mutual hug,
  and she ran her hands through his hair.  Charles
  was one of her favorite people, and his kinky hair
  was one thing which she enjoyed most about him.
  When he could set Cat down, Charles helped tote
  their stuff up to Bob's old room.
  
  "Sorry about this," Bob said. "When you figure that
  each outfit weighs less than half of what one of
  mine does, it's incredible how much you have to
  pack for a little girl."
  
  "Well, the books weigh more than yours do. Maybe
  not one volume, but one hour's reading sure does."
  Bob laughed in agreement.
  
  "I'm glad to see you," Kate Brennan greeted her
  son, "but don't you want to rest after your trip?"
  
  "Sitting down is the last thing I want now. We
  didn't walk here, after all. I'll move slowly,
  though. Is it hotter than it was when I was growing
  up, or has Chicago spoiled me? I feel as if the
  Carolina sun is punishing me for leaving home."
  
  "It punishes those of us who stay here, too. With
  all apologies to Chaucer, July is a crueler month
  than April."
  
  "If I'm going to be moving, is there anything
  useful I can do?"
  
  "Well, the lawn has been drying out. You know where
  the sprinkler is."
  
  "I'll get it. You'll have to tell me where to put
  it."
  
  Bob placed the lawn sprinkler at his mother's
  direction. Jeanette and Cat came out to join them
  and appreciate the breeze. Bob turned the water on
  at the wall spigot he knew well. Cat looked at the
  water arching up on the hot day.
  
  "Portcullis!" she said. "Maman? ..."
  
  "It's your grandmother's. You have to ask her."
  
  "Memere, my I play in your lawn sprinkler, please?"
  Cat had been going to ask Memere. Her permission
  was automatic. Maman was the one who made up all
  the rules.
  
  "If your mother permits, dear."
  
  "Maman?"
  
  "Change into your bathing suit, and bring a towel.
  And wear flip-flops in the house." Noting that
  she'd been right about all the rules, Cat scurried
  inside.
  
  "Portcullis, dear?" Kate asked.
  
  "She knows the real meaning of 'portcullis,'" Bob
  said. That hadn't been Kate's question. When, for
  that matter, had Bob learned the word? It had been
  after his freshman year in high school that the
  town library was closed for weeks for some building
  problem. She'd dug up a "favorite poems" book to
  save Bob from his print-withdrawal -- to save
  herself, really. Bob wasn't one to sulk in silence.
  That had included something about Marmion and a
  portcullis.
  
  "We have a lot of lawn sprinklers around us in
  Chicago," Jeanette began. She knew what Katherine's
  question had been. "People let them cover the
  sidewalk. When we would go walking, your son would
  say, 'Let's run to get through while the portcullis
  is up.' The three of us would rush through while
  the sprinkler was watering the lawn instead of the
  sidewalk."
  
  "Dear, really, 'your son'? You know, children are
  pot luck. You take what you get. What I got was Bob
  -- and Vi. Husbands, on the other hand, are a
  matter of choice. I can remember you being quite
  insistent that you wanted to marry Bob, and he was
  as bad back then."
  
  "Don't tell him, but I still want to be married to
  him. That doesn't mean I approve of all his
  habits."
  
  "My lips are sealed, dear. It would only make his
  head swell worse."
  
  "Impossible."
  
  "I think, though, that reporting his misdeeds as
  those of  'your son' is rather implying a blame on
  my part that I don't deserve. Cat, for that matter,
  is more your luck than your achievement."
  
  "Isn't life full of enjoyments at that age?"
  Kathleen asked. She and Charles had followed Cat
  out the door and were now watching her run in and
  out of the sprinkler. Charles was holding the
  towel. "Did I miss anything but my niece's being
  cute?"
  
  Bob said, "Jeanette just announced that it was
  impossible for my head to swell."
  
  Kathleen looked a question at Jeanette.
  
  "Any more!"
  
  "Do you remember, dear," Kate asked her daughter,
  "the summer that the library was closed and I found
  Bob the book of poems that were not by Kipling?"
  
  "Who could forget?" asked Kathleen. Bob had first
  learned a poem and then sought an audience. 'Bob's
  hitting me,' would probably bring protection from a
  parent. 'Bob's reciting poetry at me,' wouldn't.
  
  "What, warder, ho; let down the portcullis fall,"
  recited Bob. "I'd forgotten."
  
  "I didn't know you could ever forget a poem." said
  Jeanette.
  
  "You know, dear, you can complain about your
  brother all you want..."
  
  "No!" said Kathleen. "It bores Charles."
  
  "... But your famous vocabulary only partly comes
  from reading Britannica. Part of it came from
  having an older brother with a use vocabulary well
  advanced for his age."
  
  "Who talked all the time."
  
  "Well, yes, dear. But you weren't exactly a sphinx
  yourself."
  
  Charles was splitting his attention between Cat's
  cavorting and what he privately thought of as the
  ongoing Brennan debate. He tried to defend Kath
  against any accusations, but 'not exactly a sphinx'
  was too accurate -- or too great an understatement
  -- for him to refute. He never understood how his
  talkative wife could bear to practice Freudian
  analysis. That involved so much silent listening!
  
  "He forgot the book, dear," Kate explained, "He
  remembered the poem."
  
  "Not far advanced was morning day," Bob began. He
  rather proved her point by continuing until "the
  grate descending razed his plume." The others
  talked around him without taking notice.
  
  "Isn't she a dear," asked Kathleen.
  
  "Then you can dry her off and get her into her
  regular clothes," said Jeanette.
  
  "Gladly. Are you sure that you want her out of the
  swimsuit? The weather is hot."
  
  "Not until she wants to do something else or it's
  nearly dinner time. And she can really dress
  herself. It's just that being a mother is a full-
  time job."
  
  "Yes, dear," said Katherine, "but it is another
  thing that you wanted. And, I must say, Cat is
  quite able to find ways of amusing herself."
  
  "True. My job is seeing that those ways don't put
  her in danger or invade some stranger's privacy.
  And, for all your 'potluck,' it's the Brennan in
  her. For all his complaints about faculty meetings,
  I've never seen Bob actually bored."
  
  "And Cat is starting to read, isn't she?"
  
  "She still prefers to have books read to her."
  
  "Yes, dear. But when the tipping point comes,
  you'll have more time to yourself. I can remember
  checking on them both. You realize that there has
  been silence for hours. Have they snuck off? Have
  they died? Are they plotting some mischief? Instead
  they were each lying down with a book. Now,
  Kathleen would lie on her bed. Bob, on the other
  hand, preferred the floor."
  
  "A carpet was soft enough at that age." Bob, having
  finished Scott, was ready to rejoin the
  conversation. "Probably relates to the square-cube
  law.  And, you've never seen me bored because
  you're so fascinating yourself. If I don't have
  something else to look at, I look at Jeanette. One,
  only one, of the many reasons faculty committee
  meetings are so dull is that I don't have the
  option of looking at you."
  
  "Come here and dry off, Cat," Charles called. He
  thought she was starting to look tired. He dried
  off face and arms, lifted her onto the porch, and
  dried off her legs and feet.
  
  "Stay in the sun for the next ten minutes, mon
  Chat." Jeanette felt that politeness required
  speaking English in front of the others.
  Endearments don't count. All of them knew that much
  French.
  
  "Oui, Maman." The sun felt good; Cat was a little
  chilly. She sat down on the porch step. Memere,
  Sharl, and Tante Kathleen were all here. When she
  felt too antsy to sit, any one of them would come
  with her to explore the streets outside. And, when
  they did, Maman would insist she wear the flip-
  flops, if not shoes. Elle aime Maman, mais elle
  commande trop. She twisted her toes and listened to
  the talk over her head.
  
  Cat nearly went to sleep while they talked about
  Congress and global warming. Her listening was
  rewarded, though, when they got around to talking
  about her.
  
  "I still can't believe," said Kate, "that Cat can
  learn three languages at the same time. I'll admit
  that her English is still wonderful, aside from
  silliness like 'portcullis.' I'm not saying that it
  isn't happening; I'm saying that it isn't
  possible."
  
  "The ability to learn language is something we
  don't understand," Bob replied. "One of the Berlitz
  family was the clear heir to the schools from his
  birth. They decided that he should have some
  command of most of the languages they taught. Each
  member of the family was assigned a single
  language. He was raised speaking a different
  language with each person. If Jeanette wanted me to
  talk with Cat in French, she'd learn Jeanette's
  accent and my accent. It's happened."
  
  "Which is why I don't want you talking to her in
  French."
  
  "D'accord, ma femme."
  
  "See?"
  
  "But," Charles asked, "you still have time on task.
  If she can learn a thousand words of French, a
  thousand words of English, and a thousand words of
  Spanish in a given time, why can't she learn three
  thousand words of English in the same time?"
  
  "A guess?" Bob got nods from the others. "She isn't
  learning words so much as she is learning concepts.
  The world is a blooming buzzing confusion when
  you're dumped into it. That the swing-back-and-
  forth source of water is the same as the twirl-
  around-in-a-circle source of water is the same as
  the other designs is a task. And, remember, when
  you first see them, they are shiny shapes; it's not
  at all clear that those shiny arcs are streams of
  water. Compared to this, learning that they are
  called 'portcullis' and 'lawn sprinkler' and
  whatever the French and Spanish are is a minor
  task. Where Cat's language skills will be truly
  trilingual is in her thinking of the word meaning
  the thing. I, sometimes even Jeanette, think of
  'chien' as meaning the English word 'dog.' I don't
  think of it as meaning some animal running down the
  street."
  
  Cat got up to look at the dog Papa was talking
  about, but she didn't see it. It must have gone.
  Her front was dry, but her back was still wet. It,
  particularly the seat, was beginning to feel bad.
  She lay down on her front on the porch to get that
  into the sun.
  
  "See," said Kate gesturing to her granddaughter,
  "Bob used to lie like that."
  
  "Genes," Jeanette guessed. She looked fondly at her
  daughter. If they tried to make Cat lie down in a
  soft bed for an hour, they would have a battle
  royal. But she was quite content to lie on a hard
  wooden porch in the way of anyone who wanted to go
  back in the house. Maybe it was the nickname. She
  was behaving remarkably like a house cat. "How long
  to dinner?" she asked.
  
  "Well, dear, if there is something you want to do .
  . ." Jeanette shook her head and pointed to Cat.
  "Then, I was planning for an hour and a half from
  now."
  
  Kathleen saw the problem. if Cat dropped off now,
  her whole schedule would be off.
  
  "Want to walk the neighborhood?" she asked Charles.
  He nodded. He managed to suppress his anxiety.
  Alone, he wouldn't be the only black face out
  there; with Kath and Cat, he'd be quite
  conspicuous. Kath never worried, and it was her
  town. For that matter, he'd seldom had a problem
  here. And there were bigots in Philadelphia, too.
  "C'mon, Cat. Change clothes and we'll go out for a
  walk. Tante K'leen will help you change." Cat got
  up.
  
  "Flip-flops inside the house," said Jeanette. Cat
  obeyed, and she and Tante Kathleen went upstairs to
  change. She didn't need help, and Tante Kathleen
  didn't insist on giving it. Except for drying her
  back, she merely watched. And Cat was happy having
  an audience. When they came downstairs, Charles
  joined them. They walked together, while Kathleen
  told Charles -- and Cat were she interested -- her
  memories of the places they passed. They got back
  shortly before supper.
  
  At dinner, Cat was hyper to fend off sleepiness.
  Jeanette, Kate, and even Bob guessed the reason;
  the other two adults noticed the behavior. For
  once, the Brennan table had only one conversation.
  Whenever an adult started to say something on
  another subject, Cat objected. "Papa, you are not
  listening!" Bob, figuring it was better than the
  alternative, listened. The obvious alternative was
  to send Cat to bed right then. That would mean to
  stay there keeping her in the room physically until
  she collapsed into sleep. Which would risk having
  her wake in the middle of the night, ravenous. That
  didn't mean that he enjoyed the process. Kathleen,
  Charles and his mother were seeing a side to Cat he
  would have preferred that they do not.
  
  "Now, mon chat, it is time for bed," Jeanette said
  at the end of the meal.
  
  "Pourquoi?"
  
  "Because you need your rest for tomorrow."
  
  "Pourquoi?"
  
  "Because you have had a busy energetic day today,
  and we got up early." Jeanette had sworn not to
  tell her child 'because I say so.' That didn't mean
  that she was never tempted, and it certainly didn't
  mean that she never cheated.
  
  "Pourquoi?"
  
  "Because we had to catch the train to get here."
  
  "Pourquoi?"
  
  "I keep six honest serving-men," recited Bob,
  "(They taught me all I knew);
  "Their names are What and Why and When
  "And How and Where and Who."
  
  "I can't hear that," Cat screamed. She climbed down
  from her chair, turned her back, and stuffed her
  fingers in her ears.
  
  "I send them over land and sea," Bob continued
  remorselessly.
  "I send them east and west;
  "But after they have worked for me,
  "I give them all a rest.
  
  "I let them rest from nine till five,
  "For I am busy then,
  "As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
  "For they are hungry men.
  "But different folk have different views;
  "I know a person small --
  "She keeps ten million serving-men,
  "Who get no rest at all!
  
  "She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,
  "From the second she opens her eyes --
  "One million Hows, two million Wheres,
  "And seven million Whys!" As soon as he had
  finished, Cat unstuffed her ears and turned back.
  
  "I didn't hear that," she said. But her mother was
  there to catch her hand.
  
  "We are going upstairs now."
  
  "Will Cat walk with Maman, or will Cat be carried
  by Papa?" asked Bob. Given the choice, Cat limped
  sulkily towards the stairs.
  
  "Still want?..." Jeanette asked Kate over her
  shoulder.
  
  "Definitely!" Kate had handled tantrums. She wasn't
  going to let one deprive her of her granddaughter's
  company.
  
  "Sorry about that," said Bob.
  
  "She's tired," said Kathleen. "Maybe we shouldn't
  have taken that walk."
  
  "At that point, all we could do was choose when.
  Had she gone to sleep, she'd have had the tantrum
  when we woke her for dinner. And, flexible as young
  limbs are, I wouldn't have known how much was
  sleeping on the bare boards. It isn't the exercise;
  she had little on the train, though she walked the
  aisle more than she sat in her seat. It's the lack
  of sleep. When do you respond to sleepiness by
  heading for bed, anyway?"
  
  "Good question."  Charles took that question to be
  directed to him. He was a pediatrician, after all.
  "I think it is something you learn slowly over
  time. Certainly, once you have finished a
  residency, you head for bed when the opportunity
  offers." They laughed.
  
  "Sometimes," Kathleen put in, "you even sleep." She
  had been the baby of the family for far too long.
  Since nobody else would, she liked to make the
  point that she was an adult.
  
  Charles kept quiet. He didn't know whether his
  embarrassment at Kath's mentioning their sexual
  activities to her family was because they were her
  family or because they were white. Although it was
  the 21st century, although they had a marriage
  license, he still felt a frisson of fear about
  fucking a white woman south of the Mason-Dixon
  line. And, really, although her family knew that
  those activities were part of marriage -- they'd
  even provided opportunities before the marriage --
  it was still something you didn't say. The list of
  things the Brennans didn't say was quite short.
  
  They shared stories of all-nighters. Some of Kate's
  stories were ones her children hadn't heard. The
  matron they remembered had once been an art-history
  major romantically involved with an older man at
  the graduate school of business.
  
  "Two years, Mother," said Kathleen.
  
  "Well, two years -- nearer three in age -- was
  significant back then. He was a grad student, and
  in business school. I was an undergraduate, and in
  something pure. My parents weren't scandalized, but
  many of my classmates were. And, of course, I
  didn't tell my parents enough to be scandalized
  until I was enrolled in the MAT program."
  
  "And you complained about me."
  
  "Well, I introduced them to Russ when everyone came
  to my second graduation. He was out and employed by
  then. I didn't announce it to them by saying he'd
  be sleeping in my bed."
  
  "And was he?"
  
  "Now that would be telling," she said. Charles
  laughed.
  
  "I was just wondering whether there was anything
  that Brennans didn't say."
  
  "That depends, dear, on the Brennan. And, of
  course, to whom. Kathleen, as I just said, kept you
  very secret from us. She may have told her
  classmates. Bob didn't tell us much about Jeanette,
  but we never figured out whether that was keeping
  secrets. He later claimed it was something that
  should have been obvious."
  
  "You knew I was dating her. If you didn't know it
  was love, it took me a while to figure that out for
  myself. And it took longer for me to tell her.
  Besides, at some point quite early, it became Bob-
  and-Jeanette. After that, Dad would have been
  shocked were I to betray a confidence. Even the
  louts who bragged to their friends 'I got to second
  base last night' weren't saying that to their
  parents. What was Dad's memory of my report before
  I signed the app for road construction?"
  
  "'I really think she really likes me.' Not terribly
  clear, dear."
  
  "But that was the news. That was what I brought
  away from the discussion. Jeanette liked me, or I
  thought she did."
  
  "Well, dear, for someone so articulate, you never
  actually said anything about how you felt about
  her. I'm glad you told her. Indeed, the first time
  that you mentioned love for her within my hearing
  was when you were addressing her. Now, we did have
  hints. You told us that you had to get to the track
  meet because Jeanette was running. Did you ever
  watch a boys' track meet?"
  
  "They held a couple of joint meets. Otherwise, to
  echo my daughter, pourquoi?"
  
  "My point, exactly. We were clear, indeed you
  sometimes told us, that you went there to watch
  Jeanette run."
  
  "And it was incredibly important that he was
  there." Jeanette had come downstairs. "Once Greg
  brought me to a meet, and I fell down. I came in
  dead last. Greg tried to console me. He was being
  nice, but all I could think of was that Bob
  couldn't hug away the embarrassment."
  
  "We were talking about how little Bob told us,
  dear."
  
  "Well, part of the secrecy was for me. Like when he
  asked me to go steady."
  
  "I never heard about that, dear."
  
  "Precisement! I told him I didn't want to have
  dates with anybody else, but my mother would kill
  me if I went steady with him. They had to know when
  he took me to the dance. They didn't know about the
  other times we met. By that time, I was telling my
  mother as little about my life as possible, but Bob
  was especially secret. High school was bad enough.
  You never knew when something your fellow students
  knew would get back to my parents. After all,
  everybody went into the pharmacy.
  
  "Anyway," she continued, "Cat is sleeping on the
  pad in your room. I'm sorry for the behavior."
  
  "Don't worry about the behavior, dear. I've raised
  two, and seen worse. Believe me. The pad, on the
  other hand..."
  
  "Do you remember what happened the last time you
  two shared a bed?"
  
  "It wasn't the last time, dear. And the sheets were
  washable. So, for that matter, was I."
  
  "The mattress..."
  
  "It's a water bed. You know the cover is
  waterproof. And Cat enjoys it so much. When you lie
  on it, the bed jiggles."
  
  "Well, you don't mind, but Cat does. I don't want
  her strongest memory of this trip to be
  embarrassment."
  
  "In that case, dear, as the adult who wants it,
  it's my duty to have a plan to eliminate the
  occasion for embarrassment."
  
  "Really, she's getting better. But I have fears for
  tonight. When she finally got to sleep, she went
  deep."
  
  "And so should we all," said Kathleen. "It's been a
  long day. Sorry I wasn't more help on dinner."
  
  "You were a great help, dear. That walk was
  precisely what was needed. And it wasn't a long day
  for me -- expectations, of course. But I'm not the
  one who drove all day. Really, I enjoy your
  presence. I'm not expecting you to entertain me."
  
  Bob and Jeanette stayed downstairs with her,
  though, while Kathleen and Charles went up to bed.
  The day had been grungy enough to suggest a shower
  before bed, though they had showered in the morning
  before starting out.
  
  "Save water?" asked Charles.
  
  "Not here." Not that sharing a shower really saved
  any water. At home, the hot sometimes ran out; it
  never did when one showered after the other. She
  took her robe with her and headed for the bathroom.
  
  When Charles replaced her, he mused on Kath's odd
  sense of propriety. They couldn't be in the shower
  together when her family was downstairs, but she
  would make suggestive comments to them. Well,
  understanding Kath was hard enough; understanding
  Kath when she was dealing with her family was
  impossible. Actually, there were four interactions.
  She genuinely loved her mother, but she hadn't
  quite got over adolescent rebellion. Fighting her
  brother was too good a sport to abandon. The truth
  was that she and Bob had enjoyed their childhoods
  and reenacted them on visits home. She and Jeanette
  were good friends. Her relationship to Cat was
  close to adoration -- mutual adoration, often
  enough. He returned to the room wondering what
  limits Kath's propriety would place on their sex
  life. She'd packed her diaphragm. He didn't need
  sex every night, but his picture of a vacation
  involved relaxed sex.
  
  "Lock the door," Kath greeted him. He did so before
  hanging up his clothes. He put his pajamas and robe
  on the other bed beside Kath's nightie and robe.
  When he had put his glasses on the night stand,
  neither of them wore anything but rings. He slid
  under the covers to touch her everywhere along her
  length. The twin bed with a footboard was confining
  after the queen-sized one they shared at home which
  would let his feet hang over. But the close
  quarters could be fun, too.
  
  Kathleen felt the familiar warmth of Char beside
  her. After their kiss he started to speak.
  
  "No words," she whispered. "Let's be absolutely
  silent." She felt him nod against her head. Then he
  began stroking her again. She eased back against
  his warmth while his hand played all over her body.
  A huge hand as it encompassed her breast as her
  hand certainly could not -- a clever hand as two
  fingers rubbed her areola on each side of the
  nipple while another brushed the nipple very
  lightly. Their next major purchase had to be a
  piano, those clever fingers had to play something
  more than her body, pleasant as it was to have them
  play her body.
  
  He started to slide his right hand under Kath's
  body. When it stuck, he stopped. She raised herself
  to allow him passage. When that hand cupped her
  other breast, she eased back down. His erection was
  jammed against her. He used his left hand to pull
  it up to pass between her legs. She raised that
  leg, and he took advantage of the easier access to
  cup her mons with his left hand. When she eased the
  leg back down, his erection was trapped between her
  legs and his hand was trapped where he most wanted
  it to be. He slowly stroked her labia with two
  fingers.
  
  He and Kath had fallen into a pattern over their
  time together. He saw that she got hers, and she
  saw that he got his. After a certain point, of
  course, he'd get his unless she held a gun to his
  head. (After a later point, he'd get his unless she
  pulled the trigger.) But it was nicer to have your
  lover worrying about you than having her worrying
  about herself. Even though Kath could be a wicked
  tease, some of those times had been his most
  explosive orgasms. Often, of course, they had
  mutual sex, sometimes even mutual orgasms, (On
  really special occasions, he could bring Kath to a
  series of moaning climaxes and then get his relief
  in her still-quivering body. But that wasn't for
  this house.) But those times he made sure that she
  was well on the road before he got close. One
  complication was that Kath was quite capable of
  multiple orgasms under the proper conditions. He,
  on the other hand, had left his teen years far
  behind. On those nights, he'd see that she got
  hers; then they'd see that they got theirs. Tonight
  was probably not a proper condition. Tomorrow night
  might well be. All the time he was thinking this,
  he was stroking her to readiness.
  
  She was reveling in the strokes of Char's magic
  fingers. She'd gone from post-trip tension to
  luxurious relaxation to quite another sort of
  tension. The sounds of Bob talking to Jeanette from
  next door when they had come up only set her back a
  little. The heat was building. When he removed his
  hand from her breast to reach for the bag
  containing her diaphragm, she came almost all the
  way back. His insertion would be silent. The
  consequent motion would cause sounds which would be
  unmistakable throughout the house. She grabbed his
  arm. Then she held a finger to his lips.
  
  He thought Kath's worries were silly. But making
  love to a worrying partner was a serious problem.
  He slid out of bed. His hand was fine for
  preliminary orgasms. The one orgasm of the night,
  however, deserved his mouth if not his phallus.
  Kath moved, trying -- he noted -- for silence, to
  lie diagonally on the bed with her legs off. He
  knelt between her feet and kissed up her thighs.
  When his lips got to her labia, his hands went to
  her breasts. Lick a labium; brush a nipple; lick
  the other labium; tweak the same nipple; lick her
  clitoris. The variations could be endless. He
  enjoyed them all. That she did too was evidenced by
  her gripping his hair to pull his face against her
  vulva.
  
  She enjoyed Char's tongue as much as she enjoyed
  his fingers. His teasing delay, only stimulating
  one thing at a time, visiting her clit so seldom,
  felt frustrating now, but she knew they would take
  her higher. She even enjoyed his special, wiry,
  hair. She played with it when she didn't need to
  pull him into her to increase the stimulation. As
  she soared, she let go with one hand to grab a
  pillow. Her last willed act was to pull it over her
  face. Then the fire burned through her.
  
  He knew Kath was close when she reached for the
  pillow. He squeezed both nipples while licking her
  clitoris. When she stiffened, he sucked her
  clitoris while pinching the nipples. He let go of
  the nipples when she moaned, but he kept sucking
  her clitoris as she arched beneath him. When she
  relaxed, he straightened. He got to his feet and
  swung her straight on the bed. Then he got in
  beside her and pressed his length to hers. He held
  his love as she recovered her breath.
  
  She came back from rapture to comfort. Char was
  there, and he was holding her. She experienced his
  gentleness now, only knowing his strength by memory
  and by the muscular chest against her face. As she
  recovered her strength, she petted his torso. She
  knew that he didn't want her hands below his waist
  until she was ready to do something about the
  resulting arousal. When she had her breath back,
  she reached over to turn on the lamp. She'd sworn
  after the first time she had watched his face while
  she sucked him off that she would never again do it
  in the dark.
  
  The lamp light, Kath's mouth on his nipple, her
  hand on his thigh, all hardened his erection. She
  got to her knees and edged away. He lay flat as
  close to the center of the bed as he could get. She
  climbed over his right leg. These motions, when she
  was intending only the practical action of shifting
  their relative position in a too-narrow bed, were
  more erotic than any poses Playboy had ever
  printed. Of course, what she was preparing to do
  might have fed his arousal, too. He scooted up the
  last inch in the bed and put both pillows under his
  head. She wanted to watch his face while he came,
  and he wanted to watch her mouth as she brought him
  off.
  
  She clipped her hair back again. She didn't want it
  obscuring her sight. She rested one hand on his hip
  while she took him in the other. She slowly let
  herself down until she had the tip of his cock in
  her mouth.  Char's face looked expectant. She bent
  further until her mouth was full of him. She
  managed to watch his face as she rose up. He smiled
  at her, but he was beginning to look concerned. She
  licked the shaft all the way from the base to the
  notch in the head. When she swirled her tongue all
  the way around the head, his look of concern
  deepened. She was about to tease him with more
  licks when the sound from the next room penetrated
  her consciousness. The bed in there was sounding
  the beat that she'd been afraid her bed would
  sound. Well, they wouldn't hear her and Char, now.
  Should she? But, first, she engulfed the head to
  keep Char entertained while she considered.
  
  Bob and Jeanette had stayed downstairs with his
  mother. She asked him to turn on the TV for the
  news. When that program was over, she started
  watching the next show. Jeanette had a sudden
  suspicion that Katherine wanted to climb the stairs
  without witnesses. Was age taking its toll on her?
  Well, she could allow her her dignity.
  
  "Will you excuse *us*, Katherine? Cat isn't the
  only one of the family who had a long day." She'd
  got up. Bob was not particularly sensitive, but he
  had to have heard the 'us.' He'd got up too. Which
  meant that Katherine, the subtle Brennan, almost
  certainly had heard the hint. But she had made no
  protestation.
  
  "I'll watch a little more. Have a nice night. It's
  great to have you all here."
  
  "Nice of her to include us," Bob had said at the
  top of the stairs. "We know which one she really
  enjoys."
  
  "Well, while she'd manage Cat if we sent her alone
  -- not that Amtrak would -- I think our parenting
  adds to the pleasure of the visit. And, even before
  Cat, she was always welcoming."
  
  "Y'know, dear, 'You do it because your mother told
  you to do it' is a perfectly valid reason at this
  age. Some things have contexts beyond Cat's
  comprehension. Some things are matters of social
  convention. I've seen women feed their kids sugary
  Kool-Ade out of a baby bottle. Now, that is worthy
  of shame. Breast-feeding is not shameful, but it
  isn't something that the mother wants strange
  little girls watching. I don't think you'll be able
  to explain that to Cat for years; I'm not sure that
  you can explain it to me."
  
  "Mommy's reason for everything was 'Because I say
  so.'" In the room, she'd begun to remove her
  clothes. Bob had followed suit.
  
  "Well, it can be overdone; so can anything else.
  And in some moods, Cat isn't going to be reasoned
  into anything."
  
  "I just don't want to say that, Bob. Can you?"
  
  "Yes. Because my wife tells me to do it. Or,
  rather, to avoid saying that." He'd grabbed his
  robe and headed for the bathroom. When he got back,
  she'd taken her turn. She'd locked the door when
  she'd returned. Cat was good about knocking on
  doors, but -- in a sense -- this was her room, too.
  Bob had been lying on his side of the bed. She'd
  hung up nightgown and robe where she could grab
  them easily come morning. When she'd crawled into
  bed, they'd hugged. He'd kissed her deeply.
  
  He'd felt Jeanette's entire length against him.
  Their mouths had touched as their tongues danced
  with each other. Her sweet, soft, breasts had
  pressed into his chest. Her thighs had been firm
  and smooth against his cock, and he had pulled her
  butt to press them against it more firmly.
  
  "Oh, I love you," he'd whispered. She had known
  that he did. If it was more desire than love
  speaking at the moment, that was okay. She had
  desired Bob, too. She spent so much time as a
  student, so much time as a mother; that had been
  pure wife time, the purer as Katherine was there to
  answer Cat if she woke. She'd felt Bob's hands on
  her butt and his erection firming against her legs.
  He'd held her breast. She'd known he was willing --
  as he always was willing, had been willing on their
  first night -- to tamp down his desire while he
  built up hers. Her desire had been, though, already
  quite high. She'd brought his hand to her center to
  show him.
  
  He'd loved Jeanette, desired Jeanette. It had been
  only partly the transformation of the tensions of
  the day into sexual tension. The room, and the
  years he'd spent in the room in unsatisfied desire
  for Jeanette Jacobs, was another small part. Her
  skill with their daughter and kindness toward his
  family had, perhaps, been another sliver. Mostly,
  however, it had been that he had always desired
  her. She was the sexiest woman he knew. And he'd
  had her sexy butt and her even sexier breasts in
  his hand. Then she'd pulled that hand to her
  sexiest part. To crown it all, her cunt had been
  running. When she'd fallen onto her back, he'd
  stroked that moisture all along her cunt lips. When
  his finger had passed over her clit the first time,
  she'd gripped his shoulder.
  
  Even after she'd signaled her readiness to Bob,
  he'd taken his time. He'd hissed her breast up to
  the nipple; then he'd sucked the nipple. All the
  time, he'd been tickling her clit. She'd had to
  pull harder on his shoulder to start him moving to
  kneel between her legs. Then, once in place, he'd
  moved up above her while he'd moved into her. The
  familiar warm wedge had parted her lower lips. Then
  her entry had stretched while it had been rubbed.
  She felt the shaft glide through the entrance as
  the head went on to spread her deeper and deeper.
  Finally, she had been filled, filled with the love
  of her life. Bob had paused and shifted -- a
  shifting which had been exciting in its own right -
  - until his hands were on her breasts. He'd
  whispered before moving.
  
  "So, warm, so sweet. I love you." And he had loved
  Jeanette -- loved her all the more for the
  answering hug of her arms on his back, her legs
  around his hips. She had delivered an even sexier,
  more private, hug on his member buried in her. Then
  he had begun the old rhythm holding her breasts in
  his hand and gazing into her eyes in the dimness.
  He'd gone slowly and gently at first, and she'd
  responded with gentle raisings of her hips to meet
  him. Then, when his hunger had driven him more
  strongly, she'd responded more strongly.
  
  Their rocking had driven the bed's rocking that
  Kathleen had heard.
  
  Jeanette gritted her teeth as the tension rose. She
  was in Bob's arms. held by him, holding him as he
  moved above her and within her. Seven years of
  motherhood kept her from crying out, but her mind
  cried out as the fire flared within her. As Bob
  squeezed her breasts, the fire filled her --
  consumed her. She was the fire.
  
  He felt Jeanette stiffen under him, then rise
  against him. Finally, he felt her contract
  rhythmically around him where he was stroking
  through her moist warmth. That took him over. He
  drew out until only his tip was enclosed, He drove
  down and in and forward. Poised above her and
  buried deep within her, he pulsed and pulsed and
  pumped his essence into her. When he collapsed he
  was able to fall to the side. They were so wrapped
  together that he brought her with him. They lay
  panting face to face.
  
  "Love," he managed to say finally.
  
  "Love you," she replied. It was minutes before they
  restored the sheets and spooned together. It had
  been a long day, and Cat was a less immediate
  responsibility. She was with sa memere. They were
  soon deep in sleep.
  
  Meanwhile, Kathleen had made her decision. With Bob
  engaged in his own sexual activities-- somehow, she
  never worried about Jeanette overhearing her,
  although she was also engaged in her own sexual
  activities -- they wouldn't be overheard. The
  diaphragm might take too long, but she had a condom
  in her diaphragm bag for emergencies. This
  qualified. Char's expression went from frustrated
  to puzzled as she rooted in the bag and pulled out
  the packet. She couldn't spare his face any
  attention until she'd sheathed him. She crawled up
  in the bed, decided that putting a nipple in Char's
  mouth would put her head through the wall, and
  poised over his center. She watched his face as she
  grasped him and herself. His expression as she
  slowly impaled herself on him was as erotic as the
  sensation of his cock entering her, filling her.
  
  He'd been frustrated when Kath stopped all
  stimulation. The woman was a terrible tease,
  capable of starting conversations while he ached
  for relief. But she'd made in quite clear that she
  didn't want any love-bed conversation in this
  house. When she reached for her bag, he was
  puzzled. Inserting her diaphragm was his task, and
  they both loved having him do it. She'd said not
  to. The rubber was another puzzle. Then she was
  towering over him ready to take him into her. The
  sight of her nakedness above him, fuzzy as it was,
  aroused him powerfully. The smoothness as she
  engulfed him was even more exciting than his entry
  into her ever was. But he had to bring her along,
  and that would be difficult considering his present
  state. He reached his right hand between her legs
  as his left cupped her breast.
  
  She loved him, and often respected his
  intelligence. Char could be so smart about so much,
  and then so stupid about such obvious things. She
  had already had hers. This was going to be his
  climax, and her view. She grabbed his hand before
  it reached her clit and brought it to her left
  breast. She rested her hands on his shoulders. With
  her arms straight, she raised her hips until the
  head of his cock was beginning to spread her
  vestibule. Then she watched his face as she lowered
  herself again. The warmth of his hands was
  arousing, the friction of his cock in her was
  arousing. The expression of wonder on his face was
  most arousing of all. She found herself timing the
  rhythm of her rise and fall around his cock to the
  sounds of the bed from the other room.
  
  He had to allow Kath her way on this, and her way
  was remarkably unselfish. As he held her breasts in
  his hands, he watched -- and felt -- her loins
  swing up and down over his phallus. Kath was beyond
  teasing now. She rose and fell around him as
  steadily as a metronome. As his arousal approached
  its peak, her pace seemed to increase. He gasped as
  he rose into her, lifting her entire weight as he
  shot and shot. She was still above him, engulfing
  him, her face enigmatic, while he panted in
  repletion.
  
  She watched Char's expression go from pleasure to
  concern to worry. In this position, with her arms
  straight and her hands on his shoulders, their
  faces were at the same distance while their groins
  met and parted. Worry turned to agony just before
  he bucked under her. The agony got even more
  intense as he throbbed within her. Then she watched
  it relax into deepest bliss. His hands fell from
  her breasts. He started to look concerned again,
  and reached between her legs. This time, she raised
  herself slightly so he could grasp the condom while
  he eased out. She took the condom from him, wrapped
  it in Kleenex, and dropped it into the waste
  basket. She handed him another Kleenex and took one
  for herself before she moved off and lay on her
  side. He turned on his and held her as the sounds
  from the other room sped again and then stopped
  with a smack.
  
  "But you didn't," Char said. She had, earlier. And
  she'd seen him come from a remarkable vantage
  point.  Maybe she should do that more often at
  home. Anyway, Bob might not be listening -- from
  the sounds he was probably talking -- but it was no
  longer safe.
  
  "We'll talk tomorrow, somewhere outside. Get the
  lamp, will you." He got the lamp and it was dark,
  darker than it would be in minutes when her eyes
  readjusted. The magic fingers might be the greatest
  pleasure of being married to Char, but the long
  arms were another advantage. She would have had to
  move to reach the lamp. Life was good. "Thank you,
  God." It was the last words from either of them
  that night.
  
  Kate stayed down watching TV. She wasn't ignoring
  it, was following, even predicting the plot twists.
  But that didn't take all her attention. Now that
  she watched more television, she marveled that
  anyone, however immature and EMH, could have TV
  fill their thoughts. On another level, she enjoyed
  having her children sleeping in her house -- and
  her grandchild. The house was somehow much emptier
  with Russ in the graveyard than it had ever been
  with him at the office. And, of course, only her
  mind told her that five persons were asleep
  upstairs. But it still was much less lonely. 
  
  And, if they had sought their beds for another
  reason than sleep, that was great, too. Whatever
  her daughter thought, she did not begrudge her the
  enjoyment of an active sex life. Russ used to say
  that each of us carries a little copy of our
  friends -- even of our acquaintances -- inside us.
  Our behavior often responds, not to the actual
  person, but to that inaccurate copy. Well,
  Kathleen's copy of Kate was a woman who had
  obviously never explained to Vi how women could
  masturbate and that it was a morally-neutral but
  exceptionally private activity. She was reacting
  against a puritan who was quite unlike the mother
  she'd actually had. Someday, preferably when
  Charles wasn't there to be embarrassed, she was
  going to tell her daughter, "I know you're screwing
  Charles, dear. I assigned you to the same room,
  remember?"
  
  Anyway, both Kathleen and Jeanette had led their
  husbands upstairs. She was not going to supervise
  her children's sex lives, but she could approve.
  And wives making the first move brought her
  approval. Men could chase their wives; Russ had
  often enjoyed being the instigator. But making them
  put out more effort to get you than they would have
  to put out to get their secretaries was asking for
  trouble. No. Wanting sex, enjoying sex, being
  honest about enjoying sex, was the first step
  towards a happy marriage. And those were two happy
  marriages. 
  
  Jeanette was the best thing which had ever happened
  to Bob -- Cat, of course, but Cat wouldn't have
  come without Jeanette. And, she realized, the Bob
  she pictured with Jeanette happening to him had
  already been partly formed by his earlier
  relationship to Jeanette. The marriage might have
  come at an inconvenient time, but they had done
  wonderfully by it. And -- she reached over to a
  table to knock on wood -- this was the good life
  they had earned. Jeanette was finally getting her
  degree. Bob was teaching at Northwestern and
  publishing often enough to keep everybody happy. 
  
  Cat seemed to be fitting in at school. She was not
  only learning -- Kate had never worried about her
  intellectual progress -- she was getting along with
  her classmates. All Kate's worries about Inter-
  American had been for naught. Where the student
  body broke down into Latinos and Yanquis, Cat had
  been one of the Yanquis most ready to be friends
  with the Latinos. "I heard her talking French with
  her mother," wouldn't cause much of a scandal in
  that environment. Whatever her interests turned out
  to be -- it would serve Bob right if she decided to
  major in art history or economics -- having three
  languages wouldn't hurt. 
  
  Bob, who couldn't remember lying down screaming and
  kicking the floor about being taken from the toy
  department at Macy's was embarrassed by Cat's
  insisting on dominating the table conversation.
  Kate, who could remember the Macy's incident very
  well, was much less bothered by Cat's actions. And,
  at least, the worst punishment that had even been
  threatened was the recital of a teasing poem. And
  Cat was poor enough a liar that she took the
  fingers out of her ears just as soon as the poem
  that she claimed not to hear was over. A girl that
  bright would tell better lies if she had any
  experience telling them. So Cat seldom lied and Bob
  wasn't a secret child-beater. What had he said once
  about having the negative virtues? Kate wasn't
  going to supervise child raising, either --
  although Jeanette was kind enough to occasionally
  ask for advice -- but she could approve of that,
  too. 
  
  And, as the program drew to a close, it was time to
  enjoy Cat's warm body as well as warm thoughts
  about her. She got up, waited for the last scene,
  clicked off the first commercial, unplugged the
  set, and headed for the kitchen to get the timer.
  She had a remote somewhere around, but Russ had had
  an aversion to them. The TV had been Russ's, the
  network news his addiction. Joint property was a
  legal fiction; so much of what they owned was
  really one person's -- his TV, her cookware, his
  books, her books. She climbed the stairs -- slower
  than she had twenty years before but more rapidly
  than Cat had the last time. She changed to her
  nightgown and wore the robe to the bathroom. She
  made all her preparations including setting the
  timer for four hours before returning to her room
  and waking Cat.
  
  "Get up, dear. You need to visit the bathroom. When
  you get back, you can come to bed with Memere." Cat
  rose, reluctantly and groggily, but not sulkily.
  Kate helped her up on the toilet. The raised seat
  which had made it easier for Russ and still made it
  easier for her, made it harder for Cat. Cat had to
  be reminded to wash her hands, but -- when reminded
  -- washed them with good grace. Kate got into bed
  first before welcoming Cat into her arms. She
  turned off the lamp and hugged her granddaughter
  silently. Cat, who hadn't really been wide awake,
  settled down into the hug. Soon, they were both
  asleep.
  
  When the kitchen timer rang, she took a while
  waking up. It didn't sound like her alarm clock.
  Once awake, she woke Cat.
  
  "We're going to go to the bathroom again, dear. Do
  you have slippers?"
  
  "Flip-flops." And she put her flip-flops on while
  Memere got into slipper. She hadn't needed to go
  when Memere had gotten her up, but she did need to
  go by the rime they got to the bathroom. Memere
  pulled up her nightie and helped her up. When she'd
  got down and wiped herself off, Memere sat down.
  
  "Wash your hands, Cat, while I use the toilet." She
  could hear the water gush out of Memere, just like
  it did out of her. When Memere got up, she wiped
  herself and washed her hands. "Back to bed, Cat,
  it's the middle of the night. We've loads more
  sleeping to do." She didn't really feel sleepy, but
  the water bed was fun, and so was being hugged by
  Memere. She yawned. Maybe she did feel a little
  sleepy.
  
  "Still awake, Cat? Tell me about your trip here,
  but whisper. We don't want to wake anyone else."
  Kate turned off the lamp and tried to pay attention
  to Cat's story about the lady on the train and
  Billy. She was barely awake, but she lasted longer
  than her granddaughter did. Cat's pauses grew
  longer and longer. She fell asleep in the middle of
  a sentence. 
  
  When the alarm woke Kate, Cat was already awake in
  her arms.
  
  "What's that, Memere?"
  
  "That's an alarm clock, dear. Different ones sound
  different." And she could never bear  to listen to
  Russ's again. "Let's get up and go to the
  bathroom." They both used the facilities, both
  washed their hands. She brought Cat back to the
  room while she dressed. Modesty was a weird idea;
  after all, she'd seen Cat naked many times. Changed
  more than one diaper. Still, Cat's eyes ob her were
  somewhat disturbing. She decided that Cat gave
  everything that much attention. She'd watched Kate
  prepare food as though she were memorizing her
  moves. But Cat's clothes were in Bob's room. "I'm
  going to fix breakfast, dear. Do you want to come
  watch or go get dressed?"
  
  "I'll get dressed." Cat had remembered something.
  Ordinarily, watching Memere cook was great fun, but
  this was a special day. "Je vous aime, Memere."
  
  "And I love you, too, Catherine Angelique, ma
  petite fille." Cat went and knocked at the door of
  Maman. Hearing nothing, she knocked again. There
  was stirring and bed noises. She waited. 
  
  When the knocking woke her, Jeanette untangled
  herself from Bob. She got up, put on her slippers
  and then her nightie and robe. She waited by the
  door until Bob had his robe on. By that time, she'd
  awakened enough to know that they were in Bob's old
  home. The knock, however, was Cat's. She'd
  recognized it.
  
  "Bon jour, Maman. C'est le quatorze, nest-ce pas?"
  
  "Good morning, mon chat. Do you need to go to the
  bathroom?" That was an important question. If Cat
  didn't, Jeanette did.
  
  "I have been. I washed my hands." She showed her
  hands, although they were completely dry. For some
  reason, perhaps because Papa was right behind her,
  Maman was speaking English. She knew to answer in
  the language used.
  
  "Alors, m'attends s'il tu plait." Jeanette went
  into the bathroom. When she got out, Bob succeeded
  her. With six people in the house, the bathroom
  could be busy in the morning. There was, however, a
  half-bath downstairs. Waiting for a shower was a
  minor inconvenience. 
  
  "Maman. c'est le quatorze, nest-ce pas?" Yes, she
  checked her cell. This was the fourteenth of July.
  Bastille day, which the cell didn't tell her. The
  next model probably would.
  
  "Mais oui, mon chat. Mais nous ne chanterons pas
  avant le petit dejeuner." It was going to be the
  fourteenth all day, but Cat wasn't of an age to
  wait. At least let Katherine get through breakfast
  and her first cup of coffee before Cat's song.
  (Although Brennan coffee couldn't make that much
  difference.) It would be a good idea if Kathleen
  and Charles ate first, too, Although she had warned
  them, at least. "Ta memere, ta tante Kathleen, et
  ton oncle Charles devront manger avant tu chantes.
  Tu, aussi, devra manger. Et avale!" Cat was
  learning, slowly, to swallow before she spoke --
  actually, she was better than Bob about that -- but
  she was quite excited about this song. Jeanette
  didn't want her singing the entire thing with her
  mouth full. She gave her yesterday's clothes to
  wear -- she hadn't bathed, after all -- and sent
  her downstairs. 
  
  Bob checked the hall before entering his room.
  Charles and Vi weren't up yet, although their door
  looked open a crack as though they were waiting for
  him. Jeanette was in the process of dressing. He
  watched while there was anything to watch; then he
  began to don his own clothes. When they got down
  there, Mom was cooking up a storm and talking to
  Cat. If Cat was antsy, she was trying to hide it. 
  
  "Dining room this morning, dear. This table won't
  hold six."
  
  "Very well," said Jeanette. "I'll be the waiter.
  You're doing more than your share."
  
  "Well, dear, I know where things are. It's not as
  if I had somewhere else to go." Bob sat next to Cat
  and her telephone book -- they'd brought it from
  Chicago a couple of years ago, the local phone book
  was too scrawny to help. He poured syrup on her
  waffle, spread it around with her fork, and then
  used her fork and his knife to cut it into bite-
  sized pieces. The sausages on Cat's plate had
  already been cut into thirds. When Jeanette brought
  in his plate, he began on it. She joined him, but
  rose to get filled plates for Charles and Vi -- for
  Kathleen, he didn't want to make an enemy of
  Charles who fought his wife's battles. That was
  totally useless; Kathleen was more than capable of
  fighting her own. He wouldn't want to meet Charles
  in a boxing ring, but he couldn't hold a candle to
  Kathleen when it came to verbal battles.  He went
  back to get his own third waffle. Mom followed him
  in carrying her own plate. He expected Cat to ask
  for more. Why not? He'd eat what she left. Instead
  she sat there looking more antsy but making no
  effort to get up.
  
  "Have you finished, Memere?" she asked, At her nod,
  she continued, "Charles? Tante Kathleen?" They both
  had finished and told her so. She got up. Before
  Bob could admonish her that she should ask to be
  excused, she began to sing.
  
  "Allons enfants de la patrie." She was a trifle
  shaky, and Charles waited until he thought he'd
  found her key. He did join her on the last word.
  
  "Le jour de gloire est arrive." Now Kathleen was
  singing along, too. The trio got through the whole
  song letting the first singer sound the loudest.
  
  "Oh, darling," said Kate at the end, "that was
  marvelous." And it had been. If Cat wasn't going to
  challenge Marian Anderson's reputation any time
  soon, neither was any other grade-school girl. And
  she sang incredibly well when you considered that
  she was Bob's daughter. 
  
  "Sharl," Cat said. "You can sing! I didn't know men
  sang."
  
  "Men sing in church," Jeanette said. "You've seen
  them. Many men sing, just not all of them."
  
  Kathleen thought that 'singing better than Bob' was
  damning Char with faint praise. But, after all, Cat
  hadn't said that. She'd merely said that he could
  sing, and he certainly could.
  
  "You mother told us the surprise you were cooking
  up, Cat," Charles said. "We thought we should join
  you."
  
  "But was Memere surprised."
  
  "Surprised, Cat. Flabbergasted. And it was a great
  surprise. Now, does anybody want anything else?"
  
  "Nothing," said Kathleen. "I think Charles and I
  should do the dishes." They did. Even rinsing off
  the syrup from six plates, it was no arduous task.
  From there, they went out to the yard without
  anyone else around them to overhear.
  
  "Once. long ago," she said, "when Bob was first
  married, I found how thin those walls are." She
  started to pace. Charles matched her. "I don't want
  Bob hearing me, hearing us."
  
  "Okay. But it's all right when you can hear him?"
  
  "When we can hear him, he is probably too busy to
  pay any attention to us."
  
  "You've forgotten the singing day bed." That had
  been in Bob's apartment in Grand Haven. He and Kath
  had shared it more than six years back.
  
  "I remember it. He could hear it; he knew what we
  were doing."
  
  "He didn't come in and stop us. He didn't complain
  that I was despoiling his innocent sister."
  
  "Bob hasn't thought of me as his innocent sister
  since I was in diapers. Mom claims that he was
  terribly fond of me then. Either that or he had an
  audience which hadn't learned to talk. Bob's
  favorite conversations are one-sided. Anyway, no,
  he didn't come in and stop us. Instead, he and
  Jeanette imitated us. Still I don't want him
  hearing us."
  
  "Okay. But, if it's all right when he can't hear,
  then why not finish you off. I had mine, and you
  didn't have yours."
  
  "Short memory. And they trust this guy to do
  diagnoses of sick children. I got mine. I got mine
  early on."
  
  "Well, you could have had a second."
  
  "Not at that time, I couldn't. You were too close,
  and it was my decision. You were perfectly happy to
  get a blow job after you'd given me one. Why is it
  different just 'cause you're in me. I liked it,
  didn't you?" Not that she had much doubt. That was
  one result of watching his face. When she was
  having a climax, she supposed he could fake one.
  She doubted that he knew enough about how he looked
  during an orgasm to fake one for her. And, of
  course, there was the detail that something was in
  the condom when he took it off.
  
  "Of course, I liked it. I just don't want to have
  you servicing me."
  
  "While, on the other hand, I'm perfectly willing to
  have you service me. Fingers, tongue, cock, all are
  the instruments of my pleasure. Haven't you figured
  that out by now. I keep you around to be my boy
  toy."
  
  "No, I don't mind that." Really, he rather enjoyed
  that. He didn't want to be thought of as a gigolo,
  and her income was creeping up above his, but being
  told that he turned her on was itself a turn-on.
  
  "So you wouldn't mind if we did it that way again?"
  
  "Not at all. Considering a matinee?"
  
  "I mean at home." But a matinee was an idea. They
  couldn't at home with work to do. They might here
  with the others out of the house. Just Bob and
  Jeanette gone would do. Mom would keep Cat well
  away. 
  
  "Mind if I wear my glasses?"
  
  "You want me to wear my glasses?" Where did that
  come from? Did he have a kink for librarians or
  something? He'd never asked her to wear her lab
  coat, and several were hanging in the closet that
  she would probably never wear again. On the other
  hand, she'd prefer him thinking that librarians
  were sexy than that nurses were sexy. How many
  librarians did he meet on his duties?
  
  "Me wearing my glasses. You're incredibly sexy like
  that, but you'd be sexier if I could see more
  clearly. Or would it be you that would be sexier? I
  would be more turned on, but you wouldn't be any
  different. On the other hand, you're definitely
  sexier dressed like that, and you're still naked
  under your clothes."
  
  "You have definitely been spending too much time
  around Bob. You've gone all analytical. I get the
  idea. You like my looks, and you like them better
  when you can see." That was fair enough; after all,
  she turned on the light so she could see his face.
  "Maybe we'll both wear glasses." That would give
  her a clearer look at his face.
  
  The Chicago Brennans came out into the yard. Bob
  and Jeanette kept well away. Cat came racing over.
  The temperature, which had fallen to quite
  comfortable overnight, was fast approaching sauna
  levels again. That sapped Kathleen's energy; it
  didn't seem to effect seven-year-olds. Which
  reminded her, she'd need to finish wrapping Cat's
  birthday present and sneak it to Jeanette.
  
  "Cat, come back," Bob yelled. "Maybe they want to
  be alone."
  
  "That's all right," Charles answered, "The
  conversation is over." He picked Cat up, swung her
  around, and set her down. She raced back to her
  parents. Charles and Kathleen ambled after. 
  
  "Would you mind taking over chid-care duties?" Bob
  asked. "Five adults showering in the morning is a
  ridiculous idea, especially when Mom serves a
  special breakfast. But we feel all grungy after the
  tip. We thought we'd take our showers now."
  
  "Good idea," said Kathleen. "We might take the
  after-lunch shift." Charles, who had had a shower
  the previous night, couldn't see where that was
  going, but he kept his mouth shut. His devious wife
  was probably being devious. They stayed in the yard
  for another half hour, then went inside. Cat's
  books were in Bob's room, but Kath went up to find
  some of her old ones. They were beyond Cat's
  reading level, but she enjoyed having Charles read
  them to her, anyway. Bob came down in a short-
  sleeved shirt.
  
  "Like you, I've decided to exercise my second-
  amendment rights." It took Charles a moment to get
  'the right to bare arms.' He decided it wasn't
  worthy of a groan. "Bored your uncle, yet?" he
  asked Cat. 
  
  "We're never bored with her. Now, she, on the other
  hand..."
  
  "Looks remarkably content. You're maybe her
  favorite person, among her favorites, anyway." Mom
  would be ahead, and he could still remember whose
  side Cat took when she thought Charles had made
  Kathleen cry. Of course, his proposal had made
  Kathleen cry -- just not the way Cat thought. 
  
  "Among, certainly. This young woman seems to love
  all the world." Actually, Cat was easy to
  entertain. What had Jeanette said? Something about
  making sure she didn't hurt herself or annoy
  strangers. When Cat got tired of this book, she
  would be quite able to think up something new. Then
  he need only figure whether that was dangerous to
  her or somebody else. They could always go back to
  the Marseillaise.
  
  "Snack Cat?" asked Bob. "I think Memere has a
  pickle." He knew damn well that Mom had a jar of
  pickles. He'd checked. He'd even checked that they
  hadn't spoiled. "You can wash your hands down
  here." Cat ran to the downstairs half bath. "Sorry
  to take her away. What were you reading?" Charles
  showed him the Nancy Drew.
  
  "I think it was beginning to bore her. I'll mark
  the page, maybe finish it myself. Ashamed to say I
  want to know how it comes out."
  
  "No shame there. Whenever I start a mystery, I
  finish it. Jeanette, now, reads them all the time.
  Library. Local branch has a wall of mysteries and
  some more in the paper-back section. Always use a
  library for mysteries; they aren't any good second
  time around. Macdonald, on the other hand, aren't
  really mysteries -- crime stories, it's fun to
  reread them."
  
  "The Brennans!" Now, Cat had come back and they
  followed her into the kitchen. Bob grabbed the
  telephone book on his way through the dining room.
  "Did Kath really read all of Britannica?"
  
  "Whatever she tells you. I thought it was all; now
  she says she skipped parts of articles. It was over
  years, of course. You get bored. There's only so
  much to read. It's better than the art-history
  books and the economics texts. Pictures in the art-
  history books are better, of course. Though I had a
  list of pictures in Britannica, too, at one time."
  
  "Pictures?"
  
  "I was post-puberty." He gestured to Cat who was
  nibbling on her pickle. "Figure out what sort of
  pictures interested me."
  
  "Right." Cat finished her pickle. She decided that
  Sharl wouldn't give her another with Papa right
  there. She wiped her hands on the paper napkin and
  climbed down from her seat. 
  
  "Thank you, Papa. May I be excused?"
  
  "Go wash your hands." Bob picked up the saucer and
  rinsed it under the faucet before putting it in the
  dishwasher. "I wonder how often Mom runs this when
  she is alone."
  
  "I have no idea, dear. When it looks full, I run
  it. Does it look full." Kate had returned to the
  kitchen.
  
  "No." He opened it to show her.
  
  "Cat." Charles went back into the living room.
  "More of the book, or do you want to do something
  else?"
  
  "Book!" Cat decided. She waited for Sharl to sit
  down and then sat down in his lap. She was a big
  girl, but -- as long as Sharl didn't make a point
  of it -- pretending to be a little girl who sat in
  laps to have books read to her was fun. 
  
  "Cat was telling me," Kate told Bob in a voice she
  hoped Cat couldn't hear, "something about a
  'Billy.' Do you know anything about that. It
  happened on the train, I think." She hadn't been
  paying attention, and she felt guilty. Next time,
  she'd know the context.
  
  "Woman was breast-feeding a baby on the train. Cat
  was fascinated. Jeanette called her off, hoping the
  woman wouldn't be embarrassed. Later we talked to
  them. The baby was named Billy, and Cat was still
  fascinated when the woman was dressed. Not much
  interested in her, but fascinated by Billy."
  
  "So it was all right then?"
  
  "I hope so. It would be ironic if Cat dissuaded
  someone from nursing a kid." Cat, of course, had
  been breast-fed herself. 
  
  Lunch was tuna salad sandwiches. Jeanette hoped Cat
  wouldn't say that they'd had them the day before.
  Her father's daughter, Cat ate hers with good
  appetite. Cat had food dislikes, but she never got
  tired of something she liked. And, with chopped
  onions and pickles in her grandmother's recipe, Cat
  would like these better. Bob added catsup to his,
  which was less nauseating when it wasn't something
  she'd prepared. Katherine, who was a much better
  cook than Jeanette would ever be, looked blithe.
  Well, Bob was her son; she was used to his foibles.
  It wasn't as though Bob had been normal and turned
  weird.
  
  After lunch, she made some calls. She'd grown up in
  this town, and Bob had spent his high-school years
  here, too. She'd kept in touch with many old
  friends; not all of whom had moved away. Bob,
  pushed, had three friends he'd like to see again.
  Marcy Thompson Blaire was her first call. She'd
  been a bridesmaid after sharing many classes
  together.
  
  "I'd love to see you and Cat. But you know who
  really needs a visit? Remember Mrs. Groghan?" She'd
  taught French -- the school's one French teacher.
  "She is now in a nursing home, and really
  depressed." So Jeanette called the nursing home.
  They recommended against bringing out an unrelated
  child. She and Bob decided to go anyway.
  
  "Can we leave Cat with you?" she asked Katherine.
  
  "Always, dear. Pull out an outfit for visiting,
  anyway. Many of my friends would like to see Cat."
  So that is what they did. They borrowed Katherine's
  car. After the first minutes of the visit, Jeanette
  was happy that they hadn't brought Cat. Mrs.
  Groghan was not only depressed, she was anxious to
  spread that depression around. 
  
  "I feel like a bad hostess, dear, leaving you two
  here alone." Kate told her daughter. 
  
  "Don't worry, Mom. We came here to relax. Your
  friends will love Cat, and vice versa. Take as long
  as you want. Don't worry about using the car. Bob
  could have borrowed ours, and you'll put fewer
  miles on it."
  
  "That's very generous, dear." Actually it sounded
  like Kathleen wanted some time alone with Charles.
  Well, aside from the decades when she'd interfered
  with Kate's desire for some time alone with Russ,
  why not? And, after all, taking revenge on your
  grown daughter for having been a child was petty.
  "In that case, I might take Cat to the library
  afterwards. Jeanette brought books, but some
  temporary ones couldn't hurt."
  
  "That's a splendid idea. Char was reading Nancy
  Drew to her, and her attention was wandering." 
  
  So Kate made a few calls of her own. She found
  three friends who would be home. The first visit,
  however, was not one she had given warning. She
  went into a drugstore and stood behind a man
  picking up a prescription.
  
  "Did you call your prescription in?"
  
  "No, Mr. Jacobs. This is Jeanette's daughter Cat.
  I'm Kate Brennan." She figured that 'Mrs. Brennan'
  might bring the response 'Jeanette, you've aged.'
  She didn't know what she'd expected, but the glance
  -- furtive glance if she weren't imagining things -
  - towards the front of the store was a surprise. 
  
  "Hello, Mrs. Brennan. Hello Catherine." At least he
  knew his granddaughter's name, though she was
  'Catherine Angelique' when she was 'Catherine.' But
  maybe that was only in her grandmother Katherine's
  house. Even if not, knowing what she'd been
  baptized isn't knowing what she was called. He
  probably remembered as much as he'd been told.
  
  "Hello." Cat didn't know what to call this man.
  Memere had called him by name, but only once. She
  stuck out her hand. The friends of Memere liked to
  shake hands. He didn't seem to see. He was talking
  to Memere.
  
  "Does Jeanette know you're here?"
  
  "No. Does it matter? I'm a grandmother, and enjoy
  my granddaughter's presence. I thought you deserved
  at least a look."
  
  "She hates us. She rejected us. We never hear from
  her."
  
  "She feels that you rejected her. After all, you
  gave her the choice of marrying Bob or going to
  college. Maybe you'll be happy to know that she's
  finally finishing her education. If you want to
  send her a letter -- she's moved several times --
  send it to me. I'll be sure to forward it." And, at
  her request, Jeanette would probably read it
  instead of marking it 'refused -- return to
  sender.'
  
  "Moving all the time. Doesn't sound stable." That
  sounded like a criticism of Bob.
  
  "Well, she married a college student. You wouldn't
  want him to keep that as a permanent career." Not
  that Bob hadn't seemed to have made being a student
  a permanent career for a while. "Bob is now an
  associate professor at Northwestern. It's a good
  university."
  
  "Too good for a druggist."
  
  "The two of them don't consider themselves too good
  for a schoolteacher. As I said, Jeanette doesn't
  think she's rejecting you. She thinks you've
  rejected her." And, in front of his granddaughter,
  an adorable granddaughter who was standing there
  behaving herself while she was being ignored, he
  could only think to criticize his daughter. If not
  rejection, that was certainly grounds for
  Jeanette's coming to town without calling him.
  "Anyway, it's not my quarrel. You've seen Cat, and
  I'm holding up the line. I'll go now." And, go she
  did. The only interruption was a customer.
  
  "Mrs. Brennan?"
  
  "Yes?" she couldn't place the man.
  
  "Johnny Dedmon. You wouldn't remember me, certainly
  wouldn't recognize me. I hardly recognized you from
  this angle." Dedmon was a tall man, taller than Bob
  or Charles. He held his hands down at about the
  level of Cat's head. "I had you in third grade.
  Heard about your loss. Sorry." 
  
  "Thanks. This is Cat, my granddaughter. Cat, this
  is Mr. Dedmon. I used to teach him." 
  
  "What Grade are you in Cat? Do you like school?"
  
  "Second. I guess I like it." Cat would be in second
  grade when school resumed. Kids either hated school
  all the time or hated it some of the time. Was Cat
  learning to give polite answers?
  
  "Are you going to be in your Grandmother's room
  next year?" Kate could answer that one.
  
  "Cat lives in Chicago. Even if she were here, I
  don't think that would be a good idea."
  
  "Well, she was a good teacher to a lot of us.
  Probably having her for a grandmother is even
  better." So, Kate thought, Cat visited the
  grandfather who'd not seen her in years. She had a
  longer conversation with a perfect stranger -- a
  man who had been Kate's student long ago. Well,
  Jeanette's parents had deserved a chance to see
  their granddaughter. Both parents had now received
  their chances. Kate wouldn't make any other
  overtures.
  
  The next visits went much better. Betty Daniels
  taught with Kate. You'd think she would have had
  her fill of kids. Instead, she welcomed them both,
  fed Cat a cookie, and talked with her. On a later
  visit, Alice Spiegel inquired after Wot.
  
  "He stayed home. He tears easily now." Actually,
  Cat thought she was much too old for a stuffed
  elephant. But, she didn't want to tell Wot that. It
  was mean to say you'd outgrown someone. Like Tante
  Kathleen calling herself 'K'leen.' She'd talked
  like that as a baby, and Tante Kathleen had thought
  it cute. Being a baby wasn't cute. But she liked
  Tante Kathleen and didn't want to tell her she was
  treating her like a baby. Anyway, the lady offered
  her a cookie. On the way to the library, Memere
  pulled over into a gas station.
  
  "New car, Mrs. Brennan?"
  
  "My daughter's car. My son is driving mine. Don't
  ask." Bob had borrowed her car before she had
  really decided on the trip. Kathleen had been quite
  willing to lend hers. Which made her wonder again
  what was happening while she was gone. One returned
  a borrowed car with a full tank of gas. And, if
  Kathleen and Charles were making love, she wanted
  Cat well away until they were quite done. Well, a
  library would keep her busy. 
  
  The library did. The borrowing limit was ten books.
  When Kate took the ten books to the desk, there was
  a crisis. She already had one book out. Cat was
  reasonable. They left one book and took out nine. 
  
  "Memere, all those books were in English."
  
  "Yes, dear, but I was getting them for me and
  Charles to read to you. Do you have French books in
  the library near your home?"
  
  "I don't think so. Only English and Spanish. Maman
  says that we'll take out some Spanish ones next
  year when I read better." Whatever limitations
  living in Chicago placed on Cat, and the real
  limitation was that Kate was deprived of her
  granddaughter, she saw a diverse world. Kate drove
  home wondering how Kathleen and Charles had fared.
  
  They'd fared much like they had intended. When
  they'd watched the car out of sight, they'd looked
  at each other. It was a 'are you thinking what I'm
  thinking?' sort of look.
  
  "All alone," said Charles. "How can we possibly
  amuse ourselves?"
  
  "Well you can finish Nancy Drew if you want. I'm
  going upstairs."
  
  "I'm at a scary part. I don't want to read it all
  alone. I'll go upstairs with you." And they went
  upstairs and into their room together. By the time
  they'd reached the room, Charles had his shirt
  unbuttoned. Even so, Kathleen had her clothes off
  before he did. Charles had been wearing laced
  sneakers. When they kissed, their glasses collided.
  "Maybe we should have them off for now."
  
  "Maybe." She took her glasses off before kissing
  him again. Then she took off the bed spread and
  rolled the top sheet down to the bottom of the bed.
  She lay down.
  
  "Much better." Kath was enough shorter than he was
  that even kissing her mouth involved bending over.
  He started kissing at her ankle, and worked his way
  up the leg to its junction with the other. He
  kissed her labia before working up to her breasts.
  Then he lay down beside her. While he kissed one
  breast and then the other, his hand stroked her
  thighs. He parted her labia.
  
  She lay delighting in his magic fingers and ardent
  lips. She ran her fingers through his hair, pulling
  his head against her whenever her passion ran
  higher than usual.
  
  "You are so good at this. Those hands are wasted on
  babies and pianos. But I don't want to share you; I
  don't even want to share you with the babies. Oh,
  yes. Right there. Oh, Char!" She was right up there
  when Char withdrew both hand and mouth. She felt
  bereft, even though she knew it was temporary. She
  moved to lie diagonally with one hip on one edge of
  the bed and her head on the other edge. Char knelt
  between her legs and kissed upwards towards the
  lips which were leaking moisture by this time.
  
  He tasted Kath when he licked her labia. It wasn't
  sweet, but it was intensely arousing. His tongue
  parted her labia majora, gathering more juice. He
  swung his arms under her legs and up the bed until
  his hands reached her breasts. He cupped both
  breasts as he parted the labia minora. He tweaked
  both nipples as he licked her clitoris. He wasn't
  going for teasing; they had had enough foreplay. He
  was going for her first orgasm.
  
  She felt the sensations from Char's fingers and
  tongue rushing at each other like three express
  trains. When they met, the crash sent her higher
  and higher. She felt her body spasm. But the
  sensations kept coming. After the second set of
  spasms, her left breast felt cool. After the third
  set, his fingers were entering her pussy. When she
  rose again, she was clasping around those fingers.
  
  He tried to keep in position while Kath bucked
  under his face and her legs pressed down on his
  shoulders. He kept licking while he pulled his
  right hand back. When he could, he inserted two
  fingers to seek her G-spot. He paused in licking
  when he found it. After that, he alternated between
  rubbing her G-spot and licking her clitoris. After
  she moaned, he went all out; he rubbed her G-spot
  as well as he could through an orgasm, sucked on
  her clitoris, and pinched her nipple. He kept those
  up as long as her orgasm lasted. When it ended, he
  withdrew.
  
  She soared, and crashed, and soared again. The
  series of climaxes went on forever. And it ended in
  one which went on forever all by itself. She was as
  limp as a dishrag when Char left her, but he wasn't
  gone long. First she felt him insert her diaphragm.
  Then he turned her legs up on the bed and helped
  her straighten up. He walked around the bed and lay
  beside her, cuddling her. The cuddle felt good, but
  the insertion had been a total waste of time. She
  wouldn't be able to move, much less be on top, for
  hours. 
  
  "Darling Kath, lovely Kath, sensual Kath," Charles
  murmured into her hair. She was all of those
  things, but he also wanted her to feel safe and
  cherished. He'd get his, maybe now, maybe tonight.
  He really needed the occasional orgasm, but the
  experience of her writhing in his arms and under
  his tongue was more sensual than any orgasm he'd
  experienced. The safer she felt after such an
  experience, the safer she'd feel going into
  another. When she turned to face him, he kissed her
  on the lips and then licked between them. "Taste
  yourself."
  
  Tasting herself didn't do anything for her. For
  that matter, Char's lips had less of her taste by
  that time than his chin would. She knew things like
  that based on past experience. The kiss, however,
  was nice. And the feel of his cock against her
  thighs reminded her that this wasn't over. Well,
  she had her strength back, and they still had the
  house to themselves. She moved to the edge of the
  bed and reached for her glasses.
  
  "Don't need the lamp," she noted. "Move towards the
  foot of the bed." When he raised his knees and
  scooted lower, she straddled him and leaned over
  until the tip of her left breast was an inch from
  his lips. He closed that inch and sucked. She
  reached behind her to find his cock. With it in her
  right hand, she spread herself open with her left.
  Then, she slowly lowered herself onto him. Her butt
  struck his thighs. 
  
  "Hold yourself up," he told Kath. He spread his
  thighs. "Now lower yourself slowly." As she did, he
  felt the smooth warmth of her vaginal walls slide
  over the head and more and more of the shaft of his
  prick. She was still against his thighs instead of
  his pubis. "Up a little." When she raised herself,
  he moved his right foot off the bed-- then he moved
  his left foot off. His legs were widely split, and
  his calves were on each side of the foot of the
  bed.  He reached over for his glasses and put them
  on. Suddenly Kath's sexy-but-fuzzy shape was in
  sharp detail, and even sexier. The nipple he'd
  sucked was longer and more deeply colored than the
  other.
  
  The motions needed to fit themselves to each other
  and to the narrow bed had been quite practical.
  They'd also involved Char's cock sliding into her
  and up and down inside her. Her arousal was rising
  again. But this one was for Char's arousal. She
  grabbed her own glasses after he'd put on his. Then
  she watched his face as she raised and lowered
  herself on his cock. He was nearly leering as he
  watched her. Soon though, his expression grew
  concerned. She leaned over to support herself with
  her hands on his shoulders. She slowed her motions
  while watching the changing expression. 
  
  He'd been attracted to Kath the first time he'd
  seen her in class, fully dressed and ignoring him.
  Now, naked, hunched over, staring at his face, she
  was the sexiest sight possible. But the sight was
  nothing compared to the feeling. Her motions were
  stroking her vagina all along his cock. Slow as she
  was moving, she wasn't teasing im this time. He was
  climbing the mountain, and she was leading him up.
  When she tightened her vaginal muscles while
  gliding slowly downward, his hips drove upward to
  meet her and speed that delightful, but tantalizing
  friction.
  
  She smiled when Char bucked under her. He was
  close, and his expression showed it. She tried to
  slow even more for the next three strokes. His
  expression grew more serious. She did another Kegel
  on the up stroke, and watched his grimace. He tried
  to speed their motion by retreating, but there was
  a mattress in his way. At the top of the stroke she
  relaxed her grip and then tightened around his head
  again. As she sank down, he bucked again. He buried
  himself in her before her weight bore them down.
  She sat back erect while tightening her Kegel once
  more.
  
  He was in agony, about to erupt but not quite
  there. And she had stopped moving except to
  straighten, He saw her towering over him like a
  goddess with her breasts flaring out, He felt her
  vagina caress his prick. Then, at last, she moved.
  As she rose, her vaginal walls stroked the length
  of his prick and he could feel the juice boiling up
  through it. When she stroked back down he yelled
  and erupted.
  
  She could see the grimace turn to agony. "Kath!" he
  shouted as he bucked under her. She felt him
  throbbing within her as she rode him. Then his face
  slowly relaxed from agony to bliss. She bent over
  to kiss him, losing him as she went. Well, she
  could hug his body. When his breath slowed, she got
  up. 
  
  "I'm going for a shower. I don't think anyone is
  home." Considering the last shout, nobody better be
  home. She wore her robe and tossed the sheet over
  him, just in case. In the shower, she considered
  removing the diaphragm. It was a little soon,
  however. There was plenty of time. Let the sperm
  wear themselves out. When she came out, Char
  watched her dress. Then he went for his own shower.
  She put on her sneakers and went downstairs. All
  the adult books were down here, and she felt in a
  mood for old masters. Mom's art-history books had
  seemed boring once, but after spending hours
  listening to people talking -- or, often, not
  talking -- about the events which had made them
  most emotional, communication without words was a
  treat.
  
  Charles used the toilet, then took his time sitting
  there resting before his shower. This was what a
  vacation should be, but it took the energy out of a
  man. Still, it was a great way to go. He enjoyed
  the shower, slowing even there. When he heard the
  door slam, he was drying himself off and musing
  about how sexy his wife was when she could relax.
  He wrapped his towel about his waist, put on his
  robe, and rushed to the room. He'd been through a
  residency; he could dress in seconds.
  
  Kathleen left her book on the dining room table
  when she heard the door slam, (Reading there was
  more comfortable than holding the huge art book up
  in a living room chair, and being in her room --
  where she'd normally read for her entire life in
  this house -- seemed, suddenly, suggestive of what
  she had been doing with Char.) She found Mom and
  Cat in the living room.
  
  "Cat, shouldn't you close the door more quietly?"
  
  "Memere!" Now Tante Kathleen was making rules like
  Maman. And it was a rule that she hadn't even
  broken.
  
  "I closed the door, dear. Sometimes people want to
  know when others are in the house." She smiled at
  her daughter. Sometime, she had to communicate to
  Kathleen that ones sexual activities are perfectly
  acceptable but not for public discussion. Of
  course, Cat was here. That required subtlety which
  wasn't all that bad. Subtlety is what Kathleen had
  to develop. Good, she was blushing. Well, some of
  this could be done without Cat watching. "Do you
  need to use the bathroom, dear?" Cat went into the
  downstairs half bath.
  
  "Really, dear. I'm your mother. I had two babies.
  Med school should have told you the preconditions
  for that."
  
  "You laid out the consequences long before med
  school did. You never before talked about your own
  activities."
  
  "And I won't do so again, dear. Ladies don't talk
  about their own activities." And now Charles was
  coming down the stair. "Good afternoon, dear. So
  nice of you to adjust your shower schedule so that
  there isn't a line in the morning. We used to be
  stressed with four. We never thought ahead to six."
  
  "Mrs. Brennan..."
  
  "'Kate,' dear. Jeanette calls me 'Katherine' which
  might be confusing since she was so kind as to name
  her child after me."
  
  "Kate, you've been so hospitable."
  
  "Pure selfishness, dear. I was just thinking last
  night how much more comfortable the house feels
  when I know people I love are in it -- even when
  they are asleep."
  
  "Sharl. look what I've got." Cat had been quite
  patient. First she'd been scolded for something she
  hadn't done. Then nobody had seen that she'd washed
  her hands.
  
  "More books. Do you want to read them now?" The
  conversation with Mrs. Brennan was in danger of
  getting mushy. And paying attention to Cat was
  always acceptable behavior in this house. He got
  the books on a table next to an easy chair and
  himself in the chair. After Cat was in his lap, he
  reached for the first book of the three. 
  
  Kate put the other six books where she could find
  them when she needed to. She went into the half
  bath to flush the toilet. Cat had remembered half
  her tasks. Another time, she'd have reminded her of
  the need to flush, but Cat had had a busy
  afternoon. Kate washed her own hands and headed for
  the kitchen. Katherine followed her.
  
  "Really, Mother." She took a minute to think how to
  express herself. Mom looked at her quizzically, but
  stayed silent. "You might not talk about your own
  activities, but you've talked loads about the first
  time I brought Char here."
  
  "Only about what you said, dear." Kate had quite
  forgotten reporting that both beds were slept in,
  on separate nights. "And it's less that you asked
  for Charles to share your room than that this was
  the first time we'd heard about him. We met several
  of your friends when we came to your graduation.
  You could have introduced one more. I don't say
  that you should have described how far that
  friendship had gone. Indeed, as I said, ladies
  don't talk about that. Even married ladies don't
  talk about it to anyone but their gynecologist.
  Your husband, of course, but who says you're a lady
  in the bedroom?"
  
  "Mom!" First she lectures on being a lady, then she
  gets bawdy! And with barely a breath in between.
  
  "Well, dear, some things you do say to your
  daughter that you don't talk about at table. I
  never worried about your being too circumspect with
  Charles. After all, you are positively blatant in
  front of us. But, if you think that there is
  something I would disapprove in the marriage bed --
  'bed' is figurative, of course. How you behave in
  your own apartment is your business. Circumspection
  here, around Cat, goes without saying. Anyway, how
  you behave in the marriage bed is your own
  business; so long as neither of you is injured, I
  not only don't have to know, I give my blessings."
  
  "You're being much more permissive than you were
  when I was growing up. And there were reasons we
  didn't tell you earlier."
  
  "More permissive than before you were married,
  dear. I don't approve of premarital sex for my
  children. And, yes, you wanted to keep your private
  fling private. And, then, you wanted to introduce
  us to the love of your life. I can see both
  motivations. I just feel that you had options in
  how you moved from one to the next. "
  
  "You didn't say that you disapproved. Did you
  expect me to come to the altar a virgin?"
  
  "Well, I thought I implied it. And approval is one
  thing; expectation is another. I assigned you and
  Charles to different rooms his first trip here.
  That is disapproval of your spending the night in
  the same bed. Then we closed and locked our door.
  That is expectation that there would be traffic in
  the hallway."
  
  "Don't ask -- don't tell."
  
  "That's now, dear. We told you quite clearly that
  we disapproved, then. Now, you don't tell me of
  your actions, and I try to keep out of the way.
  It's much more pleasant that way. On the other
  hand, I certainly hope that you are happy in your
  marriage. And, marital happiness almost always
  requires an enjoyable sex life. It's just that you
  don't have to make a point of it in company. Bob,
  whatever his faults, never ground your nose in his
  bed-time habits."
  
  "Well, I knew about them. I can remember the
  rocking chair!"
  
  "Yes, dear, but he didn't say 'I want to borrow the
  rocking chair so I can share it with Jeanette.' He
  did give you and Charles a rocking chair for a
  wedding present, which was quite pointed enough.
  But I can't think of a subtler way to pass on the
  wisdom. And, after all, when Bob is your criterion
  for subtlety, you are already in a weak position.
  
  "And, dear, this is a mother-daughter conversation.
  I'm being much franker than I would be in company.
  Traditionally, we would have had one before you got
  married, but I didn't have one before I got married
  -- the tradition had already died out. You had
  already been living with Charles. Maybe I should
  have, not what you do in bed but what you say in
  company."
  
  "You don't believe in frankness, do you?"
  
  "I respect frankness in moderation, dear. I
  specifically object to exhibitionism."
  
  "So you slam the door when you come in?"
  
  "Right! I object to exhibitionism, and I object to
  snooping. After all, I didn't interrupt anything,
  but I didn't know what I might interrupt. I might
  have overheard a fearful row, you know. It isn't
  only what a married couple enjoys but wants to keep
  private, it's also what they don't enjoy."
  
  "Charles and I don't have rows."
  
  "That's nice, dear, but it won't be the end of the
  world when you do." During this discussion, Kate
  had been preparing dinner. Kathleen, trained in
  this kitchen, had helped. 
  
  "Memere," Cat had appeared suddenly. "May I have a
  pickle, please."
  
  "It's too close to dinner, Cat. When Maman and Papa
  get here, we'll all eat.
  
  Bob and Jeanette spent a long, not particularly
  pleasant, time with Mrs. Groghan. The sky to the
  west was getting cloudy as they drove back. As she
  got out of the car, Jeanette heard the Marseillaise
  coming from inside. She got there in time to join
  in the last verse. 
  
  "How often have you sung it to Memere today?" she
  asked Cat. It had been a nice surprise, but she
  hoped Katherine hadn't had it inflicted on her
  every hour.
  
  "Deux seulement." She was still in the francais
  mode. Besides, she knew she was being accused of
  something else she hadn't done.
  
  "The repetition was my idea," said Charles.
  
  "We were waiting for you, dear. Dinner is in five
  minutes, if you care to wash up." Jeanette went
  upstairs. Bob, who had no compunction about being
  heard urinating, used the downstairs half bath. 
  
  "And how was Mrs. Groghan?" Kate asked when they
  had begun eating.
  
  "Depressed," Jeanette answered, "and -- frankly --
  depressing. She told us that she doesn't get many
  visitors. I can understand why. Marcy seems to be a
  regular every two weeks, and I think she's running
  for sainthood. I was reminded of my calls to my
  parents. 
  
  "You don't know, Charles, but the first Christmas
  after our marriage, my mother's plan for the
  vacation was that I spend all of it in my house and
  Bob spend all of it here. Six months newlywed.
  Somehow, the idea didn't strike my fancy. Actually,
  I'd been happy to escape that house. Ever after,
  until Cat was born, we spent Christmas dinner with
  them. I called on Mother's Day and Father's Day.
  Every call, every visit, was agony. I'm surprised I
  didn't develop an ulcer. When we took Cat there for
  a Christmas dinner, it was no better. A dutiful
  daughter might have an obligation to inflict that
  on herself. A good mother has an obligation not to
  inflict that on her child. They haven't seen Cat
  since."
  
  "And, Cat, do you want to tell about the library?"
  Kate didn't want to discuss whether Cat had seen
  Jeanette's parents since. Cat told all about the
  library, and nothing about the other visits. She
  ended up saying that all the books in the library
  were in English. "Cat was telling me about your
  library, that it has Spanish books. Does it have
  French books, too?"
  
  "I don't believe so," said Jeanette. "Bob?"
  
  "None I've seen. It has more Russian than Spanish
  books, I don't think any of them are for kids.
  Remember the Mariel boat lift?"
  
  "Yes, dear. Did it bring Russian books to Chicago?
  I would think Spanish ones if any?"
  
  "Well, yes. But the idea. We said to Castro, 'Free
  your political prisoners.' He freed a good deal
  more than the political ones." Cat's presence
  cleaned up Bob's vocabulary the way that his
  mother's presence hadn't for decades. "He sent us
  his criminal class. They found the pickings much
  better in the USA.
  
  "Well, we said Jews in the USSR are oppressed --
  which they were but not extremely for the USSR.
  They let bunches of their Jewish retirees leave,
  and we let them all in as refugees. Then, since
  they were no longer in their country, the soviets
  didn't pay them pensions. Lots came to our
  neighborhood. I don't think there are any Russian
  kids, though I wouldn't bet on it. I wouldn't give
  odds against Eskimos in the local school."
  
  "So," Kathleen summarized, "the Chicago library has
  books in English, Spanish and Russian. Eskimos are
  out of luck."
  
  "Our branch library has books in English, Spanish,
  and Russian. If Jeanette wanted to borrow French
  books, I'm sure there are some in the system. The
  branch does take one French-language magazine,
  though. It's Jeune Afrique, but I don't know what's
  jeune about it."
  
  "That's 'young,' Bob." Jeanette couldn't understand
  how Bob could miss that. His French vocabulary
  wasn't great, but it should contain 'jeune.' Didn't
  he call Cat 'jeune fille' sometimes?
  
  "Yeah. 'Young Africa.' But it's more like Newsweek
  than Cricket or Boy's Life. The guys on the cover
  have all been old except when Obama was elected.
  For that matter, Obama is older than I am. I don't
  look younger than Obama. I sure don't feel younger
  than Obama."
  
  "Well, dear, I'm sure he feels older than you. Some
  days, he probably feels older than me."
  
  "'Mr. President,'" Charles said, "'A plane carrying
  the Polish president and half his cabinet has
  crashed in Russian air space. The two countries
  haven't gone to war -- yet.'"
  
  "Oh, it's a job to turn your hair white, all right.
  It just hasn't."
  
  "Those two don't have an ounce of fat between
  them," Jeanette contributed. "And she's borne two
  children."
  
  "Do I detect a tiny amount of jealousy there,
  dear?"
  
  "Nothing tiny about it. Those birthers are barking
  up the wrong tree. How about proof of Sasha's
  birth? What I want to see is a picture of Michelle
  pregnant, preferably nine months pregnant. I'd have
  it blown up and stick it on my wall. 'I'm thinner
  than you were then!'"
  
  "Well, you've got your figure back, dear."
  
  "My figure, perhaps. Not hers. And my waist is two
  inches larger than it was before Cat -- three at
  the wrong time of the month."
  
  "But I like your figure."
  
  "You, Bob, liked my figure when I was pregnant."
  
  "I like your figure now. You were so sleek then.
  Sexy."
  
  "I take back the wall poster. You'd just lust after
  it."
  
  "Well, we got some new books to read, but they were
  all in English." Kate didn't like the discussion of
  Daddy's lusts in front of Cat. And Cat, who was as
  capable of carrying on her own monologue as any
  other Brennan, was following this conversation. 
  
  Indeed, although it was at the Brennan table, this
  had been one conversation. Soon that record was
  shattered, as was the conversation. Cat told Maman
  about the three books Sharl had read to her,
  Charles and Bob discussed the history of Russian-
  Polish relations, and Kathleen brought up one issue
  her conversation with her mother had raised that
  she could discuss in front of Char.
  
  "Was I way wrong in saying that the plane crash
  risked war," Charles asked.
  
  "Probably not. The governments involved may have
  been certain, but the State Department was probably
  less so. After all, the potential for taking
  offense was on the Polish side, and there wasn't
  much of a Polish government to go to war. On the
  other hand, those countries have been invading each
  other for centuries."
  
  "Russia invading Poland, for sure. But I though
  that was only the communists."
  
  "Short history of Russia. Back before the time of
  Christ, there were Slavic tribes all over Eastern
  Europe. Not quite everywhere, but almost
  everywhere. They'd displaced someone else, to be
  sure. Finns, maybe. But historians only study what
  has happened when somebody around writes things
  down. Anyway, a bunch of Scandinavians conquered
  the area that you might think of as the Western
  Soviet Disunion. They established a trade with
  Constantinople by river and the Black Sea. They
  used to gather annually in Kiev to form convoys to
  protect themselves from river pirates. The Slavs
  called their Scandinavian conquerors 'the Russ' or
  the redheads.
  
  "Time passed, the Russ were conquered by
  descendants of Genghis Khan. They looted and
  devastated Poland to create a cordon sanitaire, and
  ruled Russia from Astrakhan. They figured that was
  as far west as they could live full-time and keep
  up their Mongol lifestyle. Each year, they'd wait
  for the rivers to freeze solid enough. Then they'd
  ride north and west on those rivers.
  
  "But their turn came to weaken. The Polish
  aristocrats conquered a big swath of territory from
  them. They called it "The Frontier," or, in Polish,
  "The Ukraine." Ever wonder why the country is
  called "The Ukraine," while other countries aren't
  called the France or the England? So when the
  Russians got their own act together and threw off
  their Mongol yoke, huge swaths of the people who
  spoke like them were in The Ukraine or in
  Byelorussia, White Russia. White Russia had other
  conquerors. Later yet, the tsars reconquered both
  countries. When they got to the border between The
  Ukraine and Poland, they didn't stop. By the First
  World War, Poland was divided among the German, the
  Austrian and the Russian empires. 
  
  "Anyway, conquest not only wasn't a communist
  invention, it didn't go only one way."
  
  "History is more complicated than I thought."
  
  "Yeah. I can recognize a cold or a broken leg. I
  bet most of what you see is something I could
  diagnose right maybe eighty percent of the time."
  
  "Some."
  
  "But we want you to see it. Because my child may be
  in the twenty percent. All specialties are niggling
  details. Another thing about history is that loads
  of people tend to think that countries have some
  sort of natural boundaries. Australia, maybe. But
  most boundaries are where the armies stopped
  fighting. Smithia sees their natural boundaries at
  the greatest extent that the have held; Jonesland
  sees their natural boundaries at the greatest
  extent they have held. A huge swath is in both."
  Both dug into their food for a moment.
  
  "Remember when Bob and Jeanette were first
  married?" Kathleen had asked. "They came home for
  Christmas?"
  
  "Indeed, I do, dear. You could have cut the
  attraction between them with a knife. And, while
  she is much more modest than Bob, it seemed mutual
  to me." Kathleen thought that was damning with
  faint praise -- dogs in the street are more modest
  than Bob. And she had her own memories to assure
  her that the attraction was mutual. Some of those
  memories involved her intense jealousy of that
  feeling between them when her life had seemed so
  deprived of love back then.
  
  "I'd more-or-less broken up with Terry Randolph.
  He'd propositioned me."  
  
  "I thought that something like that had taken
  place, dear. I tried to make myself available; you
  were having none of it. You preferred Jeanette. I
  was glad she was available. You could have done
  much worse. Worse than Jeanette, I mean. Terry was
  truly unsuitable."
  
  "You ever said so."
  
  "Saying so worked so well for the Capulets, it's a
  pity more parents don't try it. No, dear. And he
  was perfectly suitable for a boyfriend and dance
  partner. He was so staid, he would have never done
  as your life partner. I waited, and you saw that.
  Then you went back to being a high-school dating
  couple. The hardest part of parenting is knowing
  when to hold back. And, really, we felt more
  comfortable when he was taking your time. He never
  tried to use force, did he?"
  
  "Heavens, no! Terry?"
  
  "Well that is the greatest danger. You knew our
  rules; you could keep them or break them. You knew
  enough to take precautions." Cat, after all, was
  present if not evidently listening. "The greatest
  danger was some boy who would use force. Your 'no'
  wouldn't count. Your sensibility about precautions
  wouldn't count. And Terry didn't look like that
  type. What he did look like was an incredibly
  conventional boy. He was in high school, and he had
  fun because that's what you do in highschool. But,
  if you'd taken him for life, he would have stopped
  having fun. And, inescapably, so would you."
  
  "You never said any of that."
  
  "Well, first of all, we didn't particularly want a
  romance between the two of you. Why provide
  parental opposition? That's the surest fuel for
  romance. As I said, I made myself available; you
  turned to Jeanette. That was less adolescent
  rebellion than you practiced when you were
  technically out of adolescence, but it didn't bode
  well for a parental ukase.
  
  "And, in the second place, you were going to fly
  out of the nest and go to college. We weren't sure
  of medical school at that time -- although you were
  -- but we weren't so stupid as to regard it as
  certainly out of the question. So, you needed a
  social life then that wouldn't block your academic
  life in the future. Terry was -- if not perfect --
  a very good fit. Bob had been bad enough."
  
  "You love Jeanette."
  
  "That I do, dear, did even before Cat. There was
  nothing wrong with Bob's choice except the timing.
  And that messed up Jeanette's life rather than
  Bob's."
  
  "You keep talking of 'messing up' my life."
  Jeanette had been following both the other
  conversations. "Really, I've quite enjoyed my life.
  Someday I want to hear the specifics of the career
  I gave up to become Mrs. Bob Brennan. Because that
  was my dream from sometime in high school. 
  
  "Well, dear, we'd planned to support a single Bob
  through college and law school. We saw you as a
  tremendous block in that road. Your sacrifice
  removed that block -- eased our financial burden,
  actually. But it was a sacrifice."
  
  "If I were to list the hundred most pleasant
  moments in my life, few of them would have been in
  the classroom -- even the thousand most pleasant
  moments of my life. The best thing about the degree
  is going to be holding my head up at faculty
  events. There is now no reason for Bob to be
  ashamed of me."
  
  "You told us not to come, dear. You said the
  master's was in the future."
  
  "And so it is. I'm done with course work, but I
  still have a thesis to write. My adviser --
  advisers official and unofficial -- don't think
  that will take too long."
  
  "You know, dear, Russ never planned for that. Maybe
  we should..."
  
  "I'm embarrassed enough already. Honestly, we can
  pay my tuition. It's bad enough he left that
  special money for the last year. And this tuition
  isn't all that much, anyway." Jeanette hid her
  embarrassment by turning her attention back to Cat.
  She was managing her meal quite well, but welcomed
  Maman's attention.
  
  "I couldn't help hearing, er..."
  
  "'Kate,' dear. I've said that already."
  
  "Kate, I couldn't help hearing your assessment of
  Kath's former boyfriend. I'd love to hear what you
  first thought of me."
  
  "Well, dear, aside from thinking that she should
  have mentioned you much sooner, you were almost the
  opposite of Terry. His problem was one that Russ
  and I could see, but we were certain that Vi --
  that Kathleen -- couldn't. There was nothing
  particularly wrong with the boy; it was the man he
  was growing into.
  
  "The problem with you and Kathleen, on the other
  hand, was glaringly obvious. It would take an
  absolute idiot to ignore the problem of a cross-
  racial marriage. Neither of you were anywhere close
  to idiots. Our minds totally approved of the time
  you took worrying about it. I supposed, of course,
  that this was what you were working through. There
  might have been several other problems which were
  invisible to us, but that wouldn't be my business.
  Anyway, you were working through your problems
  together, and our minds approved."
  
  "You keep saying 'our minds."
  
  "Well, dear, our hearts wanted you to get on with
  it. We tried to hide that. After all, it would be
  your whole lives. You deserved the time to think
  the process through."
  
  "Well, you'd have consequences, too."
  
  "Only social consequences, dear, and minor ones. If
  you'd said that the wedding had to be in
  Philadelphia because of fears about how our
  neighbors would react, we'd have attended it there.
  That was already decided. And, dear, Tar Heels are
  really not that bad."
  
  "South Carolina," Bob put in, "was the first state
  to secede; North Carolina was the last."
  
  "Of course," Kate continued, "if you two had
  decided to never see each other again, we would
  have consoled Kathleen. Still, as much as that
  would have solved the Charles-and-Kathleen problem,
  and I got the impression that you had already done
  that once..."
  
  "Well, yes." From which confession, Kate got the
  impression that they'd done that more than once.
  That was an opening she was anxious to close.
  
  "However much it would have solved the problem of
  Charles-and-Kathleen, it wouldn't have really
  solved the problem of Kathleen. So, by the time you
  proposed, we had been praying for a resolution.
  And, dear, that was the only real resolution by
  then. Anyway, it happened. And Russ walked his
  daughter down the aisle."
  
  "I'm a little ashamed of the games I played about
  that," said Kathleen.
  
  "Well, dear, it wasn't the most splendid example of
  maturity you've ever demonstrated, but your father
  was happy, anyway."
  
  "You were happy, then?" asked Charles. They,
  especially Kath's father, had seemed happy.
  
  "As I said, dear, it was Kathleen's decision. We
  would have supported her either way. Yours, too, of
  course, but our attention -- if you'll forgive us -
  - was on our daughter. Still, if you're going to
  support your child, you'd rather rejoice with her
  than console her. And that was the only decision
  for which we could rejoice with her. If she'd given
  her heart to someone else -- not Terry, but an
  abstract someone -- she might have had an easier
  life. But, having given her heart to you, it was
  either a marriage or a tragedy. I keep speaking of
  the engagement as a resolution, a conclusion. Of
  course, engagements aren't. But if our celebration
  was anticipatory, the anticipation was justified in
  this case."
  
  "She means, Char, that we did get married."
  
  "I sort of followed that. I used to think your talk
  was convoluted." Indeed, he still felt her talk was
  convoluted, just not for her family.
  
  "Mom and I together, Mom and I arguing against each
  other, can't compete with Bob. 'Confuse, change
  sides, and still confuse.' And, brother dear, the
  misquotation was deliberate."
  
  "Well, I think it was Galbraith who said that
  expression should be as simple as the situation,
  but no simpler. Y'know, I write articles which are
  peer-reviewed. Nobody says that my expression in
  them is convoluted."
  
  "The man specializes in the politics of nineteenth-
  century Europe, and he claims his expression is no
  more complicated than his subject." Charles was
  ready to defend Kath against attacks. He could see
  that, this time, she was the aggressor. Bob didn't
  seem offended. Jeanette didn't even seem
  interested.
  
  "Done, mon chat? As tu mange tous tu desires?"
  
  "Les conserves au vinaigre?"
  
  "Apres ton bain."
  
  "If you are good about your bath," put in Bob,
  "then you may have one pickle." He was afraid that
  Cat would insist that 'les' was a promise. "Sorry,
  Mom. Now, I'm giving away your food."
  
  "Quite all right, dear. And, dear, do you want us
  to save your plate?"
  
  "Please," said Jeanette. She and Cat went upstairs.
  
  "How," asked Kathleen, "can one be bad about a
  bath?"
  
  "You can throw a tantrum against taking one."
  
  "At one time, dear, we felt that when the bath mat
  could be wrung out that you hadn't behaved
  properly. When the bath mat had to be wrung out
  before you were clean, that you had behaved very
  badly."
  
  "Was I really that bad?"
  
  "You were a child, once. As were we all. Her
  parents want Cat's best behavior to show to her
  family, and who can blame them? But, sometimes,
  their worries start to look like 'we're shocking
  the old bat.' Well, the old bat can remember
  behavior which quite puts Cat's worst in the shade.
  My third graders have all behaved well on average,
  but over the decades... For that matter, of the
  three small children named Brennan I've seen, Cat's
  tantrums are by far the mildest."
  
  "Not," Bob said, "that you've seen her worst." 
  
  "That's true, dear, and Jeanette may have seen
  everything I did. But a misbehaving child is a
  child and not a monster. When an infant senses that
  something is wrong, he wails. His mother puts it
  right. It's quite annoying when you can't, or when
  you are trying to find out what's wrong, or when
  you are putting it right -- changing the diaper,
  for example, or heating the formula -- and he keeps
  on wailing."
  
  "The Kitten used to wake and cry softly," said Bob,
  "The second cry was moderate. The third cry shook
  the rafters. Unless you were watching her at the
  time, sometimes not even then, you couldn't pick
  her up before she deafened you. If she were wet or
  hungry, of course, picking her up was only the
  first step."
  
  "And, dear, she couldn't communicate the problem.
  She could only communicate that there was a
  problem. And, often, the problem isn't something
  you can solve.
  
  "Anyway, that's programmed into our genes. Babies
  who don't cry don't have their problems solved.
  They require adult help to survive. Babies who
  don't cry don't have babies of their own. Long
  before there were humans, mammal babies cried."
  
  Thank you," said Charles, "Mrs. Darwin."
  
  "Well, I learned evolution long ago, and probably
  very sloppily. But, dear, I learned education much
  later -- you'd still think it was long ago -- and
  much more thoroughly. I've heard babies cry. As a
  means of dealing with their environment, it is
  terribly effective. Not even Kathleen is going to
  put the effort into understanding what you want and
  getting it for you as is the mother of a crying
  baby. Of course, every once in a while, crying
  babies are murdered. But it works the rest of the
  time, and all of us learned that it worked. 
  
  "Then, we need to learn other ways of getting our
  way. And, the Sunday schools tell us, we also need
  to learn to accept not getting our way. The second
  is much harder; I don't know that I've managed,
  yet."
  
  "Mother!" said Kathleen.
  
  "Mom," said Bob, "you are the least selfish person
  I've ever met."
  
  "Am I, dear? You visited Mrs. Groghan; I remember
  Jeanette's description. Are you planning to go
  back? Are you planning to visit Jeanette's parents
  any time soon? I always have pickles in the 'fridge
  for Cat's visits, you might possibly call that
  generous. You couldn't possibly call it unselfish.
  You two -- now you three -- have brightened all my
  Christmases but two since your wedding. And you had
  me as a guest for one of those two. I can't say I
  enjoyed that time, but nothing you could have done
  would change that.
  
  "Anyway, I got what I wanted from you. The loss of
  Russ aside, and I can't manipulate God, I've had a
  life I enjoyed. Really, dear, damn little of that
  was given me -- your father, of course, gave me
  much. Some was luck. And, all of it was luck in the
  sense that I didn't suffer disaster. But, after
  being given that my husband didn't die in the first
  heart attack and that I didn't come down with some
  major disease, I made things work. Kathleen, what
  would you have said if I had said that you were
  welcome here but Charles was not?"
  
  "Good bye."
  
  "Jeanette was more generous. Still and all, though,
  I've had more than my share because her mother said
  the equivalent. I can't know what she wanted, but I
  don't think she was more selfish than I was."
  
  "Then," said Jeanette who had just come down the
  stairs, "you don't know her. Mommy was the epitome
  of selfishness. You are the epitome of generosity." 
  
  "Mom was just explaining how it's all enlightened
  self interest."
  
  "Well, I can't stay. A certain Cat wants a pickle
  rather than a saucer of milk."
  
  "Would you mind terribly, dear, if I took it up to
  her?"
  
  "No."
  
  "And would two pickles be rewarding not-quite-
  rebellious behavior?"
  
  "Two would be fine, but not selfish. Cat's a
  Brennan; when she rebels here's nothing borderline
  about it. But she needs to brush her teeth, use the
  bathroom, and wash her hands before bedtime. Just
  call, if you want me to do it." That sounded like
  she was putting it all on her, but she knew
  Katherine's preferences.
  
  "If you think it unselfish, dear, you don't know
  what I want. And, good night, all. I'll not come
  back down. No news for me tonight."
  
  "And, Charles," said Bob, "I hope you don't think
  that not welcoming you was something that Mom
  actually contemplated. It was something that
  Jeanette's mother, mutatis mutandis, had tried to
  do."
  
  "I didn't think it was. It was quite unlike her,
  and quite unlike Kath to take the suggestion so
  calmly if she'd suspected that it was serious. But,
  really, ego aside, I can see why I might be an
  unwelcome son-in-law to a white southern lady. I
  can't see why you would be. Are you so different
  than you were back then?"
  
  "Different? He's Bob. That's reason enough to
  reject him."
  
  "For you, Kathleen. As I've told you, I don't claim
  he was a good brother; I do claim he's a good
  husband. You're prejudiced. And what makes him a
  good husband is what made him an unacceptable son-
  in-law. I was, still am but was back when it
  mattered to Mommy, happy with Bob. Even before the
  marriage, Bob could calm me down, make me happy
  sometimes."
  
  "You should have held out for somebody who could
  make you happy all the time."
  
  "Nobody's happy all the time. Not even you, with
  your parents, were. And, when I was living with my
  parents, making me happy even once was a major-
  level miracle. Anyway, there Bob was defying her --
  making me happy when she wanted me miserable. I
  don't think she'd have accepted any suitor, but Bob
  was especially objectionable because he was in such
  a stark contrast to her."
  
  "You must be exaggerating."
  
  "I used to think so, Kathleen, but nothing I saw
  about her contradicted Jeanette's analysis."
  
  "Maybe I'm too self-centered. Greg's life wasn't
  any bed of roses, either. So, if your mother was
  talking about enlightened self interest, I think
  Mommy's self interest trumps Katherine's
  enlightenment, great as that is."
  
  "Memere!"
  
  "Hello, dear. Now, sit in this chair, and I'll get
  your snack ready." Cat dutifully scrambled up and
  sat with her hands folded. Kate set down the
  saucer, unfolded a tray table in front of Cat's
  chair, and set the saucer and a paper napkin on the
  table.
  
  "Two! Thank you, Memere. Merci beaucoup."
  
  "Il ne fait rien." Kate could manage that much
  French, and that trifle wouldn't corrupt Cat's
  accent. "Now, eat them very slowly. I'm going to
  leave you for a few minutes, but don't get down.
  I'll be back, dear." She hurried through her
  bathroom ritual and returned. Cat was sitting there
  quite obediently. "Use your napkin." Cat did,
  obviously not for the first time. Kate removed the
  tray table, and helped Cat down. 
  
  In the bathroom, she helped Cat up to the high
  seat, listened while she voided her bladder,
  watched while she wiped. When Cat turned towards
  the wash basin, she spoke. "What did you forget,
  dear?"
  
  "Oh, yes." Cat flushed the toilet. "Sorry Memere,"
  
  "That's all right, Cat. It's something you are
  learning." Cat washed her hands. "Toothbrush?" Cat
  ran off to her parents room without saying
  anything. Kate decided that she'd interpreted the
  question as an order. She came back with the
  toothbrush in a cylinder and a tube of toothpaste.
  "Do you want to try Memere's toothpaste, dear?" Cat
  thought about it.
  
  "Please." Kate wet the brush and spread a bit of
  paste on it. Cat brushed vigorously, if
  horizontally and only on the outside of the teeth.
  When had she taught Bob and Vi better brushing
  techniques? Whenever it was, it was not the age
  recommended today. She'd check with Jeanette to see
  if she should start with Cat. Cat spat as
  enthusiastically as she had brushed, cupped her
  hand under the faucet for water, sipped it, and
  then spat again.
  
  "Look at me, dear." When Cat did, Kate wiped a bit
  of paste off her mouth with Cat's towel. Then she
  handed it to her. Cat dried her hands and then hung
  the towel on her own, low, towel rack. "Do you want
  me to keep you toothbrush here?"
  
  "Please." Jeanette had indoctrinated Cat with one
  rule of manners. Kate hung it from the other side
  of the holder from hers. "Do you want to use
  Memere's toothpaste the rest of this visit?"
  
  "Can I?"
  
  "Yes, you may, dear." That was definitely not the
  term to teach at this age, not even to Bob's
  daughter, but you might as well have her hear it.
  "Now take the other toothpaste and this cylinder
  back to your room where you got them. Meet me in my
  room." Cat, with several times the distance to
  travel, was in the door by the time she got the
  lamp turned on. "Can you turn off the overhead
  light, dear?"
  
  "Yes." She was as literal as her father. But, at
  least, she did flick the switch. Kate set the timer
  for four hours and dug out the album before getting
  into bed.
  
  "We'll read some of the books we got from the
  library," she said as Cat climbed in after her.
  "But I have a special book that I want to look at
  with you, first."
  
  Cat was happy to look at anything in Memere's bed
  and in Memere's arms. And these pictures were of a
  baby. It didn't look like Billy.
  
  "Do you know who this is, dear?" Of course she
  didn't. The name was written in cursive, fairly
  fancy script, to boot. "This says 'Catherine
  Angelique Brennan.' These pictures are of you."
  
  "I look like that?" She didn't think so. Her hair
  was longer, and this baby was fat.
  
  "Not now. These pictures are of you when you were
  very young. This one is the very first picture,
  when you were a teeny-tiny baby."
  
  "And I was in the stomach of Maman." They always
  said so, and it didn't seem possible.
  
  "Not then, right after. Let me say that better.
  These pictures were taken a day of two after you
  came out of your mother's stomach. You were still
  tiny then. We called you 'The Kitten' 'cause you
  were so small. Look here." A few pages later, Bob
  was holding her on his arm. Her diaper fitted his
  palm, and her head was in the crook of his elbow.
  "That shows how big you were then -- how small you
  were then.
  
  "Does Papa measure your height against the wall?"
  She knew he did. She wanted to make a point.
  
  "Yes."
  
  "And are you taller than you were the last time he
  measured you?"
  
  "Yes."
  
  "That means you're growing, dear. You aren't
  growing as fast as you were back then, but you're
  still growing. Well, when you were very little,
  Papa and some others took these pictures. She went
  back to the front of the album and leafed through
  it. She could look at these pictures forever, but
  Cat had a limited attention span. She also didn't
  relate to the baby in the pictures. Kate reached
  for the library book. 
  
  Cat settled back when the story began. The second
  book was a Dr. Seuss. Her beloved Memere recited
  verse just like Papa did. Cat relaxed further. She
  made it almost to the end of the book. When Kate
  turned off the light, her namesake was deeply
  asleep. Before following her, Kate breathed a
  silent prayer.
  
  "Thank you, Lord, for Cat and for everything." With
  the warm, well-loved, lump in her arms, Kate
  dropped off as soundly. The timer was beeping
  slowly and plaintively when it woke her in the dead
  of night.
  
  The middle generation didn't stay downstairs that
  much longer. The other three relaxed while Jeanette
  finished her meal. 
  
  "Sorry to keep you," she said.
  
  "Nobody at this table," said Kathleen, "begrudges
  you the food that you missed tending to Cat.
  Begrudging you time with Cat, on the other hand..."
  
  "Now, Kath, don't be selfish. They were away all
  afternoon. We had Cat's attention for gobs of
  time."
  
  "Well," Bob said, "we're grateful that you kept her
  occupied. Cat can be sweet, but she also can be a
  handful."
  
  "That was The Kitten. She's grown into a lapful."
  After the laughter, Bob went to lock up while the
  others cleared the table and filled the dishwasher.
  There seemed to be plenty of space for breakfast
  things, so they didn't run it. Bob trailed the
  party to the stairs, turning out lights as he went.
  Jeanette was conscious that he was just far enough
  behind her on the stairs to have his eyes on the
  level of her butt. This pattern was too old to
  raise either resentment or desire; it was just Bob.
  To Bob, the sight of Jeanette's hips flexing as she
  mounted the stairs was as familiar, but it involved
  desire along with comfort. And Mom was tending to
  Cat. That was another level of comfort, not that
  Cat disturbed them often, not that they let that
  possibility keep them from sex. But the knowledge
  that she wouldn't disturb them tonight guaranteed a
  more relaxed and receptive Jeanette. Bob was quite
  unaware of the fragment of attention he turned
  towards Cat when he made love at home.
  
  They'd established an unspoken schedule for
  bathroom times. Jeanette, Bob, Kathleen, Charles.
  They followed it. When Bob locked the door,
  Jeanette took off her robe and nightgown. She hung
  them on a convenient chair. Bob tossed his robe and
  pajamas over the rocker. Then he moved them to the
  seat of the chair where Jeanette's nightclothes
  occupied the back. 
  
  "Do you think?" he asked. He gestured towards the
  rocker.
  
  "Well, we have our own."
  
  "Which we hardly ever use because of Cat. She's
  safely occupied."
  
  "There's something about this room that increases
  your libido."
  
  "I spent years here lusting unrequited after
  Jeanette Jacobs."
  
  "She was a young girl who is gone forever, never to
  return."
  
  "She went off to a better life as Jeanette Brennan,
  but someone who looks just like her is in this
  room." Jeanette couldn't deny it had been a better
  life, although she hardly looked like the teenage
  track athlete who'd never borne a child. Still, it
  was nice that Bob desired her even now. And it had
  been a better life. For all the hostages she'd
  given fortune, it was years since she'd felt the
  anxiety which was the normal state of her
  childhood.
  
  "Well, all right. Sit down." Bob sat in the rocker
  and she sat crossways on his knees. They shared a
  sweet kiss before Bob started petting her. The
  rocker creaked once when she leaned against his
  chest. Otherwise, it was still. Jeanette, herself,
  was still for a bit. She sat there and enjoyed the
  body supporting her, the hand caressing her, and
  the lips kissing her cheek. It had been a trying
  day, and this was a comforting end to it.
  
  After a while, though, the comfort gave way to
  desire. She got up and shifted position. This time,
  she was straddling Bob when she sat down. Bob bent
  to kiss her breasts before stroking the spread
  thighs. His fingers reached her clit at almost the
  same time as his lips reached the left nipple. She
  pulled his head hard against her breast.
  
  Immobilized, Bob sucked and stroked. He could
  barely get air through his nose, and his mouth was
  blocked by breast. If he had to go, however,
  suffocation by breast was the way to go. Finally,
  Jeanette let go of his head. She grasped him and
  raised herself up. When she came down it was around
  him. He felt himself enter her moist warmth until
  he was completely enclosed. He began rocking. The
  motion moved him only slightly inside her, but that
  friction was gloriously exciting.
  
  "Oh, love," he whispered.
  
  "Darling." she kissed his forehead. She was above
  him like this.
  
  "Sweet!" He grabbed her haunches and pulled her
  against him. This buried him another millimeter 
  into her depth. The motion of the rocker barely
  pulled him out, but it rubbed him against her both
  inside and out.
  
  This time, it wasn't his finger rubbing her. The
  result was less demanding, but even more arousing.
  As the feeling grew, she gripped his shoulders. Her
  whole body felt warm, the warmth began where they
  were joined, but spread to her head and her toes.
  Then, a fire burst forth in her center. The fire,
  too, spread.
  
  "Oh Bob!" 
  
  He heard her cry an instant after he felt her first
  contraction around him. He sped up the rocker and
  then lifted her an inch by her haunches. As he
  pulled her down again, he speared through the sweet
  clutches around him. Then he was buried in her and
  pulsing. And pulsing.
  
  "Whew!"
  
  "Whew," she replied. "I love you. Can I stay a
  minute?"
  
  "I love you, too. As long as you want. 'Til Cat
  knocks in the morning."
  
  "We can't sleep like this, and your legs would fall
  off. But one more minute." And they sat hugging
  until she felt him slip out, followed by all the
  little Bobs. She reached for a Kleenex before
  raising herself. She wiped before stepping away.
  She handed him another Kleenex. He wiped himself,
  including the thighs on which she'd dripped. After
  he got up, he wiped off the rocker.
  
  "That was fun," he said, "but I always forget the
  trip to bed afterwards."
  
  "Three, four, feet?"
  
  "They seem like miles." They got into bed. He
  switched off the lamp, and she backed into the
  spoon position. "Love you," he breathed into her
  neck. She squeezed his hand before carefully
  placing it back on her breast.
  
  Meanwhile, Kathleen had been naked in bed when Char
  entered their room. He got in bed equally naked.
  She rolled onto her right side, and they kissed. At
  the end of the kiss, she held her finger to his
  lips. He nodded. Then she turned over onto her left
  side and slid back against him. Soon, Char's magic
  fingers were playing over her body. 
  
  Charles enjoyed the kiss, nodded when Kath signaled
  for silence, luxuriated in the softness of her body
  against almost every inch of his front. He had his
  own plans, and they would fit in with Kath's desire
  for silence. He listened for telltale sounds from
  the next room. What sounds there were didn't
  suggest that Bob and Jeanette wouldn't hear them.
  Well, he had gone too far with Kath for her to
  wait. Sound was her worry, let her suppress them.
  He felt the delightful softness next to his body
  turn stiff. She reached up to grasp the far side of
  the pillow.
  
  She felt Char's magic fingers stroke all of her,
  then concentrate in the most critical place. Then
  it was one finger, stroking her lips and over her
  clit. She stiffened, hung at the edge. Then, when
  she'd been right at the edge forever, she pulled
  the pillow to her mouth. As the flame leapt in her,
  she moaned into the pillow. When Char stopped
  stroking her, he kissed the back of her neck and
  her shoulder. She felt his hand return to her
  breast and his erection firm against her butt. She
  should do something for him, but this position was
  too comfortable for her to move yet.
  
  He nuzzled and petted Kath. Then, finally, he heard
  a rhythm from the next room. Bob and Jeanette were
  significantly older than he and Kath and had been
  married much longer; he'd feared that they might
  have subsided to a schedule of infrequent sex. But
  that was the rocker he heard, and it sounded like
  it held two. He reached for the diaphragm bag. But
  it didn't seem to have the diaphragm in it.
  
  She'd never removed the diaphragm Had the dose of
  jelly expired? This wasn't the time to make that
  calculation. She grabbed Char's hand and held it
  over her mons. 
  
  "It's in here," she whispered.
  
  "You okay?" She nodded yes and began to turn over.
  He held her in position. When she relaxed, he
  reached to raise her thigh. A minute later, she
  felt him right at her entrance. He slid in from
  behind, and his finger returned to her clit. She
  hadn't quite come down from the previous climax,
  and he was teasing her towards another.
  
  As he eased into Kath, the sensations were both old
  and new. Her vagina was as warm and juicy as ever,
  but angle provided new sensations. And her buttocks
  against his thighs and abdomen had always been
  arousing, but they were even more arousing when he
  was in her. He suppressed the instinct to drive in
  and out. Instead, he returned his finger between
  her labia. When he stoked her clitoris, there was
  an answering clutch of her buttocks touching him
  and a squeeze of her vagina.
  
  As her feeling soared, the sensations from Char's
  finger were joined by sensations of his sliding in
  and out of her. The movement wasn't the firm long
  strokes he used when he was on top, but the
  friction was arousing in a new way. The excitement
  built. Then, the fire flared again. He continued
  exciting her as she gasped into the pillow. Even
  when his finger withdrew, his strokes continued.
  They grew longer and faster. Not until she'd
  finally begun to come down did he clutch her
  hipbone, thrust deep and pulse within her.
  
  Being in Kath was always delightful. Being in her
  vagina from this direction was especially so. But
  being in her vagina when it began its orgasmic
  contractions was heaven itself. He lost his
  control. He drove in and out through that clutching
  tube. Finally, he grabbed her, pushed himself into
  her depths, and erupted. Her last contraction
  squeezed his last drops out of him. The noise from
  the next room was conversation before he recovered
  enough to speak.
  
  "Sleep like this?" She nodded, but before she was
  truly asleep, she'd felt him slip out. 
  
  When Kate woke her granddaughter in the middle of
  the night, she could hear the rain outside the
  house. She helped Cat onto the high toilet seat and
  down. When she sat down herself, Cat was just
  standing there.
  
  "Levez les Mains." Obediently, Cat raised her hands
  straight up. When Memere said nothing more, the
  hands reminded her of another task. 
  
  "Memere, do you want me to wash my hands?"
  
  "Please, dear." As Cat did, Kate cursed herself
  silently. She should stick to English. 'Lavez,' not
  levez.' And Cat was such a dear, not telling her
  when she was wrong when everybody told Cat when she
  was wrong. After she washed her own hands, she led
  Cat back to bed. "You are a very sweet girl." She
  switched off the lamp.
  
  "Thank you, Memere." Cat snuggled back against
  Memere. She hadn't been quite awake; the sound from
  outside was soothing; the hug even more soothing.
  She was soon back asleep. Kate followed her. 
  
  When the alarm called Kate to duty, the warm body
  in her arms made her reluctant. But she had a
  family to feed, which was much better than
  preparing breakfast for one. "Do you want to come
  to the kitchen with me, dear?"
  
  "Can I?... Please."
  
  "You certainly may! Bathroom first. Can you go by
  yourself?"
  
  "Yes, Memere." And she did, showing a dressed Kate
  her washed hands. After Kate had her own bathroom
  time, they went down to the kitchen. Cat sat on her
  phone book at the kitchen table while Kate
  described the breakfast preparations. "Memere, I
  wish I lived here with you all the time."
  
  "I'd enjoy it, too, dear, But Papa and Maman have
  work to do in Chicago."
  
  "I could stay."
  
  "You'd miss Maman. Besides, right now, Maman makes
  the rules for Cat. You think, no Maman, no rules,
  don't you?"
  
  "Yes." It sounded like Memere didn't think so.
  
  "Well little girls need rules. Now, I don't make
  rules for you, because Maman does, and I trust her
  for the rules to be right." Cat didn't think the
  rules Maman made were right. "If you were my little
  girl, I'd be the one making the rules. And you
  might think my rules were far stricter -- were far
  harder on you. Ask Tante Kathleen. Once, she was my
  little girl and she thought my rules were very hard
  on her. And she didn't eat half the pickles you do,
  not one tenth."
  
  "No?" Maman, however many rules she made, said no
  when she meant no. Memere was a little like Papa.
  Sometimes Papa spoke a long time, and it meant no.
  
  "No, she didn't. And ask Papa. Little boys need
  rules, too, and he was once my little boy. He
  didn't think I was easy. So, I like you here on
  visits; I like being an indulgent grandmother; I
  wouldn't be so indulgent if you were here
  permanently. Anyway," [it was time to change the
  subject] "you talk about being in your Maman's
  stomach. Have I ever told you about the time you
  were here when still in your Maman's stomach?" Kate
  didn't like 'stomach' for 'belly,' but Jeanette had
  obviously made the choice, and this was Jeanette's
  child, not hers. For that matter, it was Jeanette's
  belly.
  
  "No?" Memere was going to tell her. Cat's
  vocabulary, which included 'portcullis,' didn't
  include 'rhetorical question.' Living with her
  father, though, she had heard plenty. Anyway, she
  enjoyed the stories Memere told, and there was
  something special about being with her in the
  kitchen wearing nightie and slippers when everybody
  else was asleep.
  
  "Well, dear, it was Christmas time. And I already
  knew that Maman and Papa, who weren't your Maman
  and Papa yet, wanted to have a baby." ['Were
  trying' just might raise the question, 'how were
  they trying, Memere?' Giving that talk, when it was
  time, which wasn't now, was Jeanette's
  responsibility. And she didn't envy her. Been
  there, done that, with another girl who was
  intelligent and inquisitive.] "Anyway, that
  Christmas both Maman and Papa looked as though they
  were keeping a secret -- a happy secret. Then, one
  night at dinner, they told us. They were going to
  have a baby. They told Pepere, and Tante Kathleen,
  and me. Charles wasn't here at the time.
  
  "And Pepere was happy to hear that they would have
  a baby and he would be a grandfather. He said that
  the finest gift that Christmas never made it under
  the tree. Because you were in your Maman, and she -
  - of course -- didn't go under the branches of the
  tree. And Tante Kathleen was happy. And I was very
  happy, indeed. But, you know what?"
  
  "What Memere?"
  
  "I don't think any of us were as happy as Maman and
  Papa were. Not about the news, of course, They
  already knew. But they were very happy that they
  would have a baby. And, months later, they did. And
  the baby was you! Then, they were even happier. And
  Tante Kathleen and Charles came to see you. They
  saw you baptized. Have you seen a baptism in your
  church?"
  
  "I think so."
  
  "Well, you were a very tiny baby, and the minister
  sprinkled water on you and gave you the name
  Catherine Angelique. And, since my name is
  Katherine -- spelled with a K, I'll show you -- you
  were named for me. I felt quite honored. And, then,
  you came here that Christmas with your family. I
  mean with Maman and Papa. And we were all glad to
  see you. As I said, as the pictures showed, you
  were teeny-tiny. You didn't walk yet, and everybody
  wanted to hold you. I held you, and Pepere held
  you, and Tante Kathleen held you."
  
  "And Sharl, and Maman?"
  
  "Charles wasn't here again that year. We didn't see
  Charles much until he had ended his residency.
  That's the last stage of a doctor's education. They
  can get very little time off then, and you saw him
  more than we did. And Maman held you sometimes,
  mostly when you were hungry. But we all felt that
  Maman and Papa got to hold you when you weren't
  here. So we wanted to get our chances. Charles turn
  is now. You are such a big girl that I couldn't
  pick you up. But he gets to lift you up way high."
  
  "You need to get dressed, Cat." Jeanette had
  appeared.
  
  "You could leave the next morning's costume for me,
  dear. As it was, we've been up for more than half
  an hour. Would you like scrambled eggs and bacon?
  I'm afraid it isn't real bacon; I got in the habit
  when Russ was here."
  
  "Probably better for us. Yes, thanks. Think Cat
  should eat like this and dress afterwards?"
  
  "If it doesn't break any hard-and-fast rules,
  dear." Not that she thought if did. Jeanette
  wouldn't have brought it up if she weren't going to
  permit it.
  
  "Do you want to eat like this, Cat, and dress after
  breakfast?"
  
  "Please, Maman."
  
  "Very well, you may." 
  
  "I'll get you a plate, too, Cat. Only a little
  eggs, but you can have more if you want them."
  
  "I'll carry them in. Bob'll be along in a minute."
  Katherine's policy was probably better than filling
  Cat's plate and letting Bob finish the remains.
  Better for both of them.
  
  At about the same time, Kathleen was going into the
  bathroom as her brother came out. When she got back
  to her room, she was grinning.
  
  "You think you're welcome here? When you go into
  the john, look who really rates." Charles looked
  around, before shaving. The holder for a glass and
  toothbrushes held two toothbrushes, one of them
  short. He smiled at that.
  
  "I'm not going to feel rejected," he told Kathleen
  back in her room.
  
  "I'd think not. I come second to Cat, and I'm Mom's
  own flesh and blood. Now, when she spends time in
  your lap, then I feel jealous."
  
  "Liar! I've never held your mother in my lap."
  
  "You have definitely spent too much time in this
  house." They went downstairs together and went into
  the kitchen for their food. "Really, Mom, you rise
  first and eat last. Don't you think you should join
  us." Kate followed them back.
  
  "Really dears, have you looked out the window?"
  
  "Build an ark."
  
  "Unless someone has made important plans for today,
  I suggest we spend it inside." There were nods.
  "The thing is that I have a ham, and I planned to
  serve a feast sometime during this visit."
  
  "As opposed to the gruel we've subsisted on so
  far?" asked Bob.
  
  "Thank you, dear, but I was wondering whether
  Kathleen and Jeanette would join me in the
  preparations. You two could keep Cat amused, and we
  could have the feast as a noon dinner. Does that
  seem reasonable?" She got nods. "And, dear, Cat
  needs to brush her teeth and get dressed." Although
  this was addressed to Bob, Jeanette took her up.
  
  "We're not enforcing the nudity taboo on Cat, Mom.
  On the other hand, Jeanette doesn't want me forcing
  a violation of it, either. Then Cat decides."
  
  "And, some time, dear, she will. Quite suddenly, if
  experience is a guide. Jeanette is a wonderfully
  thoughtful mother."
  
  "I think so, and she has the greatest respect for
  your wisdom. So to speak, she wants to be a modern-
  day version of you rather than of her own mother."
  
  "Well, dear, I'm not certain that either is the
  height of wisdom. Whatever her mother did wrong,
  she did end up with Jeanette. Nobody is always
  wrong, not even mostly wrong. As for me, I read the
  books, but that was decades ago; all the advice is
  certain to have changed."
  
  "That means, Kate, that your advice will be the
  newest scientific breakthrough when Cat has a
  child."
  
  "Really, dear, cynicism about pediatric advice is
  widespread, but from a pediatrician?"
  
  "We're the most cynical of all. Parents have one,
  two, maybe a few, children. They wonder what would
  have happened if they'd done something different.
  We have hundreds of patients. We see all sorts of
  child-raising patterns succeed and all sorts fail.
  Jeanette is a great example. Apparently, her mother
  did everything in her power to crush her self-
  image. She's a strong, confident, woman."
  
  'Well, dear, she is that. And she's trying to raise
  a strong, confident, daughter."
  
  "And, so far, succeeding. Sometimes, a confident
  girl, much less a strong one, embarrasses her
  parents. But it's better than a shrinking violet.
  With apologies to our, non-shrinking, Violet."
  
  "Apologies accepted, Bob." 
  
  "Dear, would you mind terribly going up to my room
  and getting the kitchen timer? It's on my night
  stand. We're going to need it."
  
  "Better than paring vegetables. My kitchen work
  starts now." When Kathleen came back with the
  timer, Jeanette and Cat were right behind her.
  Charles sat down in a chair with a pile of books.
  Soon Cat was in his lap. The three adult women went
  into the kitchen. "Now that you have the timer, why
  was it out of the kitchen?"
  
  "My memory is going, dear. Could it be
  Alzheimer's?" 
  
  "Not if you can remember to cook like you have been
  doing. Are you claiming you don't remember why the
  timer was up there? Because an Alzheimer patient
  wouldn't have remembered where it was."
  
  "Well, dear, Jeanette was afraid that Cat might not
  wake up in time to get to the bathroom. So, as the
  responsible adult, it was my job to wake her.
  Actually, I don't sleep through the night either.
  My bladder wakes me, but I might keep the four-hour
  schedule. It's somewhat more convenient. Sorry
  about that, dear, if it makes it harder for Cat to
  wake up when she gets back home."
  
  "Well, it either will or it won't. I actually
  figure that the number of wet sheets I'll have to
  change is written in heaven. All I can control is
  when they occur."
  
  "Very sensible thought, dear, even if it turns out
  to be incorrect. Motherhood is a journey, not a
  task. Feeling you've failed -- even that you've
  succeeded -- leads to useless frustration."
  
  "Speaks the woman who has Bob Brennan as a son.
  Must be consoling. Now, what should I do." Kate
  assigned their tasks, sitting at the table. She
  began her own preparation of the ham with a jar of
  cloves.
  
  "What I want to hear," said Jeanette when she had
  the rhythm of scraping carrots down, "is this
  business of your enlightened self interest."
  
  "Well, dear, it should be clear. I've had a
  basically happy life. I lost Russ, of course, and
  still cry over that. But I had Russ for decades.
  More happiness there than tears. I've been gifted,
  of course. As I told you, children are potluck. I
  was lucky in mine. Both, despite what Kathleen
  pretends to believe.
  
  "Still and all, I've worked with what I've been
  given to be happy. You are the luck of the draw,
  Cat doubly so. Maybe triply so, because Bob was
  luck, too. But, I made you welcome, I tried to make
  your visits here pleasant. And I think I've
  succeeded more than failed."
  
  "You're always a lovely, welcoming, hostess."
  
  "And I get your visits, don't I? And, these days,
  your visits include Cat. I don't think you regard
  these visits as chores. Oh, they involve chores;
  they involve Amtrak, for heaven's sake. But you
  don't seem to dread them from one year to the next.
  Cat enjoys them, so telling Cat that you are going
  to visit Grandma Brennan doesn't involve screams of
  complaint."
  
  "No complaints whatsoever. A few screams, maybe.
  You're her favorite person. She loves these
  visits."
  
  "And, while you might think I spoil her too much,
  you enjoy the visits partly because she does, too.
  So, I get what I want from you, and I get what I
  want from her. I can't have my husband back, I
  can't have my youth back. But the humanly-possible
  things that I want, I get. Every part of that which
  isn't luck is pure selfishness."
  
  "And this is the woman who talks about my
  sacrifice. I've got what I wanted. Since my
  marriage, I've got nearly everything that I wanted.
  Some of it took a little while, but what I wanted
  most, I got early on. We could have married a year
  earlier, but not sooner than that, not when I was
  still in high school."
  
  "Well, Jeanette, aside from your perverse interest
  in marrying Bob, you put your academic career on
  hold."
  
  "Dear, you drive that argument into the ground.
  Fight with your brother all you want, but you don't
  want to fight with Jeanette. Use a little of the
  selfishness I've been preaching. What draws her to
  Bob is what draws you to Charles."
  
  "Indeed, the first time I saw Charles before The
  Kitten's baptism, I was struck by the resemblances.
  Differences, sure, but he is a lot like your
  brother and how your father was. Tall, deep voice,
  sense of humor."
  
  "That's really beside the point, dear."
  
  "Charles can sing, He has a lovely singing voice."
  
  "Intelligent."
  
  "Dears, none of that matters. The particulars which
  attract a woman might be quite different. You
  didn't look for the best singer you could find,
  dear. If you had, a medical school would be a weird
  place to look."
  
  "Well, no."
  
  "However different the particular attractive
  features, the attraction is the same. I said that
  we could have wished that you'd given your heart
  elsewhere. When you gave your heart to Charles,
  though, that defined the situation. Well, Jeanette
  gave her heart to Bob. Aside from my pleasure in
  her company and her child, my selfishness, she
  could have done worse. Don't blind yourself. He may
  have a weird sense of humor, but he is not nasty,
  an alcoholic, or a wife-beater."
  
  "He supports me."
  
  "Yes, dear, but you supported him for years."
  
  "You don't understand. Yes, his paycheck pays the
  bills, and once mine did -- with generous help from
  you and your husband. But back then, even before we
  were married, he kept me steady. He hugged me when
  I needed a hug. Had he been a perpetual student and
  we had never had a child because I needed to keep
  working, even then I'd have needed him more than he
  needed me. If I need his care less now, it's
  because he's helped mend me.
  
  "You talk about the language study. You want to
  know how that came about? Well, it was the third
  thing I studied after the wedding. The first was a
  course he was taking, Studying with him was all
  sorts of fun, but he was a junior, after all. He
  stopped taking courses without prerequisites. He
  asked me what I wanted to study next. 
  
  "Y'know, Pastor Jim had talked to us about what we
  assumed from the families in which we grew up. He
  wants this, but she wants that. This isn't too
  dangerous, 'cause they are conscious of it and can
  compromise. What's more dangerous is he thinks this
  is what it means to be married and she thinks that
  is what it means to be married. Well, I wasn't too
  worried. I wanted us to be a family, and you were
  the family I most wanted to be like. Anyway, once
  Bob asked me if I minded that he said all the
  graces."
  
  "Jeanette! You didn't let him?"
  
  "You're as bad as he was. I was glad to let him say
  grace. What he didn't ask was whether my picture of
  family was one where somebody said grace at
  dinnertime. Because it wasn't. But, since this was
  the Brennan pattern, and that was what a real
  family looked like, I was glad. I teased him about
  it later, but I only teased. I never suggested that
  we stop. Since I wanted to be a family, I put my
  foot down on some issues. I know that you keep a
  neat house, but you don't seem to have taught him
  that."
  
  "I gave up, dear. He did a good wash, really. I let
  him clean his own room on his own schedule except
  for every other month. Which was often the only
  vacuuming he did. He was always better about
  personal hygiene, dear. Although I remember telling
  him that simple respect for a date required that he
  shower and wear clean clothes whenever he sees her.
  That rule may have been enough. He already showered
  before Church."
  
  "Well, anyway, he never claimed that vacuuming was
  an un-Brennan activity. Nor washing dishes, which
  considering that you had an automatic dishwasher
  and we didn't, would have been a valid claim. I
  think I've lost my point."
  
  "Welcome to the family."
  
  "It's not only your family, Kathleen. Anyway, Bob
  was giving me my free choice as to what I should
  study next. He regarded that as giving me total
  freedom. If I had opted for how oppressive the
  patriarchy was, he'd have got the books out of the
  University library for me. But, being Bob, he
  didn't for a moment consider that I would want to
  study nothing. Anyway, the thing I did want to
  study was typing. I'd taken a little, but far from
  enough to qualify for office work. He clearly
  didn't think that was a real study, but -- since it
  was what I wanted -- he agreed to buy the computer
  course which turned me into a decent typist.
  Believe me, there is all the difference ib the
  world between a typist and a file clerk."
  
  "When I had a job which involved typing, I was
  getting far more practice typing than I wanted. He
  asked me what I wanted to study next. Well I'd
  taken two years of high-school French. I took
  French in the first place because Bob had. Then I
  learned he had switched to German in college."
  
  "He didn't tell you that, dear? He told us. I
  thought he told you everything."
  
  "He told me a great deal. Much of it was about his
  dreams." Some of it was about her, and a lot --
  just when he got back from his first year of
  college -- was about his version of their agreement
  to date others. It wasn't a time to discuss his
  decisions about curriculum. "Remember that year we
  weren't dating and that summer he was back on road
  construction. Anyway, I took two years of high-
  school French which qualified as one year of
  college French. I took second-year French. I didn't
  like the results. I really didn't have the
  vocabulary I should have. Nor the accent. Also, I
  was never going to get credit for studying *East
  Asia, Tradition and Transition*, lovely as that
  study had been. So, to get the knowledge which my
  transcript already said I had, I started learning
  French vocabulary on my own, starting from the list
  in the back of the book I'd studied, For a while, I
  worked on my speech in the language lab. You heard
  about that.
  
  "So, I wasn't denied studies in French because I
  married a Brennan. I may have slighted my studies
  in French because I was dating a Brennan, but I
  wouldn't have learned that much more. I studied
  French because Bob kept asking what I wanted to
  study. I very much wanted to be married to Bob
  Brennan. I -- when pushed as to a subject -- had a
  slight preference for improving my knowledge of
  French."
  
  "I didn't think he was that insistent, dear. I
  didn't think your marriage was like that."
  
  "He wasn't. As I said, he made assumptions. And it
  wasn't only him. I said 'I'm studying French.' You
  all, your relatives out to several degrees, said
  'What Jeanette is is a person who is studying
  French on her own.' And, to be perfectly honest, I
  came to enjoy it. When I really wanted something
  from Bob, I got it. When his assumptions were
  comfortable for me, I went along with them. The
  typing was one example. He did not consider that
  acceptably intellectual, but it was what I wanted.
  Cat was another. We got to the time we could afford
  either to send me to school or to start a child. He
  was certain that sending me to school was more
  important. I asked 'Is this for me?' If it was for
  me, then it should be what I wanted. And then he,
  you too, talks as if it was one more sacrifice I
  made. It was a decision I made. A very selfish
  decision.
  
  "You took art history because the field interested
  you?"
  
  "Yes, dear."
  
  "And you took an MAT because it was something you
  could do with that education?"
  
  "And because staying on campus was suddenly much
  more attractive. I'd met Russ, you see."
  
  "Throughout none of that time had you ever
  considered, let alone desired, teaching third
  grade?"
  
  "Not really. I took the job when our finances were
  in a jumble. I couldn't work as a secretary, even
  were my typing up to yours."
  
  "So, you spend the majority of your life in work
  you never particularly intended. I, on the other
  hand, have spent my adult life, or nearly all of
  it, as Mrs. Bob Brennan. Which is the position of
  which I dreamed for the preceding several years. I
  have a lovely daughter, a girl whose attention you
  covet -- both of you. I live a comfortable life,
  economically. I'm getting an education, a much
  better education than I would have received if I'd
  gone straight on. Really, you think college is more
  than a degree; it's an experience. So, I get an
  educational experience that far surpasses what I
  could have received had I not married Bob. And,
  because it is a little later than it might have
  been, you call that a sacrifice. That's fourth or
  fifth on my priority list, but it's still better
  than what I gave up."
  
  "Then you are happy, dear?"
  
  "Very happy. I cry sometimes, who doesn't? You
  can't be ecstatically happy all the time, but I
  have my moments. I'm usually content. I'm tired of
  hearing about my sacrifice."
  
  "Well, sacrifice or not, dear, you came into our
  family at an awkward time and made our cause your
  own. That made you a Brennan. If our cause was
  yours, your cause, always, is ours."
  
  "At an awkward time for your family. It was a life-
  saver for me. And it was my coming in that made it
  awkward."
  
  "Still, Jeanette," said Kathleen, "whatever you
  said, you put the family ahead of yourself. That
  makes you part of the family."
  
  "Whatever I said?"
  
  "You said, 'What's better for Jeanette?' then laid
  out that your working and being sure of Bob's
  education was better for you than another year of
  school."
  
  "Well, it was. In case you haven't noticed, I'm
  married to an associate professor. The tuition
  money didn't run out. Okay, maybe it would have
  happened anyway. But there was much more in the
  reserves when we flew to France without warning
  your parents. That trip started the difference
  between Northwestern and Podunk Normal."
  
  "We'd have found the money, dear."
  
  "If possible. For either of your children. That's
  who you are -- were -- you are and your husband
  was. But draining the reserve was certainly not in
  my selfish interest, because something else might
  have come up first. All I'm saying is that I love
  you all, but I acted in what I saw as my own best
  interest. First of all, marrying Bob was my bottom
  line. If giving Cat two pickles makes it likelier
  to have her sleep in your bed, and she was anxious
  to do so before she ate them. She'd done so the
  previous night before you'd even thought of that.
  Then not making my marriage to Bob something which
  strained your family finances to the breaking point
  made that marriage more certain. Not draining the
  funds that paid my husband's tuition was totally
  selfish. Draining them would have increased risk --
  maybe everything would have gone all right, but
  there was more than enough risk. 
  
  "And, don't you see, Bob loves his family -- this
  family, I mean, though he loves Cat and me, too.
  You don't increase the love your spouse holds
  towards you by increasing the pain that dealing
  with you causes. 'Because I married Jeanette,
  whatever difficulties this causes, my parents don't
  have to pay my housing expense,' sounds much better
  than 'Because I married Jeanette, on top of all the
  other difficulties, my parents have to pay another
  set of tuition and rent on this apartment.'
  Marriage brings enough friction without bringing
  extra guilt with it."
  
  "Well dear, we see it as a sacrifice. The decision
  to have a child first, too. That sacrificed for
  something you wanted more, but it was a sacrifice
  nonetheless. But, if you don't want us mentioning
  it, maybe we should resist mentioning it. I have
  something else to discuss."
  
  "All right, but isn't that what we all do all the
  time. You sacrifice reading a book you'd enjoy to
  read a book to Cat which you'd never look at
  otherwise. You sacrifice buying the meal that
  tastes sort of good to buy the meal that tastes
  scrumptious. Kathleen sacrificed her chances of an
  affair with Greg to have a romance with Charles."
  
  "My chances of winning the lottery were higher.
  Greg always saw me as an appendage to you. He'd
  treat me in a way you'd approve for news of you.
  He'd have rather cut off his arm than treat me in a
  way which would earn your disapproval. All that
  aside, you're right. When you have a choice between
  two things, choosing the one you like better is
  hardly a sacrifice. Talking to Cat, now, 'Here's
  how much Maman wanted a baby...'"
  
  "All right. And, way back when, I chose to marry
  into a more solvent Brennan family. After all, the
  best things about my freshman year were one, it was
  close to Bob, and two, it was far from my family.
  The next year, I had even more time away from my
  family. I was much closer to Bob. I hated my job
  that year, but the typing is what got me a better
  job. Another year of college wouldn't have helped."
  
  "Well, dear, I swore I wouldn't second-guess your
  parenting and I'm not."
  
  "Which means, Jeanette, that she is about to."
  
  "I'm always ready to listen to your advice. After
  all, your first child turned out fine, whatever
  faults one might see in your second one."
  
  "Hmph!"
  
  "I told you, dear, picking at Bob when Jeanette can
  hear and he can't is a losing proposition. It isn't
  so much advice dear. You're doing a fine job of
  parenting, and I'm sure that your priorities are
  sensible. It's just that -- been there, done that -
  - I know that you have so much you can do. Now, I
  have two -- no three -- things I might do. You
  don't tell Cat things because she needs to learn
  them some day. You tell her all she is willing to
  absorb from you. She might, however, hear something
  more from me. And, you can decide to remind Cat of
  what Memere told her about brushing her teeth. You
  can equally well put that aside without feeling
  that this is another lesson you have given her that
  she has rejected. Because, you see, dear, you
  didn't give it to her."
  
  "Brushing her teeth?"
  
  "Yes, dear, she does an enthusiastic job. And you
  remind her to do it. But she brushes horizontally."
  Kate demonstrated with an imaginary toothbrush.
  "She needs to brush up and down. She also needs to
  brush the backs of her teeth."
  
  "Yes. I hope that all that toothpaste in her mouth
  will kill the germs."
  
  "As I said, Dear, you have so much to teach her.
  And, really, she'll only learn so much from you at
  one time. Cat thinks you give her too many rules,
  and you're well advised to emphasize looking both
  ways at street corners over brushing up and down.
  I'm not trying to change your behavior. I'm
  offering to be the person who tells Cat one thing,
  maybe not on top of your current priority list, but
  maybe useful."
  
  "You said three things?"
  
  "Well, she knows that she spent some time in your
  belly, although she sounds dubious when she says
  it. Also, she says 'stomach.' Well, I have a
  book...."
  
  "A book? A Brennan with a book?"
  
  "Well, yes, dear. The book has a great many
  pictures. It shows a sort of cut-out view of a
  woman. It will show her the digestive tract. It
  will show her the womb. It has other pictures with
  a baby in the womb. Dear, 'stomach' sounds so
  digestive."
  
  Jeanette laughed. "Katherine, sometimes you remind
  me so surprisingly that you're Bob's mother."
  
  "How can you say such a nasty thing about her? And
  she was trying to be helpful, too."
  
  "Dear, you always knew I was Bob's mother."
  
  "But sometimes it's more obvious. I remember back
  on our first visit home with The Kitten. Your
  husband had her, and he was reciting poetry to her
  pacing up and down. Sounded just like Bob."
  
  "I hope you said so."
  
  "I did. To both of them, but separately."
  
  "Bless you, dear."
  
  "Anyway, only a Brennan would complain about that.
  And Bob has. He prefers 'belly.' You prefer
  'womb.'"
  
  "If you're going to go that far, why not 'uterus'?"
  
  "Two more syllables, dear. And 'belly' is what
  Jeanette means by 'stomach.' It's just that the
  book would show pictures of the inside of the
  belly."
  
  "I'll think about it." Indeed, the last few
  sentences had made her think that maybe she'd
  decline.
  
  "Maman," Cat interrupted them, "may I have a
  pickle, please?" Jeanette felt ambushed, and Bob
  was usually so considerate about that. The other
  three deferred to her quite publicly. They clearly
  saw it as acknowledging her as the final arbiter of
  Cat's rules. Cat, and Jeanette to a certain extent,
  saw Jeanette as the Wicked Witch of the West. If it
  were not for her, Cat didn't think she would have
  any rules at all, and Cat didn't like rules. Bob
  was quite willing to be the bad guy. If he thought
  the answer was no, he said 'no.' If he thought the
  answer was yes, he said 'ask Maman.' Sometimes, he
  looked for a ruling from her before answering. (And
  Cat, no fool, probably noticed that.) He clearly
  thought the answer now should be yes, but...
  
  "I don't know, mon Chat. You had two pickles last
  night."
  
  "Then may I have two pickles please?" That brought
  laughter from the women.
  
  "Cat," said Kathleen, "you are a dear, sweet,
  conniver."
  
  "'Conniver' isn't a good word, dear. It means you
  are trying something you shouldn't try. Listen,
  dear, you and I had such a good time last night. I
  would hate to think it made you pushy. Because,
  then I would feel guilty about the good time. Now,
  does your having two pickles last night mean that
  you now get two pickles for every snack? Or does it
  mean that, maybe, you've had this morning's snack
  already last night?"
  
  "Maybe." Which was an ambiguous answer to a
  complicated question, but Kate took the dejected
  tone as signal that the moral lesson had been
  delivered.
  
  "Then ask your mother for one pickle. Ask her, and
  accept her answer as final without any whining."
  
  "Maman, may I have one pickle, please."
  
  "Ask ta memere. They are her pickles."
  
  "Memere, may I have one pickle please?"
  
  "Certainly, dear, since ta maman says it is all
  right. Go get your phonebook, and I'll get the
  pickle." Cat set the phonebook on a chair and
  climbed up on it. Jeanette slid the chair in so
  that Cat had the table right in front of her. Kate
  brought the pickle on a saucer and a napkin.
  Jeanette thought that Katherine's intervention
  sounded as though she'd read her mind. Perhaps she
  had; Jeanette would put nothing past her mother-in-
  law.
  
  "Tante Kathleen, were you once the little girl of
  Memere?"
  
  "Yes, Cat. For years and years." She noted that one
  member of the family was careful enough about the
  French language to avoid the hermaphroditic
  possessive, 'Memere's.'
  
  "And how many pickles did she let you eat?"
  
  "Well, I never had as many pickles in one day as
  you had yesterday -- probably not as many in any
  one week as you've eaten since you got here."
  
  "Really?"
  
  "Really! I may be forgetting some special week, but
  I didn't eat pickles as often as you do even when I
  was much bigger." Kathleen thought that the real
  "Adult Conspiracy" wasn't keeping kids from
  learning about sex. It was about keeping adults in
  control of everything. And she was now an official
  member. She couldn't remember ever being limited in
  the number of pickles she could eat -- cookies,
  yes, but not pickles. Not that Mom wouldn't have
  limited her had she eaten as many as Cat did. On
  the other hand, suggesting to Cat that she was
  asking for the wrong treats wouldn't be helpful.
  So, she'd avoided Cat's question, avoided it
  artfully enough to fool Cat. And, fooling a kid
  going on seven -- even Bob's daughter going on
  seven -- was nothing to feel proud about.
  
  The food was ready. When Cat was quite done and had
  been sent to wash her hands, Kate turned on the
  oven and the dishwasher at the same time. They
  might as well have all the heat in the kitchen
  while they were out of it. She took the timer and
  shut the door behind them. Cat was back in the
  living room. She climbed back in Charles's lap
  while the adults watched. Both Bob and Kathleen
  wondered what toys they still had for when Cat got
  tired of books.
  
  "You know," Kate said, "I got distracted last
  night. Whether or not we need to learn to desire
  something more than our own best interests, we do
  need to learn to pursue our best interests in a
  more socially-acceptable way than squalling until
  someone takes care of them. And it is something you
  learn. We understand that Cat doesn't read so well
  yet, that division is quite beyond her. We don't
  wait for her to learn those things on her own. We
  don't bitch and scream because she hasn't, Really,
  behavior is the same thing -- or quite similar.
  She, for instance, is unfailingly polite when she
  asks for a treat. I presume that is because she
  doesn't get them when she isn't."
  
  "Jeanette's contribution. She even says 'may I.'"
  
  "I've noticed, dear. But I'll bet that it took a
  lot of work."
  
  "She forgets. Everybody forgets. The only trick is
  for you to remember."
  
  "And, dear, while this may not quite be a trick, to
  be patient while she learns. Bob and I were
  commenting on how good a mother you are. But my
  point is that all behavior beyond squalling until
  our wants are satisfied is learned. And, really,
  learned after squalling until our wants are
  satisfied has been learned very well. Operant
  conditioning. Behavior and reward."
  
  "Mom! You didn't raise us in a Skinner Box."
  
  "Skinner would say that the entire world is a
  Skinner Box, dear. After a while, you had language,
  and that makes things much easier. Instead of
  waiting around for random action to produce the
  behavior we want, we can ask, 'What's the magic
  word?'"
  
  "Please!" Cat waited, thought what she wanted.
  "Sharl, would you read to me, please." And Charles
  went on with the book he'd been reading.
  
  "To quote my mother, 'Little pitchers have big
  ears.'"
  
  "And every other mother on earth, dear, since
  pitchers really had ears."
  
  "Maybe, but I've waited years to quote that back to
  you."
  
  "And you had justice on your side, dear, if not
  mercy. Do you think this rain will go on forever?"
  
  "Thirty-nine days and nights to go."
  
  "Well, we needed it. And it must be cooling the
  outside down, at least that's why I moved the ham
  up to today."
  
  "Y'know, rain is more often a result of cooler air
  than a cause of it. Cool air moves in and pushes
  warm, moist, air higher. Going higher, the air
  cools until relative humidity exceeds one hundred
  percent. Then the moisture in that air falls as
  rain."
  
  "We all took general science, Bob. Not all of us
  are compelled to regurgitate it."
  
  "It wasn't compulsion. It was entirely voluntary."
  
  "That recitation qualifies as compulsion in any
  textbook on abnormal psychology."
  
  "Yes, but what does a real science make of it?"
  Kate looked at Jeanette. Somebody had to bring up a
  more palatable conversation than this squabble.
  
  "I've said that I don't expect my thesis to take
  long. On the other hand, though, this job market
  might reward a slow thesis. If I don't get a job,
  and there are very few available, having several
  more years getting a degree on my resume would look
  better than getting one faster and then having a
  period of unemployment. And, after all, it's not as
  though being a mother didn't take all the time I
  can spare for it."
  
  "Are translator jobs as scarce as other jobs,
  Jeanette. I'd think the demand was steady. After
  all, few outside the UN and diplomatic corps are
  positions that people keep. Or am I making that up?
  Are translators in positions as fixed as nurses?"
  
  "I really don't know, Kathleen. There isn't a
  translator job market. And, if there were, I
  wouldn't be looking in it. When I look for work,
  I'll look for secretarial work."
  
  "Jeanette!"
  
  "I'm a good secretary with good references. Chicago
  has a French consulate. That's one of the places
  I'll look. Maybe some of the other franco-phone
  countries. Look, there is something about
  translation you don't understand."
  
  "There must be tons about it I don't understand."
  
  "Well, there's parts I don't understand, either.
  But when you want a particular book translated,
  that book is about something. Sounds obvious. But
  you, with time and a good dictionary, could do a
  better translation of a French text on Freudian
  psychology than I could. You wouldn't; there are
  psychiatrists with much more French than you have.
  But, if you did, you would know what every single
  word means, and what every single idea presented is
  arguing against. When history texts are translated,
  they are translated by historians. 
  
  "Aside from the stuff I've done for Bob, I've only
  had one translation job. And that fell into my lap
  because, frankly, I was cheap. I was staying home,
  and I wanted to continue doing something in French.
  Translating Verne was doing something in French.
  And, thanks to the work I'd done with Bob and
  things Bob would tell me, I knew more about the
  background from which Verne was writing than plenty
  of other people. Want poetry translated?
  Understanding the words isn't enough. You want a
  poet. So, there are plenty of translation jobs, but
  quite few professional translators.
  
  "And, taken as a whole, it doesn't pay well. Or,
  rather, they pay others more than they can pay me."
  
  "Jeanette! Discrimination?"
  
  "Not what you think. Look at the books I helped Bob
  with...."
  
  "That you did, and I contributed a little."
  
  "Well, The first one got Bob a doctorate. The
  others got him reputation in his field. He's being
  well-paid for having produced them, and his
  colleagues think the analysis is worth the pay -- 
  they know he didn't do the translation. But I can't
  cash scholarly reputation. If I translated
  documents for a paper he didn't write, I might get
  credit, but that credit wouldn't do me any good.
  That's the sort of pay you get for most
  translation, part if not the entirety. And, of
  course, while the paycheck is in his name, I spend
  the money as much as he does.
  
  "On the other hand, I'll put my degree on my
  resume. There are plenty of places that need a
  secretary, and also -- occasionally -- need someone
  who can read French. I'll even translate business
  letters into French. And nobody does translation in
  that direction -- not if you're a translator.
  
  "And you don't understand about being a secretary,
  either. It's a good-paying job. It doesn't compete
  with MD, but it's a far cry above what a file clerk
  is paid. There are secretaries in Chicago making
  more than Bob does. I'll bet I made more than your
  mother did in my last job."
  
  "Don't take that bet, dear. Unless you count the
  hugs."
  
  "Well, I get my hugs at home."
  
  "Pardon me, Cat. I'll read the next book in a
  minute. Please stay here. I want to tell your
  parents a story.
  
  "Remember, when we first got here, Kath sent me out
  for some last-minute shopping. Anyway, a cop pulled
  me over. He didn't mention a traffic violation;
  I'll swear it was a driving-while-Black pull over.
  He mentioned my Pennsylvania plates, got my license
  and registration. What was I doing down here? I
  said I was visiting Mrs. Brennan. Instant change.
  He asked how you were doing -- said he'd heard of
  your loss. Then said he'd had you in third grade.
  His last words to me were, 'Have a nice day, hear?'
  Man did a hundred-and-eighty between one word and
  the next."
  
  "Well, yes dear. In the last ten or twenty years,
  the kids I had have become adults in all sorts of
  positions. Still young adults, of course. They are
  all younger than Kathleen, and most much younger.
  But I run into those who remember me. Quite a
  change from the first year, when I was 'the
  Yankee.'"
  
  "All through high school, I thought of Dad as
  influential and you as someone whom the powers-
  that-be worked over."
  
  "It's pretty much true, dear. 'Tax revenues are
  down; we have to pay teachers less,' is a constant
  refrain."
  
  "Or lay them off," added Jeanette. "The Chicago
  Public Schools are in a bind and are laying off
  teachers right and left. Somehow, though, the pay
  for top executives at the school board and the
  number of top-executive positions keeps growing."
  
  "The top job in the system," Bob put in, "is called
  'CEO.' That's because state law requires that a
  school superintendent know something about
  teaching. Well, you've got a CEO in charge. He
  doesn't know anything about teaching, but he knows
  about being an executive and working with
  executives. He has a problem, and the schools are
  drowning in problems. He has a problem, and he
  creates a new executive position to deal with it."
  
  "Parkinson's Law. Someday, they'll privatize the
  entire school system, and let the last teacher go.
  The central office will be larger than ever....
  Yes, Cat. I'm as bad as the people I'm complaining
  about. Dealing with the overview of what others
  should do to change the school system rather than
  dealing with the real kid who is my responsibility.
  Let's read Green Eggs and Ham." And he read Seuss
  in a sedate rhythm which was quite unlike her
  Papa's bouncing tones. Cat liked Sharl, though, and
  snuggled down in his lap to listen.
  
  "While, actually," Bob continued his thought, "you
  now have loads of influence."
  
  "Different kind of influence, dear. Your father was
  one of the movers and shakers of he town. The
  president of Brewster Office Equipment was a force
  to be reckoned with. He didn't throw his weight
  around, but he could have. Nobody reckons with my
  force. Lots of people, though, remember me fondly
  and wish me well."
  
  "He was a town father, Katherine, and you are a
  town mother."
  
  "Well, dear, while I'm no longer 'the Yankee,' he
  was always an outsider. The corporation was owned
  from outside, you know, and that always caused some
  resentment. Never, as far as I know, against the
  Brewster family which sold it. But we weren't
  Brewsters, and some people made it a point of
  telling us so. So, not a town father, exactly. And
  I'm only one third-grade teacher among, what? six
  classes in the town and several more schools close
  enough to send kids to the high school. I'd think
  your parents were more deeply rooted in the
  community."
  
  "Well, yes. And that might have been part of what
  they resented about Bob -- what Mommy resented, at
  least. She was at least one level below the
  Brewsters -- maybe two. And you come waltzing in
  and take the Brewsters' place. And you don't even
  care."
  
  "We hardly took the Brewsters' place, dear. That's
  what I've been telling you. We weren't the social
  leaders."
  
  "Your husband sat in the president's office at
  Brewster Equipment. That was the place of the
  kingpin of the Brewster family."
  
  "Which might be why, darling, the company couldn't
  compete until it was sold. Dad didn't want to lead
  the social set. He just wanted to make a solid
  profit... and a solid product."
  
  "And not wanting to lead the social set looked like
  a calculated insult to a woman who was a smaller
  frog in a much smaller puddle. Anyway..."
  
  "Anyway, faculty politics is dreary enough. Do we
  really need to rehash this? Mom is right to value
  the hugs she gets from her current students. The
  issues of graduates and parents can be left in the
  trash can."
  
  "And anyway, Mom, pitchers still have ears. There
  are just fewer pitchers. I have a patient who
  throws pots."
  
  "At you?" Kathleen covered her face so Cat couldn't
  see and stuck out her tongue at Bob.
  
  "Cat, before you start that new book, dear, do you
  think I might borrow Charles?"
  
  "C'mon, Cat," said Kathleen. "It might be a
  miserable day outside, but you don't have to sit in
  one place all day. I have something to show you
  upstairs." While she and Cat went up to look at her
  last doll, Charles followed Kate into the dining
  room.
  
  "As I've said, dear, this is a planned feast.
  Midday, perhaps, but Sunday dinners are midday. Why
  not Thursday dinners? Anyway, I thought of calling
  on you to say grace. Then I thought that springing
  it on you would be no favor. Would you be willing?"
  
  "Certainly. And thanks for the warning."
  
  "You haven't been asked yet, dear. Don't start
  until I ask you, but I will." The timer went off in
  her pocket, and she went into the kitchen to check
  on the ham. It looked fine. She turned off the
  stove and opened the dish washer. She set the timer
  to warn her when the vegetables should start
  cooking.
  
  While they were gone, Jeanette had suggested to Bob
  that they take their showers then. The idea of
  bathing in the middle of the day rather than long
  lines for the bathroom in the morning had seemed to
  work.
  
  "You, of course, could stay down here until I'm
  done. People to talk to."
  
  "Yeah, I could." But, since the alternative was
  watching Jeanette change, he went upstairs. Some
  things ranked even talking in Bob's preferences.
  
  So Charles was alone when he came back to the
  living room. He went over to the bookshelves. When
  you consider that each Brennan had his own books in
  his own room -- he'd stayed in Bob's room his first
  visit and in Kath's for his later visits -- the
  family selection was intriguing. The famous
  Britannica was years out of date, older than Kath.
  Several atlases seemed to have been published at
  about 20 year intervals, the latest quite recently.
  Neither of Kath's parents seemed to have ever
  discarded a college textbook. (He knew that Kath
  had most of hers in their apartment.) Five separate
  translations of the Bible were shelved next to each
  other. Paperbacks, the ones he checked being
  sociology for general readers, were stacked on
  their faces on several shelves. There didn't seem
  to be any novels. He pulled *Death and Life of
  Great American Cities* from the stack he'd examined
  earlier. 
  
  "Find anything interesting?" Kate asked when she
  came in. He held up the book. "Russ discovered Jane
  Jacobs soon after we moved here from New York.
  Rather bad news, you know, dear. You've just left
  the place best designed for living. I didn't read
  it until the summer after I'd started teaching. I
  don't read outside my studies while I'm studying.
  My children are much more voracious than I am." He
  wasn't sure that only reading non-textbooks when
  you weren't in school disqualified her as a
  bookworm. Most people didn't read much when they
  weren't required to; he'd known any number in his
  undergraduate days who didn't even read
  assignments. But he had another question.
  
  "Did you and your husband have your own stashes
  like your kids did?"
  
  "Oh, yes. Parents are more generous, of course.
  'He'd like this. Let's leave this downstairs; she
  might like it.' You don't think of what your
  sibling might like. But that is only relatively
  generous. If you want to find a book again, you
  keep it where you know where it is. My art history
  books are still in my room. The two lower shelves
  there on the right? That's what Russ had in his
  office."
  
  "I didn't see many novels."
  
  "Well, the three left-hand stacks of paperbacks on
  the top shelf are novels. Many in the third stack,
  dear, are the sort of novel you read for college
  courses. We gave novels to the kids when they were
  young, of course, but the library is better for
  that sort of thing. How many novels do you reread?"
  
  "And I saw art-history books."
  
  "Those are the ones in which France is prominent. I
  sent them to Jeanette and left them downstairs
  after she returned them. Easier to keep track of
  which she's seen that way. She likes to say that
  she is a Brennan, and so she is. But I don't think
  I've ever lent her a book she didn't return. You'll
  never hear me say that about Bob or Kathleen."
  
  "I keep hearing complaints about kids who never
  read. Your seem to have produced two who read all
  the time. Is it just the genes?"
  
  "Probably not, but it might as well be, dear. Russ
  came home from a hard day at the office and curled
  up with a book after supper -- sometimes with the
  paper or a magazine. He was addicted to news shows
  and, sometimes, to radio news. But he got his
  entertainment from print. I'm a little that way,
  myself. So, how did our kids think that adults
  entertained themselves? And, of course, we can
  recommend fascinating books we'd read ourselves.
  
  "Smoking parents have smoking kids. Parents who
  tipple but tell kids that they're too young to
  drink have kids who sneak drinks. Parents who read
  to themselves and read to their kids have kids who
  think that they're big enough to read their own
  books. It'll happen to Cat soon enough. Not when
  you're around, probably. You can see her gloat when
  she's got Charles to hold her and read to her. But,
  one of these days, she'll declare her independence
  by reading her own book."
  
  "Is she really doing that?"
  
  "Quite definitely, dear. And Bob is jealous. She
  sits beside him when he reads to her. Not at
  bedtime of course, but that's not holding, either."
  
  "I'm sorry, I'll..."
  
  "Why be sorry dear? Do you enjoy it?"
  
  "Very much."
  
  "And she enjoys it. It's what I said about
  intelligent selfishness. So long as she asks
  politely rather than throwing a tantrum when you
  aren't available, so long as it is mutually
  enjoyable, as long as it isn't dangerous for her or
  somebody else, then she should get what she enjoys.
  Bob would tell you the same thing. He wants Cat to
  get the enjoyment of your holding her. He just
  wishes that she still enjoyed his holding her. 
  
  "That's the thing about growing up. She's fighting
  her parents with might and main to get
  independence. And they want her to have
  independence. You'd think that fight could be
  settled in a conference, but it never is. And my
  children, dear, were quite used to conferences and
  negotiation."
  
  "I don't see her kicking and screaming."
  
  "I haven't seen her kick. We both heard her scream
  the other night. I understand that she has been
  known to throw a full-blown tantrum or two. More
  usually, she pushes. She doesn't run away from
  home, she sits beside her father when he reads to
  her. And, as I said, she will declare her
  independence by reading her own book one of these
  days. She already reads her school lessons,
  although first-grade school lessons aren't exactly
  Moby Dick. They aren't even Hop on Pop.
  
  "But when a child declares her independence,
  parents may be wistful. but they are a also happy."
  
  "You didn't seem very happy when Kath declared her
  independence."
  
  "I found the way she did it quite insensitive,
  dear. Look, in Vi's -- in Kathleen's -- early high-
  school days, she spoke to me often about her
  romantic feelings. Some boys she adored from afar,
  some seemed to like her but the feeling was
  definitely not reciprocated. You heard about Terry.
  In the middle of that relationship, I went from her
  confidant to her inquisitor. And, dear, I hadn't
  changed one thing. 'Is there something you want to
  tell me, dear?' 'Why do you keep hounding me?'
  After that, we knew when she went on dates and with
  whom. What she felt about it was a deep, dark,
  secret. Of course, you could look at her and see
  whether she were happy or unhappy, but she wasn't
  about to tell you why.
  
  "After she went to college, we never heard even
  that. I presume she went to college dances and all
  the other sorts of dates. College is much better
  than high school; high-school social occasions are
  really set up by adults. Anyway, I never
  complained. She had flown out of the nest. I prayed
  that she didn't get pregnant or seriously hurt, but
  I didn't inquire. She was writing to Jeanette,
  sometimes, and that made me grateful. I figured
  that she'd be willing to tell her more than she was
  willing to tell me."
  
  "But your toleration changed."
  
  "I tolerated silence. I didn't enjoy it, but I
  respected it. Now, let me tell you how Kathleen
  should have behaved with regard to her parents. She
  may have made mistakes with regard to you, but
  that's your business. 'One of my classmates whom I
  especially want you to meet is Charles; he's been a
  great friend these last two years.' Or however long
  it had been by graduation, dear. A letter: 'You met
  Charles. He's more than a friend. I think we're in
  love.' And, then, 'Mother, I'd like to bring
  Charles home. You should know him better, and he
  should know you better.' If she'd done that, dear,
  we'd not have complained, we'd have done the same
  thing we did on your first trip. We'd have put you
  in Bob's room. Then, we'd have locked our door. Of
  course, your second trip -- when Bob and Jeanette
  and Cat were home -- would have been more awkward.
  
  "Look, you find the way she and Bob squabble
  immature, don't you?"
  
  "Well, yes." Which was criticizing his wife, which
  was something you should never do, but how could he
  deny that?
  
  "But she's upstairs playing with a doll. You don't
  find that immature."
  
  "She's entertaining Cat."
  
  "Which is the acme of maturity, really. Even though
  she's doing it by actions three decades below her
  age level. Well, in a sense, squabbling with Bob is
  the same kind of game. She is playing the little
  kid she used to be. Both of them are quite capable
  of resisting. In the family, they don't see the use
  of doing so. But, when she proclaims that she is
  sexually active, she thinks the activity
  demonstrates maturity. She should read the
  statistics, sometime. But, in fact, the
  proclamation demonstrates immaturity.
  
  "But I should leave you to your book. Sorry!'
  
  "Not at all. This was fascinating. You find Kath
  immature and Bob mature."
  
  "Different kinds of maturity, dear. And different
  kinds of immaturity. Don't let Cat read Hop on Pop
  with you, dear. She is used to acting it out with
  Bob. Jeanette is quite capable of talking as if Bob
  were her second child. She also insists that Bob is
  an absolute rock when she needs him. Bob can be
  childish in many, unimportant, ways. After all, the
  sibling rivalry is quite mutual.
  
  "On the other hand, even Russ became convinced that
  Bob was acting as an adult as a husband and a
  father. And Russ was very hard to convince, dear.
  The university must find him satisfactory. Jeanette
  has been the primary parent, and she talks to Cat
  mostly in French -- not entirely, but mostly. Cat
  clearly has a better English vocabulary than most
  of her classmates. She must have got that from Bob.
  Which means, silliness like 'portcullis' aside,
  that he spends a decent amount of time with her. 
  
  "The way she behaved night before last tells you
  something, dear. Whatever Kathleen might say,
  reciting poetry at you doesn't count as abuse. It
  might be abuse of the poem. And Cat obviously knew
  that she wouldn't get further punishment for
  mouthing off while he was doing it. On the other
  hand, when he threatened to carry her bodily
  upstairs, the threat was credible. Large men have
  advantages as parents. I could never have carried a
  struggling seven-year-old up a flight of stairs."
  
  "So, strength is a requirement for a good parent?"
  
  "An advantage, dear. But I'm not making myself
  clear. Bob might have an immature sense of humor,
  he might squabble with his sister in a way that
  they ought to have outgrown well before you met
  her, let alone him, but he relates to his wife and
  child as a responsible adult. In one of his fights
  with his father -- and, dear, you only think that
  Kathleen and I have disagreements; Russ and Bob
  used to go at it hammer-and-tongs -- in one of
  those arguments, Bob claimed to have all the
  negative virtues. Maybe not quite all, dear, adults
  shouldn't tell fart jokes. But he was talking to
  Russ, after all. 
  
  "'Negative virtues' sounds like those defenses of
  politicians who get caught with their hands in the
  cookie jar. 'After all, he didn't rob banks or
  cheat on his wife.' But, really, while being in the
  best ninety percent of people in one area isn't
  saying much, being in the best ninety percent of
  people in area after area starts looking like an
  accomplishment. If all that the good you could say
  about Bob was that he wasn't a drunk or a wife-
  beater, it would be damning with faint praise. But
  Bob not only lacks a great many negatives, he has
  several important positives."
  
  "Where I want specifics is the negatives Bob
  lacks," Kathleen said from the stairs. "I can't
  think of any."
  
  "Why, dear, I just listed a few. He isn't a drunk
  nor a wife-beater."
  
  "He isn't, as far as we know, a member of Al Qaeda,
  either. That exhausts the list. By the way, Mom, I
  told Cat she could play with that doll in my room
  if she visited when I wasn't here."
  
  "That's very generous of you, dear. Now, about Bob,
  you really should save your insults for when he's
  present. Bob has a juvenile sense of humor. He
  scraps with you in quite a childish way, but you
  aren't in a position to point that out. I can't
  really think of any other vices."
  
  "He can't carry a tune in a bucket."
  
  "Hardly a moral fault, dear."
  
  "He's hard on poor Jeanette."
  
  "In what way," asked poor Jeanette from the stairs.
  "He'll be down in a minute. But I want to hear how
  he mistreats me, and don't get vulgar about
  'hard.'"
  
  "You have more than your share of household and
  child-care duties."
  
  "As I told your father some years ago -- nearly
  seven; how time flies -- how the two of us divide
  our chores is nobody's business but our own. As far
  as child-care goes, he and I share more than most
  couples."
  
  "I was just telling Charles, dear, that Cat's
  English vocabulary demonstrates that Bob spends a
  good deal of time with her."
  
  "And the club of husbands who do the family laundry
  just elected Bob president unanimously. I said he'd
  been unfair to vote for himself, but he said that
  he voted to break a tie."
  
  "Jeanette! Other husbands do the laundry."
  
  "Not all that many. And he kept doing it when I was
  home all day."
  
  "Well, if you're satisfied..."
  
  "And I am. That's not the main reason I love the
  man, but it's one reason to like him."
  
  "Well, I credit Cat's sunny nature to you, despite
  Bob. I just hope that sometime, maybe like when
  she's eighteen, you'll stop praising her for
  actions that would have been praiseworthy at
  eight."
  
  "Your generosity, dear, at least the generosity I
  praised, was not in letting Cat play with your
  doll, but leaving it here instead of taking it to
  Philadelphia to entice her into a visit."
  
  "We, although we would be glad to see you, don't
  really have room in the apartment to be adequate
  hosts. And we're probably stuck there until my
  student loans are paid off."
  
  "Did you two go that far in debt?" Bob had finally
  joined the group.
  
  "My student loans are paid off, Bob, and we have
  money in the bank. Don't look at me. Char's the one
  who went all macho on me."
  
  "Well, it's your inheritance."
  
  "When I was first starting to practice, Char helped
  pay the office rent. I wasn't bringing in even that
  much, let alone apartment rent and groceries. Now,
  he wants to pay the rent alternate months."
  
  "I don't want to live off my wife. I make enough to
  pay my share."
  
  "You may not think I have any right to speak as a
  man who lived off my wife for years and years, but
  I think the money you put into her office rent, and
  the other expenses Kathleen didn't have to cover as
  she started up, were investments in the family
  enterprise. You two should incorporate as 'Paradox
  Inc.'"
  
  "Pair of docs. Bob, you are impossible."
  
  "No, as I tell Jeanette, merely unlikely. Anyway,
  the family enterprise is making a profit. You ought
  to allow it to pay dividends like apartment rent."
  
  "And I'm not so sure that we shouldn't look for a
  house now."
  
  "Kath!"
  
  "Home prices and mortgage interest are both quite
  low. We aren't going to see that again any time
  soon."
  
  "There speaks Russell Brennan's daughter, and she's
  right. Stopped clock."
  
  "And it's not like we'll have all that much choice.
  We want a neighborhood we'll both be comfortable
  in. We'll look forever even in this market."
  
  "Well, dear, investment opportunities aside, is the
  chance of a visit from your niece the reason?
  Remember, at this age, she travels with her
  father."
  
  "No. I just started thinking, and one thing led to
  another."
  
  "Can happen. Try it again some time."
  
  "You can't really say he's the aggressor, this
  time, dear. Ignore him, and tell me how it
  started."
  
  "It started, really, with a piano. but it didn't
  end there. We need one, and the apartment won't
  hold one. A keyboard, or maybe a spinet. But, I
  thought, Char really should play a serious
  instrument. At least a baby grand, maybe a parlor
  grand. That got me thinking about houses, And that
  got me thinking that this was the right time.
  Usually, the low interest rates are met by high
  house prices."
  
  "Well, they are low because people aren't in shape
  to buy. And, when you look at it, neither are we."
  
  "Bob. This is serious. Help them now, and fight her
  another time."
  
  "D'acord, ma femme. Anyhow, Charles, you don't want
  Kathleen pouring her money into your loan
  repayment?"
  
  "No. And, really, I'm up-to-date. Peds may not make
  as much as successful psychiatrists but we aren't
  exactly ditch diggers, either."
  
  "Nor history professors. On the other hand, that
  leaves Kathleen with a lot of money in her name
  which isn't earning all that much interest. That's
  another aspect of the present economy. Borrowers'
  low rates are lenders' low rates."
  
  "Well... But the money is still there."
  
  "Would you live in your wife's house?"
  
  "Huh? Bob?"
  
  "There are two issues. The money issue and
  Charles's ethical issue. The question is whether
  there is a solution which fits both issues. If
  you're going to raise another issue, I'll quit."
  
  "Tante Kathleen, I left her on the bed. Is that all
  right?" Cat was half-way down the stairs.
  
  "Precisely what you should have done, darling."
  
  "Come here, Cat." Charles picked her up and spun
  around.
  
  "Whee!" Kathleen looked about to interfere. Kate
  looked at Jeanette, who seemed approving of the
  rough play. Then she spoke.
  
  "Last phase of the dinner. Could Jeanette and
  Kathleen come help me?" They followed her into the
  kitchen and then to the corner furthest from the
  door. "Look, dear, You may think that I was a
  terrible mother..."
  
  "I've never said that."
  
  "But I did have a long marriage, And Jeanette has a
  successful marriage with Bob, which your opinion of
  Bob must make appear a miracle. There are things
  you do with your husband only in private. The
  first, successful wives do as often as possible.
  The second, successful wives do as seldom as
  possible. But never does any sensible woman do
  either in public.
  
  "The second one is criticize her husband." 
  
  "Sometimes, he's impossible."
  
  "Compared to Bob, dear?"
  
  "Well, I've heard Jeanette..."
  
  "Tease him? So have I, so has Cat. Raise a serious
  criticism? I've never heard her accuse Bob of
  chauvinism. Maybe he's never been guilty."
  
  "He hasn't."
  
  "But when Charles started his rough play with Cat,
  it wasn't your call, dear. It was Jeanette's call."
  
  "She's been locked up all day. Lovely house, lovely
  books, lovely doll and thanks for thinking of it.
  But her body needs as much exercise as her mind."
  
  "The point is, dear, that he has as much
  intelligence as you do. And, really, more
  experience with kids. When you were in high school,
  Jeanette told me to let you make your own mistakes.
  And I needed that reminder. Let him make his own
  decisions. Now, some decisions are about the two of
  you, and you have to make them jointly."
  
  "Like the house. 'Ethical issue'? It's pure
  machismo!"
  
  "It's both, dear, and more. Your brother, obedient
  to the wishes of his wife, put it in the way most
  likely to persuade Charles. You've been putting it
  in the way most likely to demean Charles."
  
  "I married Bob, Kathleen. You didn't."
  
  "What?"
  
  "Fight with Bob. He enjoys it. I'd rather you did
  it when neither Cat nor I were around, but that's
  just a preference."
  
  "Doing it when Bob isn't around, dear, is simply a
  waste."
  
  "But Charles doesn't enjoy it. He doesn't even
  enjoy your fighting with Bob. So, find out how to
  persuade him. Bob lacks all your best tools. If he
  manages to get an agreement, I'll laugh aloud the
  next time you imply that Bob is stupid."
  
  "Best tools?"
  
  "Dear, you've slowed down since you left our table.
  Once, you would have caught Jeanette's drift. More,
  you would have caught her criticism and lobbed it
  back to her. I'll leave it to her to explicate."
  
  "The third is that Bob's not a woman. The second is
  that he doesn't have sex with Charles. You keep
  mentioning your sex life in public; learn to use it
  in private. The third and most important is that
  Charles doesn't love him. I've said before that Bob
  always gave me what I wanted most. Not when it was
  beyond his reach, but when he could. The problem is
  to figure out what you want most. It isn't to win
  those debating points, is it?" 
  
  "Of course not."
  
  "Then figure out what Charles wants most. Then
  figure out how the two of you can have both."
  
  "You make it sound simple."
  
  "It isn't easy, ma soeur. It is simple. It's easier
  with Bob, because he's looking, too."
  
  "You see, dear, you're hoist by your own petard.
  Jeanette does it, which means that it's possible.
  But Jeanette does it with Bob. Which means that you
  should find it much easier to do it with Charles.
  He's so much more reasonable, isn't he?"
  
  "I'm not saying that."
  
  "No, dear, but -- really -- she is. Now, it's close
  enough to time for dinner that we can start our
  preparations. We'll eat a little early, but nobody
  else will notice. Dear, would you get the
  vegetables out of the refrigerator? They need to
  cook in the saucepan."
  
  She was looking at Jeanette, so she obeyed. They
  put the food on the table before warning Cat and
  the men to wash. Everybody came in and took their
  places. Kate asked Charles to say the Grace.
  
  "Loving Savior, we thank thee for this food, for
  those who are gathered to eat it, and for those who
  worked to prepare it. Sustain us in your mercy and
  guide us in your service. Amen"
  
  As he and the others echoed the 'amen,' Bob noted
  that this was the first time he'd ever heard a
  grace addressed to the Second Person of the
  Trinity. He decided that doing so was a social
  outlier but not a theological fault. His mother had
  assigned carving the ham to him. That shifted
  caring for Cat entirely onto Jeanette until the
  plates were filled.
  
  "So, Charles," he asked when the food had been
  properly praised, "I didn't get an answer to my
  question. If Kathleen owned a house, would you live
  there?"
  
  "But she doesn't. Doesn't that question come
  first."
  
  "Absolutely not. I'm not interested in houses as
  investment property. I wouldn't buy one we wouldn't
  live in." Jeanette noted that Kathleen had the
  Brennan brains. She might have resented the advice,
  but she was adopting it. And the subtle insistence
  that Charles decided where they lived was merging
  several pieces of that advice.
  
  "Well, we don't know lots of things."
  
  "We don't know any concrete thing. We aren't
  talking about a particular house. We don't know
  what the down payment might be, nor the monthly
  charges. But Bob only asked you one question. Let
  me rephrase it. Obviously, if I bought a house in
  North Carolina, you wouldn't live in it. I wouldn't
  expect you to. Do you have an objection to living
  in a house *because* it is in my name?"
  
  "No."
  
  "Then the rest can't be decided here. It is best
  decided in Philadelphia. Let me go on record. My
  preference would be for a house in both our names.
  If, at any time up to the closing, you're willing
  to go that route, we'll change the paper.
  
  "And, I never thought I'd say this, but, thank you,
  Bob."
  
  "You are quite welcome. Hostilities resume
  tomorrow?" Everybody but Cat laughed. Cat wondered
  what everyone found so funny. Sometimes, she got
  the jokes of Papa. Well, she would tell one of her
  own.
  
  "Knock knock."
  
  "Who's there?" Jeanette thought she'd allow Cat
  one. This audience would put up with her willingly,
  and she had been confined to the house by rain.
  
  "Boo!"
  
  "Boo who?"
  
  "Why are you crying?"
  
  "All right, mon chat, no more jokes for a while.
  Eat your ham. Doesn't it taste good?"
  
  "Yes." Cat took another bite of ham.
  
  "Darling, you have your father's sense of humor,
  only more mature."
  
  "I thought, Kathleen, that hostilities were delayed
  until tomorrow." Jeanette wanted to have only one
  child to deal with. How had Katherine handled two,
  and those two?
  
  "And nobody has a more mature sense of humor than I
  have. My jokes are the very oldest."
  
  "Has the rain stopped?" asked Kate.
  
  "I looked out before you called us to dinner. A
  drizzle." Charles felt that this non-sequitur
  change of subject was deliberate, instead of the
  usual Brennan jump. If so, his hostess was quite
  right. He'd follow her in a conversation on the
  weather all night if it meant that Kath and Bob
  would stop their sniping.
  
  "If you don't finish the book here, dear, feel free
  to take it with you. I was talking to Charles, Cat.
  We'll return the library books where we got them.
  He started one of the family books. Jane Jacobs."
  
  "Death and Life or the second one?" Bob asked.
  
  "*Death and Life of Great American Cities*."
  
  "Fascinating book. What urban sociology would be
  were it inductive."
  
  "Bob never met a book he didn't like, Charles, but
  I've found over the years that his recommendations
  often lead to good reads. You'd think that the
  indiscriminate liking would destroy his tastebuds,
  as it were."
  
  "Not really, dear. Would you rather get road
  directions from a taxi driver or from a man who had
  only driven one route in his life?"
  
  "Met a guy once," Bob put in, "who told me that
  he'd only read one science-fiction book in his
  life. He'd enjoyed it, and that was the only well-
  written SF story. Weird opinion. He'd enjoyed 100%
  of the ones he'd read, and he knew -- I don't know
  how -- that he'd not enjoy any other. Wish I'd
  enjoyed every SF story I've read."
  
  "I thought you'd enjoyed every story of whatever
  kind that you'd read."
  
  "No, ma femme. Why talk about the bad ones? But
  Death and Life is a great book. Well, you're
  reading it; I won't try to summarize from memory."
  
  "Wait a few years, dear. This house is a storehouse
  of books, but they are a little old for you now.
  Most of the books Papa and Tante Kathleen had at
  your age they gave away before moving here. But as
  you grow up, you'll find you'll like the ones they
  had here."
  
  "And my books first, Cat. I was younger when we
  moved here, and mine were girls' books. I know she
  sounds like she goes on forever right now, but I
  bet you'll love Nancy Drew when you're old enough."
  Bob decided that Kathleen's brains hadn't rotted
  away -- dealing with Charles, yes -- but Cat always
  wanted to do things she'd been told she wasn't old
  enough to do.
  
  "Truth is, I enjoyed Nancy Drew, too. Not my
  favorite, but I'll bet I read most of the ones you
  have."
  
  "Yes, Bob, but girl detectives provide pleasures to
  girls on top of the pleasures the books provide to
  any reader.  Bet your wife wants Cat to have
  positive, intelligent, female roll models. Apart
  from herself, of course."
  
  "And apart from her grandmother and her aunt. Yes,
  and Bob does too."
  
  "There are advantages in a simpering, dependent,
  diffident wife. There are none in a simpering,
  dependent, diffident daughter. Since I didn't
  pursue the first, I'd be an idiot to want the
  second."
  
  "I could simper."
  
  "Not convincingly, dearest. I've seen you navigate
  the subways of Paris."
  
  "The maps are far more convenient than the CTA's."
  
  "We see three strong, independent, women," Charles
  said. "All three of them are married -- were
  married in Kate's case. Would Gloria Steinem
  agree?"
  
  "Well, dear, the first generation of feminists were
  mostly single. And Steinem was long after that.
  Think Jane Addams."
  
  "And that wasn't even the first generation," said
  Bob. "How many suffragettes went before her?
  Sojourner Truth was a mature woman before the Civil
  War. And she had married. At least, she had
  children. Marriage must have been problematic under
  slavery."
  
  "So," Kathleen said, "strong women can have men.
  'Fish without a bicycle' is far too simplistic.
  They just need strong men." Charles set down his
  fork and made a muscle -- hidden by his shirt, but
  an unmistakable gesture.
  
  "It's nothing like that, Charles," said Jeanette.
  "Convenient as that often is. Strong men are strong
  in the ego. They can have strong women around them
  without feeling that their masculinity is in
  question."
  
  "And, dear." Kate thought that Jeanette was being a
  tad too direct. "How strong any person is depends
  on how you look at it. I've known widows, and a few
  divorcees, who seemed torn out by their roots. Her
  identity was Mrs. John Smith. Now, she had no
  social existence. I was certain I wouldn't be like
  that. Brewster, sure, but that was a tiny sliver of
  my social identity. I had fewer positions in the
  church than Russ had, but they knew me as myself.
  My kids knew me as Mrs. Brennan, which implied that
  there was a Mr. Brennan somewhere. Although, at
  that age, you're not sure they've made the
  connection. They certainly didn't know Russ to
  speak to. 
  
  "And, then, when I lost Russ, I lost myself. I
  still have all the social identity. What I lost was
  my psychological identity. The school sees me as a
  person independent from Russ, so does the church,
  so -- even -- do my children."
  
  "A much different person," said Bob, "a
  countervailing force."
  
  "The only one who doesn't is me. And, dear, what
  you saw as a countervailing force was sometimes a
  conspiracy. Russ gave you the Playboy subscription
  when I was disturbed by your using my art-history
  books."
  
  "You knew?"
  
  "I knew where they were supposed to be, dear. I
  knew when they went missing and noticed them
  cycling in and out. Your father knew why. He didn't
  mind, himself, but he sympathized with my
  objection. And, after you'd received three or four
  issues of more appropriate material, the books
  moved from the living room to our room."
  
  "Bob!"
  
  "Dear, we kept the knowledge from you. All three of
  us did, even though I don't think there was much
  discussion except between your father and myself.
  It would have been natural for you to be shocked at
  that age. Being shocked at this age, however, is
  really silly. And that's not counting your
  profession. Ask your husband sometime what pictures
  he looked at at age fifteen.
  
  "And, now to go back to what I was saying, I miss
  Russ. I can remember being Kate Grant, but she was
  a girl. I can teach fine with him gone; I can't
  live at all." She startled everyone, herself most
  of all, by starting to cry. Four people looked at
  her without a clue what to say or do.
  
  "Memere," asked Cat, "are you remembering Pepere?"
  Her grandmother nodded. "Does crying help?" Kate
  got up from the table and got a Kleenex from the
  kitchen.
  
  "Not any more, dear. I think I'll stop." And she
  did. Cat went back to eating. 
  
  "Out of the mouths of babes," Bob said.
  
  "She's Jeanette's daughter, dear, raising as well
  as genes."
  
  "Don't credit me with that. I was totally lost. I
  think you two have built a connection."
  
  "I certainly hope so, dear. Who wants more salad?"
  At that, the conversation turned to practical
  things and then splintered. When the meal was over,
  Kathleen stood.
  
  "Charles and I'll clear. Is the dishwasher empty?"
  
  "Not yet, dear."
  
  "Well, I know where to put most things." When
  they'd stacked the dishes in the sink, she opened
  the dishwasher and started to put things away.
  "Sorry to draft you. It seemed more discreet than
  calling 'Family conference.' Not that I fooled
  anybody. Now, two questions.
  
  "You did a fine grace. I hadn't thought, although I
  should have. We now have a family. Do you want a
  grace at our meals?"
  
  "I don't know."
  
  "That's fair. I sprang it on you. Dad used to say
  them or ask someone else. Why don't you decide, and
  then decide whether you'd be comfortable taking
  that role?
  
  "And, what sort of pictures did you look at at
  fifteen?"
  
  "Not art books, that's for sure. Playboys and such
  when I could get them. Your mother's right. Bob
  wasn't a monster, just a normal teenage boy."
  
  "You talk as if those were mutually exclusive, or
  even different." 
  
  Charles laughed. "Look, I can stack dishes."
  
  "Okay, these go up on the second shelf of that
  cabinet to your right. How Mom manages, I don't
  know." They worked together until the clean dishes
  were put away in cabinets and the dirty dishes were
  in the machine. Kathleen took a look around and
  decided their work was finished. She gestured
  towards the door.
  
  "You know what I love about you? Others get all
  fixed in their professions. They are lawyers or
  accountants twenty-four-seven. You get near your
  brother, and all your psychiatric training falls
  away."
  
  "That's what you love about me?" She grabbed his
  hand and drew it to her crotch.
  
  "Well, among other things." They hugged and kissed.
  She ground her body against his erection, and he
  caressed down her back to her rump. When they
  parted, he adjusted his clothing. "Just walk ahead
  of me 'til I can sit down." She giggled, but
  complied.
  
  When she'd got back from washing her hands, Cat
  went to Memere to give her a hug. Kate hugged her
  back. When the physical imbalance of having her
  knees hugged and touching only Cat's head bothered
  Kate, she led Cat to the sofa and sat down. When
  she patted the cushion beside her, Cat climbed up.
  This hug was much more comfortable. They were still
  sitting together when Kathleen and Charles came
  back. When Charles had sat down in a deep chair,
  Kathleen selected the chair furthest from others
  that would hold herself and Cat.
  
  "Come here, Cat, and tell me some more jokes." That
  earned her a smile of appreciation from Jeanette.
  Cat needed to be reasonably inactive for the hour
  after dinner, but she would resent any more
  restrictions from Maman. Cat looked to Memere. At
  her nod, she scurried over to Tante Kathleen.
  "Y'know, sweet, when I was your age, ton papa told
  me lots of jokes. I told them to my friends. Ta
  memere warned me to tell them to the students at my
  school, but not to the teachers or other adults.
  That's a good rule, but you can tell them all to
  me. Do you know how to stick out your tongue and
  touch your nose." Cat happily performed that feat.
  
  "Think she'll remember?" Jeanette asked Bob.
  
  "Vi didn't. On the other hand, that's one limit
  that came from the people who normally spoil her.
  Kathleen's doing us a favor, probably quite
  consciously. Did you hear her on books Cat would
  enjoy when she was old enough?"
  
  "And your mother. Despite the way I had to do it,
  I'm sometimes glad to be a Brennan."
  
  "Well, you had to take the husband with the mother-
  in-law. There was no other way."
  
  "I'll suffer through it."
  
  "Not 'til tonight." They shared a smile. They were
  parents, not lovers, just then. They were, however,
  comfortable in both roles. They walked over to the
  couch. "Did Cat help?"
  
  "Very much. I'm sorry, dears. I don't know what
  came over me."
  
  "It's called grief. Don't apologize, Mom. I've felt
  it, too."
  
  "If he doesn't still break out in tears, Katherine,
  you laid out the reason. You're no longer Russell
  Brennan's wife. He is still his son."
  
  "I felt awful when I heard. But, probably, not one
  tenth as awful as I would have felt if we hadn't
  been reconciled."
  
  "And that was your doing, dear. I'm ever so
  grateful, and Russ was, too."
  
  "Well, he was always incredibly kind to me -- even
  when I wasn't kind to him."
  
  "You were standing by your man, dear. And Russ
  would never have blamed you for that. And, of
  course, the man you were standing by was the son he
  loved. Family relations are so complicated."
  
  "Brennans don't know how poisonous they can be."
  
  "Maybe not poisonous, dear, but you'll have to
  admit that our relationships are as complicated as
  any other."
  
  "I'll buy that." Charles had joined them. "I think
  I'm beginning to understand Kath, and then we come
  here, and she's an entirely different person."
  
  "Well, dear, you have to expect that. You've known
  Kathleen for years, but they were years in which
  she had minimal contact with us. I don't have to
  tell you how often residents can come home."
  
  "Those years, she -- indeed I -- had contact with
  Bob and Jeanette." He stopped there. Kath's mother
  might not know about their borrowing Bob and
  Jeanette's apartment for sex. She certainly
  wouldn't want to hear about it if she was totally
  aware.
  
  "And, to a great extent," Jeanette pointed out,
  "the sibling rivalry was muted. You might not have
  thought so from what you saw, but it was at much
  lower volume than it is here."
  
  "And here is where all the memories lie -- at
  least, a different set of memories. You might think
  that those apartments were partly mine. Kathleen
  thought of them as Jeanette's. She wants to be nice
  to Jeanette. I'll give you one clue for free. Our
  dad was adamant on one point, the essence of
  masculinity is loyalty towards your woman. Kathleen
  sat at his table for years while he pounded that
  home. He was talking, usually, to me, but she had
  to have absorbed it."
  
  "I did note," Jeanette said, "when I first met you,
  how many ways you resembled Bob and his father.
  Kathleen may have been rebelling, but she didn't
  get very far when she was looking for a man."
  
  "And, dear, she wasn't rebelling against Russ. That
  was Bob. She was rebelling against me."
  
  "She seems very loyal herself."
  
  "Well, yes. It wasn't like pink and blue. It was
  more that loyalty was the highest virtue for men.
  But it was the highest virtue he mentioned for
  anybody."
  
  "We were just saying, dear, that Russ admired
  Jeanette for standing up to him when he quarreled
  with Bob. She was being loyal, see? And Russ would
  never criticize loyalty, even if it worked to his
  detriment."
  
  "And, you have one very great advantage. She's the
  stubbornest person in a stubborn family. She's
  decided you're her man, and she has never been
  known to change her mind."
  
  "There are other opinions, Charles, of which
  Brennan is stubbornest. But I'll testify that it's
  often an advantage when a stubborn person has
  decided that he's married to you."
  
  "Your daughter isn't that stubborn, ma femme."
  
  "No, mon mari, but her father is."
  
  "Well," Kathleen asked Cat, "If you have a nine-
  hundred pound gorilla, where would he sleep?"
  
  "Anywhere he wants to. I forgot that one."
  
  "Remember any more?"
  
  "No."
  
  "Then go get Charles to read to you. I'm going up
  to take a shower."
  
  "Sharl, may I have some books, please?"
  
  "Certainly. Let's go over there."
  
  "And I think you've all been maligning me."
  
  "Not I. It was Jeanette that said you weren't the
  stubbornest person in the family. I'd never make
  that accusation."
  
  "I'll grant that he fired the first shot this time,
  Kathleen, although you've fired several since the
  truce. But don't you think that a long argument on
  which of you is the stubborner would rather make
  the point that you're each denying." 
  
  "Good point! I'll let the stubborner one have the
  last word. I'm off to the shower unless someone
  needs something from the bathroom first." Kathleen
  headed for the stairs. 
  
  "And," Bob pointed out, "the stubborner one had the
  last word."
  
  "Just now."
  
  "Dear, you married a quite intelligent woman."
  
  "If she was so smart, then why did she marry me?"
  
  "I plead temporary insanity."
  
  "Or, dear, you have qualities which are not
  apparent to a mother."
  
  "Everybody picks on me."
  
  "Dunno. Charles has been notably silent."
  
  "Wisely so, dear." Charles, glad to have wisdom
  attributed to him by the font of Brennan wisdom.
  stuck with Horton and Cat. When she selected the
  next book, though, he deferred to Bob.
  
  "I think you have a special way of reading this
  book, Cat. Do you want to take it to Papa?" It
  turned out that Cat sat on Bob's stomach and
  bounced while he lay stretched out on his back on
  the floor. It was an active way to read, but not
  really hopping on pop.
  
  "I just hope that he doesn't throw up."
  
  "If he does, dear, you can be sure we'll blame him
  and not you."
  
  "Yes, that's one advantage of visiting here."
  
  "I'm told that you sometime think that you have two
  children." Charles had joined them.
  
  "Can you blame me?" She gestured towards the two on
  the floor.
  
  "And yet, you also say he's a rock when you need
  him."
  
  "Quite. When I think back to our early married
  years, I shiver. I'd had one year of college, he'd
  had two. We were so young and naive, objectively.
  But, hard as it is to believe watching him now, Bob
  was mature where it counted back then -- earlier,
  too.
  
  "It helps, of course, that we'd both decided that
  we wanted to be married to each other. That's
  wrongly stated, but you get the idea. Anyway, Bob
  did for us what he did this morning for you. 'What
  does Jeanette really want? What does Bob really
  want? How can they each get what they want most?'
  And, of course, you can't both have the particulars
  that you want. You have to ask for the reasons you
  want those particulars."
  
  "I'm done," Kathleen called from the stairs.
  "Whenever you can free yourself from your pleasant
  confinement, Charles, the shower is free."
  
  "Come up with me." Jeanette looked a question at
  him. "I want you to talk to both of us."
  
  "Bob would be better."
  
  "Not for Kath." Jeanette saw his point. She
  followed him up the stairs.
  
  "You're going to shower with her?" Kathleen didn't
  even fake anger at the idea. It was just a Brennan
  joke.
  
  "We're going to talk with her. Us!" He led the way
  into Kath's room.
  
  "All right," Jeanette began. "First of all, while
  Charles has a right to commit both of you in most
  situations, this isn't going to work unless
  Kathleen is willing."
  
  "I went to you for advice years ago."
  
  "You've grown since."
  
  "So have you. You're only what? four years older
  than I am. You're nearly two decades longer
  married. I assume that's what this is about. And,
  as Mom points out, you've managed to have a
  successful marriage with Bob."
  
  "Drop that prejudice, Kathleen. This is serious."
  Although it pointed out what Charles had said. Bob
  couldn't do this with this couple. Whether or not
  she could, that was a question. "Okay, let's sit
  down. Do you have pencils and paper?" That was a
  rhetorical question; Kathleen was a Brennan.
  
  "Pens."  When each had paper on a handy book in
  their lap and a ballpoint, Jeanette moved her chair
  where she was facing both and clearly could not see
  the papers.
  
  "Okay, you're each going to make a list. I'm not
  going to see the list. List the ten things you want
  from this marriage. If it's something you don't
  want me to see, I won't. Whether or not it's
  something you want me to see, I still won't. If
  it's something you don't want your spouse to see,
  we're in real trouble." She waited until both
  looked up. "All right. Go over that list. Why do
  you want that thing?" She watched. Some of the
  answers came easily, some with a struggle. "I'm not
  going to go any further. You should. If you tell
  your partner your deepest wishes and he tells you
  his, you can usually find a way to get both. If
  it's something concrete that you see as the way to
  get your deepest wishes, then finding a compromise
  is much harder. If we're going out to eat and I
  want comfort food when Bob wants to give his
  tastebuds an adventure, I might suggest one of our
  old favorites. Bob might suggest the new Ethiopian
  place where we've never eaten. If we tell why,
  we'll compromise on an oriental restaurant where I
  can get won ton soup while he can try something
  he's never tried before.
  
  "Now, let me go from the general to the particular.
  Charles, why do you object to Kathleen's paying all
  the rent?"
  
  "I don't have to have my wife support me. I can
  support myself. When I was growing up, I pictured
  myself supporting my wife, for that matter."
  
  "Ouch! Y'know, I keep saying how much harder it was
  for us since we married earlier. You two were MDs
  out of residency before you moved in together.
  Pardon me if I don't count the wedding as the start
  of your marriage. Let me tell you about us. We
  wanted to get married, but -- we found out -- we
  didn't quite mean the same thing by those words. I
  really think Bob would have been happy camping out
  -- not a tent because there aren't enough
  bookshelves in a tent. But I'd swear that the only
  thing that dissatisfied him about his dorm room was
  that I didn't share his bed. After the wedding, we
  were sleeping together, and he saw that as the
  essence of marriage.
  
  "Okay, I wanted us to be a family. I'm still not
  sure what I meant, it certainly didn't include a
  child in my thoughts back then. But I came out of a
  dysfunctional family, and I was going to be part of
  a functional one. I didn't envy your mother the
  lovely dining-room table with matching chairs at
  which we just ate. I sure-as-hell envied her the
  conversations around that table."
  
  "Jeanette, you'd have died of boredom. I nearly
  did."
  
  "You don't know how poisonous talk can be. Anyway,
  when Bob saw what I wanted, he tried to give it to
  me. I, of course, cooperated with his idea of
  marriage. He would tell you, or would tell you if
  he were more worried about honesty than about
  shielding his wife from criticism, that my
  cooperation wasn't total. And it wasn't. And some
  of the things I wanted he thought silly. But we
  worked out our differences because our ideas of
  marriage weren't opposites. They were different but
  not incompatible.
  
  "Now, you two grew up apart. And you each developed
  an idea of your future. And those ideas may well be
  incompatible. You had the picture of supporting a
  wife." Charles nodded. "And you had the idea of
  being independent." Kathleen nodded.
  
  "Well, you've both already compromised. When she
  walked down the aisle, Kathleen traded that
  independence for something she saw as more
  important."
  
  "Before then."
  
  "And, when you're splitting the rent, you're
  accepting that you're not supporting your wife." 
  
  "I always knew that Kath wasn't that sort of wife."
  
  "So you granted her her independence. Each of you
  pay half."
  
  "Sort of."
  
  "But, you heard her say that she traded in her
  independence for something she saw as better.
  Y'know, I'm going to stop claiming neutrality in
  this. Because I think Kathleen's picture of being a
  family is something near my picture. And I'm
  totally prejudiced in favor of my picture. I'd want
  a joint checking account. I don't know where that
  conditional comes from. We've had a joint checking
  account since maybe a month after the wedding."
  
  "Well, dear," Kathleen said, "I now see that how
  far your agreement to move to a house has
  compromised your picture of yourself. I won't push
  you farther. Someday, though, we have to talk about
  what sort of marriage we have and what sort of
  marriage we want.
  
  "And somehow I can't be affectionate without
  sounding like my mother. Anyway, we'll both leave
  you now. You can have your shower in peace. I'll be
  downstairs. And I love you."
  
  Bob and his mother sat on each side of Cat. One
  read a story book, and then the other did. Cat was
  content for a while. Then she felt that there was
  space in her stomach.
  
  "Memere, may I have a pickle, please."
  
  "Not until your mother comes down, dear. And then
  only if she ways yes." Cat started to get off the
  couch. "She'll say 'Ask ta memere,' won't she?"
  
  "Yes."
  
  "And, if you go up those stairs now, I'll say no."
  
  "You will?" Memere never said no.
  
  "If you don't wait for her to come downstairs. Of
  course, instead of 'Ask ta memere,' she might say
  no to a rude girl who interrupted her when she had
  gone off to talk with other people. You still
  wouldn't get a pickle. You have to wait for others
  sometimes, dear. Now, do you want another story?"
  
  "Yes, please." But the tone didn't sound like
  'please.' The tone sounded like a girl who felt she
  had to wait for others all the time. Kate wasn't
  working on tone right now, not with Bob sitting
  beside her. Bob, also content with the words,
  started the next book. Kathleen came downstairs a
  little ahead of Jeanette.
  
  "Cat, your mother is a genius!"
  
  "That means, ma jeune fille, that Maman is very
  smart. The proper response is 'Of course she is.
  She managed to marry Papa, didn't she?'"
  
  "Maman, may I have a pickle please."
  
  "Ask ta memere. They are her pickles."
  
  "Memere, may I have a pickle *now*, please."
  
  "Certainly, Cat. Dear would you get it for her? I
  don't want to move." Jeanette took Cat into the
  kitchen.
  
  "'Managed to marry you'? Hmph!"
  
  "Well, dear, you're rather trapped. Is Jeanette an
  intelligent woman who picked Bob? Or is she a woman
  whom Bob trapped into marriage despite her
  intelligence?" 
  
  "I think the sound is dripping from the trees, not
  rain. I'm going to look outside and see."
  
  "She may be rusty, but she's still a tactician."
  
  "I'm afraid I was spoiling Cat, but am I turning
  too stern?"
  
  "Sounded just right to me. After all, I'm not about
  to teach you about parenting."
  
  "But, dear, you taught me an immense amount about
  parenting. Just as Cat is teaching you."
  
  "I have a list a mile long of things which don't
  work."
  
  "Yes, dear, and remember that the first rule is
  consistency."
  
  "Which means that, when you use something and it
  doesn't work, you're obliged to use it again?"
  
  "Precisely. And, when you have two children,
  whatever you used with the first that was a total
  disaster, he'll remember and complain if you don't
  use it with the second."
  
  "Was I that bad?"
  
  "Dear, you don't want my memories of your youngest
  days. Not while Cat might hear."
  
  "Jeanette claims Cat's stubbornness is inherited."
  
  "That's strange. What does Jeanette know about your
  stubbornness?"
  
  "What don't I know about it?" Jeanette had returned
  and was hoping Cat didn't figure out the subject of
  the discussion.
  
  "Dear, you've only experienced the fading
  remnants." Kate was equally eager to keep Cat in
  the dark. "The full-blown examples were before your
  time."
  
  "Everybody maligns, me. Ma jeune fille, aimes-tu
  ton papa?"
  
  "Je vous aime, Papa. Je vous aime, Memere. Je vous
  aime, Maman. Je vous aime, Tante Kathleen." The
  latter had just returned from outside.
  
  "I love you, too, Catherine Angelique. It has
  stopped raining. Do you want to go out?"
  
  "Get your flip-flops first. Bring them down here."
  Cat scurried off.
  
  "I'm sorry. I should have asked you first."
  
  "No problem. She would have heard you, anyway, and
  she does need exercise. It's just that running
  upstairs for the flip-flops is exercise, too. We
  brought several pairs of shoes, so that pair
  getting wet won't matter." Cat came back at a run
  and handed her flip-flops to her mother. She and
  Kathleen went out.
  
  "Really, dear, you take more care of my carpets
  than I ever did."
  
  "Well, 'Don't track in dirt' and 'Don't go barefoot
  when you're visiting' are good rules. A very wise
  woman told me that children need to learn rules as
  much as they need to learn reading."
  
  "Why thank you, dear."
  
  "Well, you can read rules. Learning reading is more
  important."
  
  "Says the man who reads excellently and knows damn
  few rules."
  
  "Why do I need to control my swearing when you do
  it when she can't hear you?"
  
  "Because I remember whether she can hear me."
  
  "I said 'wissenschaftliche Unmoeglichkeit' in a
  faculty meeting the other week."
  
  "Because you didn't remember where you were."
  
  "Vissin -- um?"
  
  "Jeanette doesn't want me to swear in front of Cat,
  Mom. I thought of German, because it's the one
  language I have that Cat doesn't. But many German
  oaths sound too much like English. 'Sheiss' is
  clear to anyone. On the other hand, a great many
  German words sound like you're swearing. So I
  adopted a truly vile-sounding phrase. I say it at
  moments of great stress. Cat had been known to
  repeat it, and is scolded for that. But she fell
  down in front of the principal of her school. The
  woman, it happens, speaks German. The next student
  conference, she asked us about it. Between my
  accent and Cat's memory, she hadn't been clear
  about the words. Jeanette doesn't believe it, but
  my French accent is better than my German accent."
  
  "I don't say I don't believe it. I just say that it
  is hard to believe."
  
  "Anyway, my accent may be awfully Yank, but it
  isn't bad enough to keep several of my fellow
  teachers from understanding me."
  
  "It means scientific impossibility." Jeanette
  explained. 
  
  "Which is good enough for an oath, at times. That
  wasn't one of the times. You never warned me how
  many limits having a child puts on your life."
  
  "You never asked, dear, and -- after all --
  Jeanette was the one who went through pregnancy.
  And she was the one who nursed her child, too. You
  went much longer than I did, dear, and I admire you
  for that."
  
  "Three generations of Brennans like me for my
  breasts."
  
  "I was admiring your persistence and fortitude,
  dear. I'd guess my milk was as nourishing as
  yours."
  
  "And, of course, her pregnancy and breast feeding
  didn't put any onus on me."
  
  "Not one that you'd mention in front of your
  mother, dear. Hello, dear." That to Charles, who
  had just come down the stairs. "Kathleen and Cat
  decided to explore the outdoors."
  
  "Yes, the rain seems to have stopped. Jeanette..."
  She walked a little away from the others with him.
  They could be overheard, but the conversation -- if
  not private -- was clearly between the two of them.
  
  "First, thank you. I don't know how much help you
  were, yet, but I feel much better. Second, you know
  how Kath ended the conversation. You and Bob always
  say 'I love you' when you part. I wonder whether we
  should do that."
  
  "Well, you gain something, but you lose something.
  Mostly, it's insurance. If something would happen,
  you don't want your last words to the other person
  to have been an argument."
  
  "Argue? I've never heard you argue. That joking
  around..."
  
  "Sniping? Sure. After all, you groan when you hear
  a pun. Bob reported to me once about some fellow
  faculty member that he laughed at puns. Bob
  couldn't figure him out. Anyway, you hear sniping,
  but you don't hear us really arguing. You've never
  seen me have a bowel movement, either, but guess
  what?
  
  "Anyway, see this?" She held up her left hand so he
  could see the wedding band. "That's an external
  sign that you have frequent arguments. Not always,
  of course. Katherine still wears one. But it's
  fairly well a guarantee."
  
  "They're one-sided now, dear. That's all."
  
  "Anyway, the last thing we say as we're going out
  the door is 'I love you.' So, if one of us is hit
  by a truck, that will be the last communication
  that the other ever hears. On the other hand,
  Kathleen was expressing a deep emotion and a
  decision then. You'll have to hear from her what
  the decision was; I haven't the faintest. When Bob
  leaves for work thinking about how he'll start the
  first class on one level, worrying about where he
  parked the car on another level, and checking that
  he has his keys and the right briefcase on a third
  level, his 'I love you' while he's facing the door
  is quite perfunctory.
  
  "When he comes back on his late day, having
  traveled by two EL trains, he walks in and sees
  that the living room is a disaster area. Dinner is
  late. He sees that I look frazzled and that Cat is
  chattering in the kitchen distracting me. He says,
  'C'mon Cat; I'll help you pick up your toys.' Now
  that, when he could be complaining about my not
  doing my responsibility of dinner or having Cat
  pick up her toys before she leaves the room
  permanently, shows a deep love."
  
  "C'mon Cat. I'll help you pick up your toys."
  
  "Context is all, mon sot mari.
  
  "Y'know, Charles, that's an example. Bob enjoys
  being silly, even enjoys being called silly. Did
  Bob trap me into marriage or did I trap him? Which
  of us claims which depends on the day. The truth,
  of course, is rather more complicated. We almost
  grew up together, and high school is full of that
  sort of banter-fights. If you'll forgive my
  criticizing your wife, Kathleen sometimes still
  confuses that sort of thing with real arguments.
  You don't slap your spouse on a real boil. Partly,
  of course, it's that her fights with Bob used to be
  with both of them trying to draw blood. I'm mixing
  my metaphors terribly."
  
  "I think I know what you mean. She crossed your
  line once, and you froze her."
  
  "I don't remember."
  
  "She does. Believe me, she does. Anyway, can't Cat
  pick up her own toys? She seems quite responsible
  to me."
  
  "Sure. And I'm remembering back. Helping her means
  holding up the lid of the toy box while she runs
  around finding most of the toys. Then you ask her
  if those are all. Sometimes, she needs quite
  specific hints -- 'Have you looked under the green
  chair?' She picks them all up. She finds most of
  them by herself. Often, she picks up things and
  puts them in the toy box without supervision. If I
  can't find my purse, I look there. But she is far
  from thorough. Without supervision, she never gets
  them all. I shouldn't say never."
  
  "You two sound so tolerant."
  
  "More tolerant when talking with you than when
  talking with her. Mostly, it's a matter of deciding
  what you'll tolerate now, and what you won't. After
  all, as Katherine points out, you start with a
  person who screams when she wants something -- you
  have to figure out what she wants. She shits and
  pees when she feels like it. All this, you have to
  train her to change. Leaving her toys all over the
  floor and asking 'why' instead of going to bed are
  minor compared to that. It's just that you want to
  be finished."
  
  "And you've just begun, dear. Wait until she starts
  dating."
  
  "Well," Bob said, "she'll be twenty-one then. We
  expect her to be much more cooperative."
  
  "Wrong on both counts, dear."
  
  "Somebody expects Bob's daughter to be more
  cooperative. Not I."
  
  "And twenty-one, dear?"
  
  "It's not worth fighting about now. Not that I
  think that he's serious. I remember what age I was
  when he first asked me out. If he actually raises
  an objection when she's that age, I'll remind him."
  
  "That will be your real problem, dear."
  
  "What?"
  
  "Bob was almost your first date, wasn't he?"
  
  "Third. Second, really. The first dance I went
  stag. Do girls go stag?"
  
  "Well, dear, what happens when Cat goes to her
  third dance with a boy? She's a freshman. She comes
  home and says, 'I'm in love; I'm going to marry
  him; whatever we do is okay.' What then? You can't
  tell her how many boys you were in love with before
  you met the one you married."
  
  "I'll tell her that if it is love, it will grow. If
  he loves her, he'll wait. You don't ask hard
  questions do you? This was supposed to be a
  vacation. Then I'll send her to her aunt Kathleen
  who'll tell her about graduating from college
  before she met her true love. Can't I worry about
  second grade this year?"
  
  "Well," Charles said, "your answer may not satisfy
  Cat. It reassured me. You think Kathleen will be
  talking about me as her true love in ten years
  time?"
  
  "Seven years, dear, and a good fraction. It's clear
  that you two are in love. It's equally clear that
  you haven't settled on an arrangement which
  satisfies you both. The first, dear, is a
  necessity. The second you should work on, but it's
  a poor basis without the first."
  
  "And, when you have it, life takes it away. What
  are we on, Jeanette, our fourth marriage
  arrangement?"
  
  "Something like. It depends on what you count. Was
  every apartment move a new arrangement? My
  pregnancy and then The Kitten's birth were major
  adjustments. Your getting a teaching job was a sea-
  change."
  
  "But those were imposed from without. Did you find
  anything unsatisfactory in your first arrangement?"
  
  "That's a private question. But, yes. We're just
  not going to say what."
  
  "One thing, not necessarily the main thing, was
  that we carefully divided housework at the
  beginning. Jeanette would do certain tasks; I would
  do certain tasks. As time went on, we became much
  more flexible. But, our marriage wouldn't have
  worked without the first division. If we'd left it
  to what each saw that needed to be done, I'd have
  done the laundry, and Jeanette would have done
  everything else."
  
  "And, you and Kathleen are in a quite different
  situation than Bob and I were. At one point, our
  weekly splurge was one ice-cream cone shared
  between us. So our answers aren't anything for you
  to copy. Maybe our questions are."
  
  "Dear, we didn't know."
  
  "Mom, going tight for a temporary period is
  reasonable. You were behind us if we ever really
  needed it. And, one time, we really did. We got it.
  Actually, one shared ice-cream cone a week tastes
  delicious. Probably as much taste as buying a half
  gallon. And much better for my waistline."
  
  "Well, I think I'll join my wife and her niece
  outside."
  
  "Your niece, too."
  
  "Thanks." When Charles went out, Cat rushed over to
  him. He swung her up as far as his arms could
  reach, then brought her down to a hug. "Can you
  tell Tante Kathleen a secret for me?" He got a
  vigorous nod. "Tell her that Charles loves her."
  When he set her down, Cat raced over to Kath. They
  whispered together for a second. Then Cat raced
  back. He bent over to hear her.
  
  "Tante Kathleen says she loves you, too."
  
  "That's nice to hear, Cat. Let's go over to talk
  with her." He reached down two fingers, and Cat
  gripped them. They walked to where Kathleen was
  standing. "She brought me some good news."
  
  "You could have heard it from the horse's mouth ten
  minutes ago."
  
  "And so I did. It's always nice to hear. Maybe my
  message is one I don't deliver often enough myself.
  
  "I always like to hear it."
  
  "I love you, Kath. Are we going to work through
  Jeanette's exercise?"
  
  "Might as well, no sense having a genius for a
  sister-in-law if you refuse her advice."
  
  "Something which didn't seem to fit on the list. I
  want to be married to you."
  
  "And I want to be married to you, too. We just need
  to work out what that marriage looks like."
  
  "Sharl! I thought you were already married to Tante
  Kathleen."
  
  "I am, Cat. We were just establishing that this was
  what we want. Um, we were telling each other that
  we are happy that we are married to each other."
  
  "Oh."
  
  "But enough of this. Ta tante and I will deal with
  this at length when we're driving back together.
  What have you found in this wet place?"  And she
  showed him until Kathleen decided that it was time
  to go back.
  
  At the door, Jeanette met them with Cat's flip-
  flops. She knelt to untie Cat's tennies. A little
  guilty that he would be walking over his hostesses
  carpets with wet shoes when Cat wasn't allowed to,
  Charles lifted her up to make the job easier. When
  Cat had been sent upstairs to put her wet shoes and
  socks in her parents' room, Jeanette turned to
  Charles.
  
  "Thanks."
  
  "My pleasure. And, when it comes to holding Cat, it
  is my pleasure. All you provided was an excuse."
  
  "Do you think she's had enough exercise?"
  
  "To keep her from climbing the walls? Probably. The
  proper amount to maintain her health? Certainly
  not, but it is a confining day."
  
  "Yes. We try to keep her active. And, of course,
  while books aren't activity, we don't have a TV at
  home."
  
  "And she eats pickles instead of cookies."
  
  "And we don't know how long we can maintain either
  rule."
  
  "Well, she's not overweight for her height. I sent
  you the chart. Weight for age is useless. She'll go
  through growth spurts. If you tried to keep her
  from gaining too fast then, she'd starve."
  
  "Don't worry. Growth spurts are nothing new. Drives
  a breast-feeding mother crazy."
  
  "And you have that in her favor. It's less
  significant now than at the time, but breast-fed
  babies do have better odds in their favor growing
  up."
  
  "Sorry. This is supposed to be your vacation. Here.
  I'm using you for a consultant."
  
  "As opposed to my dragging you upstairs to use as a
  consultant? Anyway, I enjoy Cat's company. It's
  because it's Cat, of course. The other thing is
  that she is so damn healthy." At this, Cat
  demonstrated her health by clattering down the
  stairs. "The dilemma of my job."
  
  "I thought you loved your job."
  
  "I love kids. I don't like to see them sick. On the
  other hand, plenty are healthy today because I saw
  them sick. I'm not going to walk away from one who
  needs me. The practice has put me through the
  wringer about that, occasionally." Cat's presence
  was censoring his language. "I told them that I'd
  taken the Oath of Hippocrates. If they wanted to
  dump me because I kept that oath, I'd report them
  to the licensing board. Y'know, I get on my high
  horse about not being supported by Kath, but I
  don't know if I'd have taken that risk without
  her."
  
  "Tell her that. One thing that they knew about
  their parents is that they'd support them in a
  crisis -- even a crisis of their own making. Bob
  had a chance to study some original documents in
  France. We jumped on a plane and sent them the
  bill. Kathleen may never have acted that way, but
  she knew she could."
  
  "Sharl!" Cat had been patient for an awfully long
  time while people who should be paying attention to
  her talked about other things.
  
  "Yes, my niece. Do you want another book?"
  
  "Niece?"
  
  "Charles est le mari de ta tante Kathleen. Ainsi il
  est ton oncle. Ainsi, tu es sa niece. Quand on parl
  Anglais, on dit 'neess.'" Then to Charles, "Sorry."
  
  "Don't be. I didn't follow all of that, but I got
  the gist. Patience, Cat, patience." This because
  Cat, tired of being ignored, was pulling him
  towards the chair by his hand.
  
  "What do you say, Cat?"
  
  "Sharl, may I have more books, please?" This
  sentence. the epitome of politeness, was rather
  spoiled by her not stopping the tugging to say it.
  
  "Cheer up, dear, she's learned one lesson. We
  mothers all say, 'Act polite!' Well, why despair
  just because she's clearly acting?"
  
  "She sees a houseful of adults as so many people to
  entertain her. It seems so selfish."
  
  "But Charles enjoys it. She gets what she wants,
  mostly, by pleasing others. Remember what I said
  about intelligent selfishness. She hasn't the
  social skills, even the patience, that you and I
  have. But I think she's being intelligent in her
  selfishness for her age."
  
  "More than her grandmother, I mean..."
  
  "I know whom you mean, dear."
  
  "And it's kind of you to speak of us as having the
  same level of social skill. Not accurate, maybe,
  but kind."
  
  "Now, dear, I remember the knottiest problem I'd
  faced in years. I couldn't solve it. You did. I'll
  never gainsay your social skills."
  
  "She has an unfair advantage in manipulating me."
  
  "Not in influencing your father, dear. But what do
  you think will happen in Illinois in November?" And
  the conversation drifted into political
  predictions, wishes, and fears.
  
  Kate excused herself when it was time to fix
  supper. Jeanette started to get up to help her, but
  rethought the gesture. She sat back down.
  
  "We'll go in in a minute and set," Kathleen told
  her. "Mom taught me to cook, but she really only
  wants assistance on the fancy meals. I think she
  burned more calories sitting at the table telling
  me what to do than she did doing it herself. Now,
  Bob was only taught two meals, so you're spared
  that."
  
  "He knows more now. Actually, maybe not up to your
  mother's standard, but Bob is a good cook. Limited
  choice, but each meal is good."
  
  "The best spice," Bob said, "is 'I don't have to
  cook this.' I always use it when I'm preparing a
  meal for her."
  
  "Self depreciation, false modesty."
  
  "The only kind I have."
  
  "Actually, remember back to Charles's first visit.
  To us, I mean, not here. Bob cooked the main course
  of the first meal, and you said nice things about
  it. Bob could feed himself and Cat forever on his
  cooking. I'd get awfully tired of the selection
  awfully fast. Five main meals, and any frozen
  vegetable that you want boiled."
  
  "Is she like him? She'd eat one thing meal after
  meal?"
  
  "Well, I don't really know. But she eats one cereal
  for breakfast, and it has to be Cheerios or else.
  Breakfast at Memere's is a treat, but I don't want
  to risk eggs for breakfast at home. Maybe she would
  go with the same lunch for a month and the same
  dinner for a month. I wouldn't, and I wouldn't feed
  that to her. Anyway, I've never heard her complain
  that we had something the last meal. And, in cold
  weather, Bob fixes her the same snack four days a
  week on coming home."
  
  "You can always eat cream-of-tomato soup. Cooking
  it in the summer might be a drag."
  
  "Wrong subject of that sentence, mon sot mari.
  *You* could always eat cream-of-tomato soup. Normal
  people want variety."
  
  "Their loss."
  
  "Let's go set that table, Jeanette, while I
  remember that we're on truce."
  
  The meal was delicious, and everybody said so. 
  
  "Actually, dears, it's nice to have people to cook
  for. I miss that. Russ lost his appetite after a
  while, but he would still enjoy the taste. He'd
  just not eat so much. You get used to certain
  pictures of people, and then they go wrong. I hope
  there's nothing wrong with your health, dear."
  
  "Nothing except overweight." Bob had guessed that
  he was target of the last comment.
  
  "You don't look *that* heavy, dear."
  
  "He's not way overweight, but should we wait until
  he was?"
  
  "Cat's growing up, so she needs another direction
  in which to expend her mothering. At least, I'm
  safe from boils."
  
  "Really, I don't think boils have all that much to
  do with diet."
  
  "Um, Char, a watched pot."
  
  "Oh."
  
  "Actually, Katherine, even if he weren't watching
  his weight..."
  
  "Me watching? Hmpph!"
  
  "Before anyone was watching his weight, Bob cut
  back from what you remember. Somehow, professors
  get less exercise than students. Maybe, it's that
  he drives more, although we try to keep up our
  walking. And he slings Cat around, heavy as she is.
  But, once upon a time, he used to lift me
  occasionally."
  
  "Yes, dear. A strong man is attractive even beyond
  the immediately useful. I certainly thought it was
  part of my attraction to Russ. It was part of my
  image of him. The last year, he would get up from
  bed in stages -- feet over the edge, roll to a
  sitting position, get his feet under him, sit for a
  moment, finally rise. He wasn't a strong man then,
  dear, but I didn't love him less."
  
  "I never thought of Dad as terribly strong."
  
  "Not 'never,' dear. There was a time when you
  practically worshiped him and his ability to carry
  you and keep you safe. He was never one for flexing
  his muscles or engaging in athletics. But he only
  stopped picking you up when you made clear that you
  didn't want him doing so. Bob, too. And you were
  all the quicker because he was no longer picked up
  Bob."
  
  "So, when I say 'never' it applies to times I can't
  remember."
  
  "Really, dear, grammatically it does. And I was
  disagreeing with your use of one word, not
  disputing your honesty. There is only one person at
  this table who doesn't have fond memories of baby
  Kitten. And, really, 'always' and 'never' are used
  in relative fashion. What I can remember. And then
  we have history and geology to tell us that there
  were things happening before anyone alive can
  remember."
  
  "I was talking to Bob about the relationship
  between Poland and Russia, and he took me back to
  Genghis Khan to explain the complexity."
  
  "And, while nobody can remember that directly,
  there are people in both countries who are aware
  that it happened. What were you singing yesterday?"
  
  "La Marseillaise," said Cat. They'd all been
  talking about things that she couldn't follow,
  except Pepere. He hadn't picked her up, how had he
  been able to pick up huge Tante Kathleen? But when
  they got to a question she could answer, she
  answered first.
  
  "In class, mon chat, do you raise your hand."
  
  "Oui, Maman. Yes. Should I raise my hand here?" It
  wasn't fair, nobody else raised their hands.
  
  "No. I was just reminding you. Remember that when
  you get back to school." It had sounded a lot like
  a school answer.
  
  "And the Marseillaise was appropriate for that day
  because of events that happened in 1893. Do we
  remember that? Not directly, but we remember that
  it occurred. Idiots were denigrating the French
  military not many years ago. They forgot that
  Washington scored a war-ending victory at Yorktown
  rather than a minor coup because of the French
  navy."
  
  "Now that," said Charles, "is a story I've never
  heard."
  
  "The British army was overpowered. They retreated
  to the seacoast, as overpowered British armies have
  done ever since, and waited for the navy to take
  them off. But the French had a fleet off that coast
  that had driven off the British Fleet. Without
  shelter from the fleet's guns and ships to take
  them off, the army had no choice but to surrender.
  Yorktown was a British defeat; Dunkirk was a
  victory. And the difference had nothing to do with
  the condition of the army."
  
  "I'm not certain that Dunkirk was a victory, dear."
  
  "*They* are certain. And as he tried to plan an
  invasion for the next year, Hitler must have
  regretted that those soldiers weren't in gulags."
  
  Cat had been very patient, but enough was enough.
  She turned to her father to get her more creamed
  corn, and then told him about her day. The rest of
  the conversation splintered until they were nearly
  done. Then Kate had a suggestion.
  
  "PBS is broadcasting a concert of the Dresden
  Philharmonic this evening dears. Would you all like
  to hear it?"
  
  "Dresden Philharmonic? Do you pay for that?"
  
  "It's public Television, dear. Somebody pays, but
  not I."
  
  "That's the problem with current television,
  gratuitous Saxon violins."
  
  Everybody else groaned, but Cat had heard the magic
  word. "Television!"
  
  "I don't think this is a program you'd enjoy, dear.
  And it starts after your bedtime."
  
  "Oh, Maman, may I watch?"
  
  "Please don't answer that, dear. Cat, you and I are
  going upstairs for a little talk. After that,
  you'll come down and ask again. Are you ready?" Cat
  was so ready that she got down. "Then, dears, if
  you'll excuse us? My room, dear." The last to Cat
  who was already half-way up the stairs.
  
  "I think," said Bob, "that my sister and I will
  clear." Kathleen gave him a look, but got up.
  
  "Look, dear," Kate said upstairs in her room, "I
  don't think you'll enjoy this show."
  
  "Memere? Please?"
  
  "Having heard me say that, do you want to watch
  it?"
  
  "Oh yes! Please?"
  
  "Well, I can't say yes. But you don't want your
  Mother to say no."
  
  "No."
  
  "And, having been a mother, I'll guarantee -- I'll
  tell you for sure -- that she'll say no if you ask
  her dressed like you are now." Cat looked puzzled.
  "She would have to get you in your sleep clothes
  after the show. And that would be a struggle. Now,
  I can't guarantee that she'll say yes. but what we
  are going to do is to go through all the steps of
  getting you ready for bed. Then, you'll go
  downstairs and ask her again. And ask her nicely."
  
  "Okay." Memere, after all, was talking about
  getting what Cat wanted.
  
  "And, if she says no, then you don't raise a fuss."
  She was afraid of saying 'kick and scream.' That
  might give Cat ideas. "If you say, 'yes, Maman, you
  have decided,' then you'll sleep in Memere's bed
  tonight. If you make an ugly fuss, I can't invite
  you into my bed. It would be too much like
  rewarding the ugly fuss."
  
  "Okay, Memere." Which didn't sound like agreement
  at all. But Kate had laid out the consequences. Cat
  had to learn that the consequences were real. She
  had, after all, done her share of child-raising.
  But she got the pleasure of Cat. It was her duty to
  provide a little of the guidance to Cat. And, with
  any luck, Jeanette would say yes. Which would teach
  Cat several lessons -- including that her Memere
  was telling her the truth when she said that she
  wouldn't like the broadcast. And, after all, there
  wasn't any age too young to be exposed to good
  music. They got Cat ready.
  
  When Kathleen carried the first stack of dishes
  into the kitchen she turned to Bob who was carrying
  the second stack.
  
  "You carry. I'll wash."
  
  "Y'know, Kathleen, you've really lost your edge,
  but I don't think you're totally an idiot."
  
  "Damned by faint praise." She didn't think Bob had
  decided that the two of them were to clear the
  table on the basis of some checklist of duties
  performed. After all, she and Char had done the job
  last time.
  
  "But, if you mention a piano to Charles again I'll
  sign your commitment papers to the home for the
  feeble minded myself."
  
  "But I want..."
  
  "So, the next thing you say about a piano is 'Happy
  birthday!' Or Christmas or anniversary. I seem to
  have heard that the guy is married."
  
  "You not only are smart, you're thinking of me."
  
  "Truce period, remember? Anyway, you talk about how
  you want to spend the family money he thinks of as
  yours, and he'll balk. Spend your own money in your
  own way, he'll be thankful. And you enjoy his
  playing don't you?"
  
  "Yes. A great deal." There was no reason to tell
  Bob the other ways she enjoyed Char's magic
  fingers.
  
  "So, tell the world that you're claiming that as a
  gift to him but that it really increases your own
  pleasure 'cause you get to hear him play so much
  more often. Now, I'll get the next load. You start
  rinsing."
  
  After they'd cleared the table and filled the
  dishwasher, they went back into the living room.
  Bob plugged the TV back in. Cat hadn't started
  fiddling with the set, yet. But she'd find it
  didn't work if she tried. They were fairly certain
  that Cat hadn't seen anyone plug in a TV during her
  visits to houses which had TVs. Kate came
  downstairs with a Cat who was all dressed for bed.
  
  "Maman, may I watch the show *please*?"
  
  "You didn't want her to bathe tonight, did you? She
  bathed last night."
  
  "Fine." Jeanette couldn't say 'no' to Katherine
  without Cat hearing it as directed towards her.
  "Mon chat, since you're all ready for bed, you may
  stay up and watch the show. I don't think it's on
  yet, though."
  
  "May we have the couch?" Bob didn't stop for
  permission. "Charles, if you'd help me move the end
  tables." The two of them moved the end tables far
  from the ends of the couch. Bob sat towards one
  end, and patted the cushion even closer to that
  end. 
  
  Cat, who might have preferred other company, sat
  there. Getting to watch television, like everybody
  else did, was more important. Soon Memere turned
  the television on. There was a great deal of
  talking. All of it was in English, and little of it
  made sense. And the speakers never gestured. Half
  the time, the picture wasn't even of the man
  talking. Finally, one of the people in the picture
  gestured dramatically. He even waved his arm. But,
  instead of shouting, instead of someone shouting
  back, you only saw him from the back, and you heard
  nothing but music. Indeed, you heard nothing but
  music for a long while.
  
  When Cat slumped down, Bob turned her so that she
  was lying on her back with her feet off the end of
  the couch and her head on his lap. She wriggled to
  a position from which she could still see the
  screen, but then she relaxed. At the end of the
  first piece, he held his hand in front of her eyes
  until she batted it away. At the end of the second
  movement of the next piece, he held his hand in
  front of her eyes again. When he got no response,
  he lifted her in his arms, braced himself, and
  stood up.
  
  "My bed, dear." Bob glanced at Jeanette, who
  nodded. When he got back, he sat at the end and
  tugged her towards him. She could have shaken her
  head no, but the restfulness of the music, his care
  for their child, and the approval of the company
  were in his favor. She lay down with her head in
  his lap and her feet off the end of the couch. She
  wondered if he would try to carry her up to bed if
  she were to fall asleep. In the event, she stayed
  awake.
  
  When the concert was over, they all got up. Kate
  turned off the set, and Charles unplugged it. Bob
  went to check the locks. 
  
  "Katherine," Jeanette said, "you are a genius."
  
  "Really, dear it was something you couldn't do. I
  could tell her you'd say no if she weren't ready
  for bed when she asked. Were you to say something
  like I suggested, it would be permission if she got
  ready first. Now, if you re very lucky, she'll
  remember and get ready before asking you the next
  time she wants to stay up late. More probably, it
  was a one-shot event. But it was one with only
  positive lessons learned."
  
  "One of which is my lesson as to how smart you
  really are."
  
  "If you think that, dear, have you thought about my
  offers on the other things I might help on? You're
  in charge dear, but you have so much you have to
  teach her."
  
  "Tooth brushing is fine. I should have told you
  earlier. You could have started tonight. I don't
  think that the sex-ed is for you to do. When you
  and Kathleen were talking about 'womb' versus
  'uterus,' I kept picturing Cat's asking me in a
  loud, penetrating, voice, 'Maman, does that woman
  have a baby in her womb?'"
  
  "Yes, dear, especially if the woman in question is
  definitely overweight but doesn't appear pregnant.
  But is the alternative, 'Does she have a baby in
  her stomach?' that much more attractive?"
  
  "No. But 'A-t-elle un enfant dans sa matrice?'
  suddenly sounded much better." Katherine laughed.
  "The public schools may teach what they want. As
  far as the sex-ed I teach at home goes, it will all
  be in French."
  
  "Very wise, dear."
  
  "The book you mentioned, on the other hand. Maybe I
  could borrow it."
  
  "Dear, it's yours. If Kathleen changes her mind,
  she can get her own. Do you want the book on
  breast-feeding, too?"
  
  "No, thank you. We have our own pictures --
  starring Cat."
  
  The end
  Formez vos Bataillons 
  Uther Pendragon
  
  
  Thanks to Denny for helpful suggestions on this
  story.
  
  
  All the stories written so far about Bob and
  Jeanette Brennan:
  /~Uther_Pendragon/brennan.htm
  
  The first story about Bob and Jeanette:
  /~Uther_Pendragon/brennan/forev
  er.htm "Forever"
  
  The first story to include Bob's sister Kathleen
  and mother Kate:
  /~Uther_Pendragon/brennan/now.h
  tm "For Now"
  
  The first story after Cat is born:
  /~Uther_Pendragon/brennan/fortissi.htm 
  "Fortissimo"
  
  The first story in which Charles appears:
  /~Uther_Pendragon/brennan/elise
  .htm "For Elise"
  
  The index to almost all my stories:
  /~Uther_Pendragon/index.htm