"Worry, Deety. Your father is very ill."

"What? How?"

"Satyriasis. Incurable-I hope."

I let out my breath. "Aunt Hillbilly, you're a bitchie, bitchie tease."

"Not a bitch this morning, dear. A nanny goat-who has been topped all night by the most amazing billy goat on the ranch. And him past fifty and me only twenty-nine. Astounding."

"Pop's forty-nine, you're forty-two. You're complaining?"

"Oh, no! Had I known twenty-four years ago what I know now, I would never have let Jane lay eyes on him."

"-what you know now-Last night you were claiming to have sneaked into Pop's bed, over and over again. Doesn't jibe, Aunt Nanny Goat."

Those were quickies. Not a real test." She yawned again.

"Auntie, you lie in your teeth. You were never in his bed until last night."

"How do you know, dear? Unless you were in it yourself? Were you? Incest?"

"What have you got against incest, you bawdy old nanny goat? Don't knock it if you haven't tried it."

"Oh, so you have? How fascinating-tell Auntiet"

"I'll tell you the truth, Aunt Hilda. Pop has never laid a hand on me. But if he had... I would not have refused. I love him."

Hilda stopped to kiss me more warmly than before. "So do I, dear one. I honor you for what you just told me. He could have had me, too. But never did. Until last night. Now I'm the happiest woman in America."

Nope. Second happiest. You're looking at the happiest."

"Mmm, a futile discussion. So my problem child is adequate?"

"Well... he's not a member of the Ku Klux Klan-"

"I never thought he was! Zebbie isn't that sort."

"-but he's a wizard under a sheet!"

Aunt Hilda looked startled, then guffawed. "I surrender. We're both the happiest woman in the world."

"And the luckiest. Aunt Nanny Goat, that robe of Pop's is too hot. I'll get something of mine. How about a tie-on fit-anybody bikini?"

"Thanks, dear, but you might wake Zebbie." Aunt Hilda opened Pop's robe and held it wide, fanning it. I looked at her with new eyes. She's had three or four term contracts, no children. At forty-two her face looks thirty-five, but from her collarbones down she could pass for eighteen. Little bitty teats-I had more at twelve. Flat belly and lovely legs. A china doll-makes me feel like a giant.

She added, "If it weren't for your husband, I would simply wear this old hide. It is hot."

'If it weren't for your husband, so would I."

"Jacob? Deety, he's changed your diapers. I know how Jane reared you. True modesty, no false modesty."

'It's not the same, Aunt Hilda. Not today."

"No, it's not. You always did have a wise head, Deety. Women are toughminded, men are not; we have to protect them... while pretending to be fragile ourselves, to build up their fragile egos. But I've never been good at it-I like to play with matches."

"Aunt Hilda, you are very good at it, in your own way. I'm certain Mama knows what you've done for Pop and blesses it and is happy for Pop. For all of us-all five of us."

"Don't make me cry, Deety. Let's break out the orange juice; our men will wake any time. First secret of living with a man: Feed him as soon as he wakes."

"So I know."

"Yes, of course you know. Ever since we lost Jane. Does Zebbie know how lucky he is?"

"He says so. I'm going to try hard not to disillusion him."

"-a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose-"

Jake:

I woke in drowsy euphoria, became aware that I was in bed in our cabin that my daughter calls "Snug Harbor"-then woke completely and looked at the other pillow-the dent in it. Not a dream! Euphoric for the best of reasons!

Hilda was not in sight. I closed my eyes and simulated sleep as I had something to do. "Jane?" I said in my mind.

"I hear you, dearest one. It has my blessing. Now we are all happy together."

"We couldn't expect Deety to become a sour old maid, just to take care of her crotchety old father. This young man, he's okay, to the nth power. I felt it at once, and Hilda is certain of it."

"He is. Don't worry, Jacob. Our Deety can never be sour and you will never be old. This is exactly as Hilda and I planned it, more than five of your years ago. Predestined. She told you so, last night."

"Okay, darling."

"Get up and brush your teeth and take a quick shower. Don't dawdle, breakfast is waiting. Call me when you need me. Kiss."

So I got up, feeling like a boy on Christmas morning. Everything was jake with Jake; Jane had put her stamp of approval on it. Let me tell you, you nonexistent reader sitting there with a tolerant sneer: Don't be smug. Jane is more real than you are.

The spirit of a good woman cannot be coded by nucleic acids arranged in a double helix, and only an overeducated fool could think so. I could prove that mathematically save that mathematics can never prove anything. No mathematics has any content. All any mathematics can do is-sometimes-turn out to be useful in describing some aspects of our so-called "physical universe." That is a bonus; most forms of mathematics are as meaning-free as chess.

I don't know any final answers. I'm an all-around mechanic and a competent mathematician... and neither is of any use in unscrewing the inscrutable.

Some people go to church to talk to God, Whoever He is. When I have something on my mind, I talk to Jane. I don't hear "voices," but the answers that, come into my mind have as much claim to infallibility, it seems to me, as any handed down by any Pope speaking ex cathedra. If this be blasphemy, make the most of it; I won't budge. Jane is, was, and ever shall be, worlds without end. I had the priceless privilege of living with her for eighteen years and I can never lose her.

Hilda was not in the bath but my toothbrush was damp. I smiled at this. Logical, as any germs I was harboring, Hilda now had-and Hilda, for all her playfulness, is no-nonsense practical. She faces danger without a qualm (had done so last night) but she would say "Gesundheit!" to an erupting volcano even as she fled from it. Jane is equally brave but would omit the quip. They are alike only in-no, not that way, either. Different but equal. Let it stand that I have been blessed in marriage by two superb women. (And blessed by a daughter whose Pop thinks she is perfect.)

I showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth in nine minutes and dressed in under nine seconds as I simply wrapped around my waist a terry-cloth sarong Deety had bought for me-the day promised to be a scorcher. Even that hip wrap was a concession to propriety, i.e., I did not know my new son-in-law well enough to subject him abruptly to our casual ways; it might offend Deety.

I was last up, and saw that all had made much the same decision. Deety was wearing what amounted to a bikini minimum (indecently "decent"!) and my bride was "dressed" in a tie-on job belonging to Deety. The tie-ties had unusually large bows; Hilda is tiny, my daughter is not. Zeb was the only one fully dressed: an old pair of working shorts, a worn-out denim shirt Deety had confiscated, and his evening shoes. He was dressed for the street in any western town save for one thing: I'm built like a pear, Zeb is built like the Gray Lensman.

My shorts fitted him well enough-a bit loose-but his shoulders were splitting the shirt's seams. He looked uncomfortable.

I took care of amenities-a good-morning to all, a kiss for my bride, one for my daughter, a handshake for my son-in-law-good hands, calloused. Then I said, "Zeb, take that shirt off. It's hot and getting hotter. Relax. This is your home."

"Thanks, Pop." Zeb peeled off my shirt.

Hilda stood up on her chair, making her about as tall as Zeb. "I'm a militant women's-rights gal," she announced, "and a wedding ring is not a ring in my nose-a ring that you have not yet given me, you old goat."