I went across the hall into the room we'd decorated as a study and a television room. Plucking the cordless phone from its stand, I plumped down on the red leather couch in front of the windows. Madeleine, the cat that lived with us, emerged from her favorite private place, the basket where we put newspapers after we'd read them. While I was punching in numbers with one hand, I was tickling Madeleine's head with the other. One part of my mind noted that I'd have to get Madeleine out of the study before Martin got home. He and the cat enjoyed a hate-hate relationship. It had started with Madeleine deciding Martin's Mercedes was her basking site of choice, especially when the ground was muddy and she could leave some nice footprints on the hood and windshield. Martin had retaliated by parking the Mercedes in the garage and closing the door every night. Since it was then her move in their little game, Madeleine (who ordinarily couldn't be bothered) caught a mouse, decapitated the rodent, and put the corpse in Martin's shoe. Then Martin... well, you get the idea. "Martin Bartell's office," Mamie Sands said. Her raspy voice was all business. "Mrs. Sands, this is Aurora. I need to speak to Martin." It had taken me weeks to stop apologizing for disturbing him.

"I'm sorry," Mrs. Sands said, her voice several degrees warmer than it had been when I first married Martin, "but Mr. Bartell's out in the plant. Want me to page him?"

I thought of trying to tell Martin that his niece was here with an unexplained baby, over a telephone where he stood surrounded by employees. "No, that's okay," I told the secretary. "Please ask him to call me before he starts for home."

I hung up the phone. I made a face, the kind of face my mother always warned me would make my features stick in permanent disgust. I strolled back across the hall to Regina. She was putting some bottles of formula in the refrigerator.

"I just made myself at home," she said brightly. She'd gotten out a pan and boiled some water, and an empty can of formula powder was on the counter by the sink. "It always helps to have plenty made up and ready to heat. Now, when I heat them up ..." and she described the procedure at tedious length. Hayden stared at me with the big round-eyed goggle some babies have. He was a cute little guy, with a pink mouth and rosy cheeks. In fact, he was strikingly fairer than Regina, who was pretty enough, but endowed with the dark complexion and wide hips her own mother'd bequeathed her. Hayden waved his arms and made a sudden gurgling sound, and Regina looked at him adoringly. "Isn't he wonderful?" she asked.

"He's so cute," I said, and tried not to sound yearning. "Too bad Uncle Martin's too old to have another kid," Regina said, actually giggling at the idea.

I could feel my back stiffen and I was sure my face had followed suit. "We talked about it," I said in a voice of pure ice. "But unfortunately, I am not able." Martin, who was staring fifty in the face, hadn't been able to work up any enthusiasm for starting another family, though at my just-turned birthday of thirty-six, I could still hear my biological clock ticking. Loudly. However, it was ticking in a malformed womb, which let Martin off the hook as far as making a decision.

I began to empty the dishwasher, all the time telling myself I'd sounded hostile and I had to calm down. Regina, who really seemed to be remarkably tactless, had stuck a sharp stick into my tenderest grievance, my inability to conceive. She was staring at me now, trying to look properly cowed, but I detected a certain—what? Satisfaction? Her eyes had the same look I saw in Madeleine's when she'd left those footprints all over Martin's windshield. I had a sudden inspiration.

"Would it suit you if we put you and Hayden over in the garage apartment?" I asked, trying to make my voice light and friendly. "That would be super. I wondered when I drove up if that was a separate apartment," Regina said. Maybe she sounded a tad disappointed that I'd changed the subject. "Hayden still gets up at night, and we'd be less likely to bother you."

"Let's just take your things over there," I suggested. Taking the keys from a hook by the back door, I grabbed the big diaper bag and Regina's purse and trotted across the covered walkway and up the stairs that ran up the side of the garage, the side toward our house. The heavy bag looped over my shoulder banged ponderously against my thigh. Though the air was colder and wetter, it wasn't actually raining at the moment.

The apartment smelled only slightly stale. Our friends Shelby and Angel had moved out about eight weeks ago. I had been keeping the heat on so nothing would freeze or mildew, and I turned it up and glanced around as I heard Regina open her car trunk below.

The garage apartment is one very big room, with a corner walled in for a bathroom and adjacent closet. There's a queen-sized bed, a chair and love seat and attendant tables, a television, and a small table for two in the kitchen area. It's as pleasant as basic apartment living gets. Regina seemed pleased.

"Oh, Aunt Roe, this is so nice," she said, throwing a suitcase on the bed. "Before we got married we lived in an apartment that was a lot smaller than this."

I hated to think about that.

"Well, I hope you enjoy it," I said at random. "You and Hayden, that is. I'll leave you to unpack. Oh, do you have something for the baby to sleep in?" I had no idea what to do if she didn't. But Regina assured me she had a portable travel crib. That seemed a luxurious item for a poor mother to have, and I wondered a little.

I heard the crunch of gravel as I stood in the doorway. Martin emerged from his car and stood staring at Regina's car for a minute. "Martin," I called, "come up here." Evidently he hadn't returned to his office before he came home.

He passed under the walkway to stare up at me. "What are you doing in the apartment?" he asked. No one had been in the apartment since Angel and Shelby had bought a house in town.

"Oh," I said, feeling a pleasurable anticipation, perhaps tinged with a touch of malice, "you won't guess who's come to visit, honey!" Looking distinctly apprehensive, Martin came up the stairs. I stood aside so he could enter the apartment.

"Uncle Martin!" cried Regina. She faced the door with a big smile stretching her generous lips, the baby pressed to her chest like a bag of groceries. Martin's face was priceless.

"Did we know she was coming?" he asked me in a low voice as we walked over to the house.

I shook my head.

"Did we know she'd had a baby?"

I shook my head again.

"Then Barby must not know it either," he said. "She wouldn't keep something like that to herself."

I didn't think so either. I further thought that Barby would just hate the idea of being a grandmother. I was willing to bet Regina knew that, too. "So, we don't know why she's here?" Martin, used to commanding information and having everything lined up and organized, was definitely on the frustrated side. "It'd be easier to tell you what I don't know," I said. "I don't know why she came or how long she's staying. I don't know where Craig is. I have no idea what your sister knows." And though I didn't say it out loud to spare Martin's feelings, I was far from certain of the provenance of the baby. Martin stood in the kitchen drinking a glass of tea while he mulled this over. "I've got to go back up there and speak to her again," he said abruptly. "Get some of this settled. We still going to the Lowrys‘?" "I don't think we can put it off. Regina seems all right about us going, and you know how touchy Catledge is."

"Okay. I'll just be a minute or two with her, then I'll come in and shower." Thunking his glass down on the counter, he marched out again into the gathering dark and dripping rain. His white hair gleamed through the darkness. I went upstairs to finish getting ready. As I put on makeup and jewelry and pinned my hair out of my face with a pretty black-and-gold comb, I wondered if Martin would be able to winkle any more out of his niece than I had. Martin is far more likely to ask direct questions than I am. But he didn't look satisfied when he trudged up the stairs twenty minutes later.