But it didn't look as though there were any place where the rabbit might have slipped through or under the skirting. It was just gone. Probably went across to the driveway and back out into the front yard while I was walking around the other way, she thought.

DeAnne walked back around the house and was horrified to realize that she had left the front door standing wide open. She had never done that-she was an inveterate door locker. But this time she had forgotten. I was just stepping onto the porch, she remembered. I didn't plan to go into the back yard chasing a rabbit.

That was no excuse.

As she hurried toward the door, a man stepped through it. A man had been in her house! A stranger! With her children! She screamed.

He looked at her, startled and abashed. An old man, white hair sticking out like tiny feathers under a baseball cap. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry-

"What were you doing in my house!" Somehow she had covered the gap between them and now shoved past him, to stand in the doorway between him and the children.

"Ma'am, the door was open and I called and called-"

She yelled over her shoulder. "Robbie! Robbie, are you all right?"

"Ma'am, please, you got to understand-"

"Get away from here before I call the police," she said. "If you have harmed my children in any way, I-"

"Ma'am," he said, "I used to live here. I just haven't shook the habit yet of walking in. I shouldn't have done it, I know, and I am so ashamed of myself, giving you a scare like that, I was plain wrong and I apologize, sometimes I think I still live out in the country I guess where a open door means come on in, folks is to home."

Robbie came up behind her. "Did you call me, Mom?"

"Is your sister all right?"

"We got a fuzzy channel on the TV and she's watching this guy who hits people in the head."

"Thanks, Robbie."

"Can I go back now, Mom?"

"Yes, please, thank you."

The old man resumed his explanations. "My boy Jamie owns this house."

"That doesn't give you the right," said DeAnne.

"I know it, like I said, I was plain wrong and I'm sorry, I won't ever do it again. But ma'am, you ought to be careful and not leave your front door open like that. Folks don't do that in the city. So when I saw it open, I did like country people and didn't even think twice. If it was closed I would've knocked and waited."

"I shouldn't have left it open," said DeAnne. "That was careless of me. Stupid of me."

"Well, now, not stupid. I'd say it was trusting of you and kind of sweet. Though I guess I hope I'm never on the wrong side of you again, cause you got a scream like to wake the dead."

DeAnne looked around, embarrassed. But apparently nobody had heard-at least, nobody was charging out of their houses to see why a woman had screamed at this hour.

"Ma'am, all I came by to do was to tell you that I been looking after this house for fifteen years now, ever since my boy built it for me and my missus, only she's dead now and my boy's wife sort of left him and he was lonely in his place and he wanted me for company and he needed the rental money on this place to help pay the child support and you know how it is. I moved. Spent the loneliest Christmas of my life here this winter, and so I suppose I'm glad to be moved out of it and I know I'm glad to think of a fa mily here. Why, next Christmas Santa Claus will come to this house, will you think of that!"

Now that the fear was wearing off, she could see that there was no harm in this old fellow.

"My name's Bappy Waters," said the old man.

"Pappy?" asked DeAnne.

"Bappy, with a B. Short for my real name, which is Baptize."

"Not really" said DeAnne.

"Oh, yes. My papa was a Holiness preacher and he believed in baptism the way other folks believe in air. It was the cure for whatever ailed you. Other folks might hold with doctors or even with laying on hands, but Papa, he just pushed you down in the water and held you there till the devil come out of you. He was a deep baptizer, my papa was, and I was the firstborn in his family. And what with our last name being Waters, my name was sort of bound to happen, if you think of it. In fact he was set to name me Baptize All God's Children in the Holy, but Mama put her foot down on that and said that if he named a child that he'd deserve it if the boy grew up and shot him dead, and not a jury but would call it justice. Not that I was there to hear the conversation, mind you, but I heard reports of it, you may be sure."

DeAnne couldn't help but laugh. He was a charmer, this old man. And she could see how a country boy, a preacher's son, might act differently around an open door than a city man. How his stepping in like that meant nothing at all. In fact, it was kind of nice to imagine living in simpler times, when you could just leave your door open and a passing visitor would poke his head in and find you maybe in the kitchen baking bread or scrubbing the floor and you get up and serve lemonade and chat awhile. In the days before television and telephones and urgent errands. Bappy Waters was a visitor from a simpler time.

"What was it brought you by?" asked DeAnne.

"Well, I know this house inside out, you see. I done all the handiwork here for fifteen years. So if anything goes bad, like a pipe gets bust in the winter or your cable needs hooking up or whatever, why, I'm equipped and qualified and I know where everything is. Why have some stranger go crawling up in the attic or under the house looking for what I know right where to find it, and besides, when you call me it's free."

"Oh, I couldn't ask you to-"

"Just protecting my son's investment in the property, ma'am."

"Call me DeAnne, please."

"Why, so I will. I knew a DeAnne when I was a boy, she was the prettiest little thing in the county. Died when she was just a slip of a girl, though, got herself drowned when her boyfriend was driving drunk and took them off into the Dan River in spring flood. There was only a half dozen cars in the county in those days, it being the Depression and all. Though truth to tell in Gary County the Depression started about halfway through the War between the States and it hasn't let up since." He laughed, and DeAnne laughed with him.

"For instance, ma'am, your kids are watching television, and I wonder if you know that I can just hook you right up to cable."

"We haven't paid for cable."

"Well, you just go down to the cable office and give them your money and you'll be just fine. They give you your box, then, if you want any of the extra channels. But the house is all wired, is what fm telling you, and you just connect up to the wall, and it was their decision to leave it connected when I turned my box in at the end of December, so you won't be stealing a thing."

"Well, then, I'll have my husband connect the TV to the wall," she said. "When he gets home, which is any second now."

Bappy nodded and touched the brim of his baseball cap. "I understand, ma'am. After seeing me in your house like that, of course you aren't about to let me inside, and I don't blame you a bit. Tell you what, here's my number. I wrote it on this card for you already. Anything goes wrong with the house, anything at all, you give me a call. That's the home I share with Jamie now, and fm always there, and when fm not a machine picks up, if you can imagine. If it's something I can't fix myself, I'll call whoever can."

"Thank you," she said, taking the card.

"Times are tight, ma'am, and rent's high enough without y'all having to worry about paying for repairs and such. Think of me as a sort of free discount on your rent." He grinned again, touched the brim of his cap again, and then walked to the driveway and went left, around the house. That put another little scare into her-where was he going?

But by the time she got to where the front walk joined the driveway at the corner of the house, he was already backing down the drive in a little pickup with garden tools and a couple of big metal tool chests in the back. He was leaning out the window to see where he was backing, and of course he saw her as he slipped by.