My wound itched; it chose inconvenient times to demand my attention, though what might be convenient I couldn't imagine. I had two papers to referee, a lecture to prepare, a dissertation to review, and a consulting job that had been languishing for weeks. The illness, and then the surgery, had slowed me. My work, ignored, sat untouched on the table.

I watched my husband through the sliding door, opened for the sun and air. Sweet Ansel. He'll stay the course. The first time we went to dinner he didn't assess the waitress as she walked away; he acted as if she were no longer there, and turned to me. He was from a religious family with no divorces. He was sexually inexperienced, and probably hadn't slept with many women. He made enough money that I wouldn't feel I was supporting him, but not as much as I made. He was shocked at Samuel's cheating, when I told him. I only mean to say that he passed the tests. There was no passion, but I didn't care. I was looking for a partner.

He was struggling with the brush behind our house. He did his best, but he labored at this as at everything else. Life is effort for him, but he never complains. The muscles in his back, his sweat, even his thinning hair conveyed, as always, a look of masculine struggle, when his true nature is simple kindness. This is what I didn't look for, and what I appreciate most in him now.

I expected him to come inside and kiss me on the forehead, and go to the cooler (not the sink, because the cooler is pure) and pour his water. He does everything he should, including drinking however many glasses are recommended daily, and brushing his teeth immediately after every meal. He keeps a toothbrush at work.

He'd sit with me while he took a break. He'd want to gauge my mood. "I let the back get out of hand again," he'd say.

If I answered, "Yes," or changed the subject, if I didn't meet his opening, he'd sit in silence until he finished his water, and then go outside to his work.

But if I said, "It's not so bad. Didn't you clear it out last fall?" or, "No problem, as long as it's done before summer. It looks like you can finish today," then he'd stay to talk.

Next he might say, "Why can't I go to Lawrence?"

And again I'd say, "I'd rather go alone." Instead of continuing with, "You'd distract me," I would edit myself and say it this way: "I need to talk to my mother." Neither of these is the reason.

But I didn't want to play this chess with him any longer. I should have been past this phase years ago.

He was in the yard longer than I expected; he usually works for an hour before he takes a break, but this time he worked for two. He was covered in sweat when he went to get his glass of water at the cooler and sat by me and commented on how much work the yard was.

I simply said, "Ansel, I can't take you. I know you want to come, but I can't have another person along. I'm too tired. Please understand."

"I do understand," he said, "but you shouldn't go. It's too soon to travel."

He took my hand in his, and we watched the grass wave in the wind, and the light shimmer on the grass. We love Berkeley: the sun, the sky, the hills that are green in spring and brown in summer, the Mediterranean climate. We're fortunate to live in a place, and a house, we love.

"Are you driving to Pasadena after you drop me at the airport?" I asked.

"Yes. Are you sure you don't want me to come?"

"Yes."

"I'd rather visit your mother than my parents," he said.

In the morning he drove me to the airport, and carried my bag, and kissed me goodbye. After that I put up with the crowds, and the elbows on the armrests, and the smell of jet fuel, and the recycled air and inane conversations. Most of all I had to bear the absence of Ansel.

It was late afternoon before I got my rental car. Fifty miles of four-lane. I took the east Lawrence exit and drove Massachusetts, but didn't turn on 15th. I meandered the town, looking at the campus, the houses where my high school friends had lived, the grocery store where I'd had a summer job. Memories on every street and corner.

The trees were lifeless and leafless, the sky a faded blue-gray. Traffic was heavy, but tomorrow, Thanksgiving day, it would be almost nonexistent, everyone inside with family. Now they were running out to the grocery store, or hurrying home. Students in old rusty cars were driving north to the turnpike, or south to K-10.

Grass had grown in the gravel of our driveway, and the house needed paint. My father, Wyatt I mean, would never have let those things happen. I noticed that the first-floor storm windows, the old-fashioned wooden ones that had to be hung in the fall and removed in the spring, hadn't been put up. I parked, and looked at the house. It seemed different, because I no longer lived there and it had lost that quotidian familiarity. It looked very old, as in fact only the ground floor was.

My mother came running from the door, started to embrace me, and brought herself up short. She settled for grasping my hands instead.

"You can hug me," I said. "I won't break."

"I didn't want to hurt you." She took me gently in her arms, and kissed my cheek. "Do you need to rest?"

"That would be nice. The doctor was right." Ansel was right. "I wasn't ready to travel."

"I'll carry your suitcase."

"I'm not an invalid."

She reached in the trunk and struggled to get the case out, while brushing me off. "You can have your old room," she said. She hurried in front of me, a small woman struggling with a large piece of luggage.

At the top of the stairs I looked in on Zack instead of going to my room. He was playing on his computer, and scarcely nodded when I said hello.

"Can I lie on your bed?" I asked. "I'm very tired."

The ceiling of his room had been painted blue, with cumulous clouds in a white procession from one end to the other; each one looked a cookie from a box of animal crackers: elephant, rhino, bear, turtle, rabbit, lion, monkey, camel, penguin, and sheep. Zack loved animal crackers. The walls had been painted with what could have been a jungle scene, but the plants were the sort you see in artist's renderings of ancient geologic periods: ferns and palms. The animals among the fronds were all dinosaurs. Mother had told me about Zack's fondness for them. She called them "his new obsession".

I must have dozed because I woke when Zack jumped onto the bed. The sudden bounce sent a pang through my midsection.

"My new book," he said, and handed it to me.

While I was arranging pillows so I could lean against the headboard he started flipping the pages, pointing to the pictures.

"Look. T. Rex. My favorite." He pointed to the next page. "Triceratops." He flipped to the next pair of drawings. "Apatosaur. Iguanodon." He flipped forward again. "Pterodactyl. Pteranodon... Stegosaur. Stegosaurus had two brains. Velociraptor... "

He knew them all. "Very good," I said. "Did you memorize them, or can you read the names?"

"Yes. Read. Grandma taught me."

"I like your room. The dinosaurs are cool. I like the clouds, too."

"Want to wrestle?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

"The doctor told me not to do anything strenuous."

"What's 'strenuous'?"

"Things like wrestling. Hard work things."

"Grandma said you were sick."

"I'm okay now. The doctors fixed me."

"Are you going to die?"

"No."

"Good," he said. "You're my favorite aunt." He knelt and leaned down and kissed me, gravely, lightly, on the lips, then lay next to me.

I put an arm around his shoulders. "You're a lot like your Mom."

"She died," he said. "They put her in the ground."

"Yes."

"What's death?"

"When someone's dead, they're gone and we can't talk to them any more. They aren't in their body."

"Where do they go?"

I didn't tell him that they don't go anywhere; I couldn't comprehend the notion myself. "I think your Mom went to heaven. She's watching you. She still loves you. Do you miss her?"

"I guess. I want a brother. I have to have a Mom to get a brother, don't I?"

"That's how it usually works. Do you remember anything about your her?"

"Kisses."

"Yes. She loved people. She was always kissing someone."

"Sometimes we go to the cemetery and give her flowers. I drew her a picture." He went to his desk and brought me a piece of paper, a watercolor that showed a yellow-haired woman sitting in a field of green, with a rainbow at the top, and a cloud between her head and the rainbow. "She's in heaven. See the grass? She likes grass. She likes rainbows and clouds, too. The weather's always nice in heaven."

"That's beautiful. She'll like it. So do I."

"You can have it."

"Don't you want to give it to her?"

"I'll make another one." He kissed me again. "I love you, Aunt Clover."

"I love you, Zack. You're my favorite boy in the world."

He tried to give me a hug, but his elbow went into my stomach and I shouted with pain. It took me some time to reassure him, and then he settled in next to me, and I put my arm around him again, and we lay there until mother called us to dinner.

She'd set the table with the old dishes, not the good ones.

"Still Quaker plain," I remarked.

"The good china belongs to you," she said. "I wish you'd take it."

"No. I don't need them. I have my own."

"We'll use the good things tomorrow."

"Is Nina coming?"

"She's in New York, visiting your father."

I didn't say anything. I'd broken with my father two years before, when I'd found out what he'd done to my mother, when I'd found out why she'd divorced him.

"You should give up that grudge," she said. "It was a long time ago."

"What's a grudge?" Zack asked. He was stirring his mashed potatoes and gravy into a brown soup. He stopped.

"It's when you get mad at somebody and can't forgive them," I said.

"Why are you mad?"

"Sometimes it's a bad idea to explain these things, okay, Zack sweetie? I can't talk about it."

"Okay," he said, and went back to stirring his food.

The phone rang.

"It's your husband." Mother gave me the handset.

I was walking into the front room. "How are you?" Ansel asked. His sweet, deep voice was so gentle it brought tears to my eyes.

"Tired," I said. "You?"

"Oh, you know. World's most boring drive. I'm tired, too."

"I'm glad you called. I've been missing you all day."

Silence. He wasn't accustomed to hearing this sort of thing.

"I love you, Ansel." I dropped onto the sofa. "I love you very much."

"I've waited a long time to hear that."

"I do, you know. I love you. I didn't know until now."

"I love you, too. Do you want me to get a flight tomorrow?"

"No."

"You're right. Too much trouble getting back here without a reservation." He sighed. "I'll see you in a few days, anyway."

"How's your mother?"

"Very frail. The oncologist told Dad she should have been dead two months ago. She's a tough old lady."

"She had to be, to live with your father."

"You got that right."

"Are they getting along any better, now that she's -- now that her time is so short?"

"No. Same old bicker bicker. It drives me insane."

"I wish my father was still alive."

"I thought he was."

"I meant Wyatt."

"Are you feeling any better?"

"I shouldn't have come. I should have stayed home and let you wait on me."

"I would have liked that." I heard a voice in the background, across the ether. "Dad needs my help. I have to go."

I heard the click and the phone went dead. I pressed the button and the light went off. My abdomen felt sore.

"Go to sleep," my mother told me, and took the phone from my hand. "I'll clean up."

She'd set my case on the bed, and I didn't have to bend or lift, for which I was thankful. I took out a nightgown, threw my clothes on the floor, and went to sleep without brushing my teeth or hair.

Thanksgiving has always seemed slow to me. There's little traffic on the street, and little noise. No one works. We sit indoors and wait for the meal. I never understood the day until recently. Finally I knew why my mother loved it so. It was the one day a year set aside for expressing gratitude. Countless times I'd heard her say how lovely the weather was, how happy she felt at someone's good fortune, how blessed we were as a family. I had seen her bowed in her morning prayer of thanks. Of course this fourth Thursday in November was her favorite. That was her nature.

This year was no different. She hurried about the kitchen. I sat at the table and listened to her stories of past Thanksgivings, beginning with Wyatt and the snow. I daydreamed. I'd got all these tales by heart, as a child. Melody had loved those stories most. I wished she were with me to listen to our mother tell them again.

Late in the morning it started to rain. I noticed the drizzle through the glass of the back door, drops beading on the cars and plashing on the gravel drive. When I stood for a better look, my vision grayed, my head emptied, and I nearly collapsed. I clutched the table, steadied myself, and sat.

About two in the afternoon, when I hadn't moved, my mother looked at me and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're pale."

"I'm fine." I didn't want to ruin her Thanksgiving.

"Go to bed."

When she insisted, I stood, and (they told me later) fell over unconscious.

The EMTs wouldn't let my mother and Zack ride in the ambulance with me, and the doctors wouldn't let them into my room until they'd taken a history and examined me. The doctor was younger than me, and I found this fact annoying. I told him about the hysterectomy.

"When?"

"Last Friday."

"Where did you have it?"

"The usual place."

He laughed. "At least you have a sense of humor. Didn't your physician tell you to take it easy?"

"Yes."

The rest of the conversation was too tedious to remember, so I don't. I'd forget the entire incident if I could. They gave me drugs, of course. They always do. That helped the pain, but I was still distressed at ruining my mother's special day, and our family reunion. I worried that my husband would worry if he called and no one answered the phone. I worried that Gabriel and Julia would show up at the house and no one would be there. I worried about further delay in getting my work done.

Zack stayed by the door when the doctors let him and mother in the room. I held out a hand to him.

"Don't be afraid," I said. "It's not catching."

He crossed the room to my bed, but he wouldn't look at me. He hung his head.

"Thank you for coming," I told him.

"He thinks he put you in the hospital," mother said, "because he leaned on your stomach and you screamed."

He glanced at her, brows knit, and went back to studying the floor.

"No," I said. "Zack. Come here. It wasn't you." I took his hand in mine. "Honest. My doctor told me not to travel. It's my own fault."

Mother pulled up two chairs.

"Can I sit on the bed?" Zack asked.

"No," mother said.

"Yes," I said. "Be careful. Don't bump me."

He climbed up, and turned, and parked himself against my leg, a hand resting on my thigh.

"What about Gabe and Julia?" I asked mother.

"I left a note on the door."

"Did you turn everything off? Stove? Oven?"

She looked at me.

"Sorry," I said.

"That's perfectly all right. Yes, I did, but I'm more concerned about you. Are you suffering?"

"Groggy, that's all. They gave me something for the pain."

"Honey, I am so sorry."

"Why?"

"I should have made you stay home, instead of letting you come."

How typical of her. I would have laughed, except I was afraid of rupturing something. "How could you have kept me away?"

"I don't know."

"Mother, I'm the one who should be apologizing -- "

"Don't -- "

"Let me finish. I'm sorry I was such a difficult child. Daughter. Woman."

"Pardon me?"

"All the cruel things I said. Shutting you out."

"Those are the things children do. I knew that."

"But -- "

"There's nothing to apologize for," she said. "You were a fine daughter."

"That's nice of you to say."

"It's true. You made me proud."

"No, I don't think so, but thank you." She always surprised me, though she was the most consistent person I'd ever known. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, I'm sure, though I'm the one who should be thankful."

Gabriel and Julia walked in. "There you are," I said. "We're having a little party."

"Strange place for one. I could probably get the band together and play you a song, although it's short notice."

Julia was wearing a black velvet maternity dress trimmed with gold braid. Her belly was bulbous as the prow of a ship. I said, "That's a gorgeous dress."

"I like it."

"How's the pregnancy?"

"Perfect. The doctors say they wish all of them were like this." A moment later her face looked as if she'd witnessed an accident. She glanced at my midsection and away.

"Good," I said. "I'm glad. Gabriel, go get her a chair. I'm sure she needs to sit." He headed out to the hall and I winked at Julia. "Tell me all about it. Do you have a name picked out for the boy yet?"

"No. Only the girl. We can't agree on the boy's name."

"I'm still going to be their godmother, aren't I?"

"Yes."

"Zack," I said. "You'll have two cousins. That's almost as good as a brother."

"Look." Zack pointed out the window. "It's snowing."