"Where are we going?" Clover asked her, in Spanish.

"Didn't your Mama tell you?" Maria said.

"She said we're going home."

"Yes."

"But home is your house."

"We have a new home," Maria said. "Home is wherever we all live together."

"Your house?"

"No. Papa Wyatt has a house. We will live there."

"I want to sit by the window," Clover said. She was in the aisle seat across from Maria. The baby was in the middle seat on Clover's side, between her and her mother.

Ada gestured. "Come here. Sit in my lap." When her daughter was settled she said. "Now you're going to fly. You've never flown, not since you were little."

"Like Gabriel?"

"Not quite that little. See that plane?" A jet was landing. "We'll go up, and after a while we'll come down, like that one. Tomorrow we'll be at our new house."

"New like Gabriel?"

"No."

"Did you ever see it?"

"Yes. One time. It's a funny house. Very special."

"Can I have my own room? Myself?"

"Yes. You can choose one." The plane taxied to the runway. "When I was a girl," Ada said. "I took a plane from here to there, the same place we're going now."

Clover settled against her mother, at an angle to look out the window. Ada embraced her. Then they were in the air. Ada pointed. "See the houses? Those are their roofs."

"Oh! Oh!" she cried. "Can we live in an airplane, Mama?"

"Wouldn't you miss playing outside, and taking walks?"

"Then can we buy an airplane?"

"We don't have that much money. Besides, it would be terribly wasteful."

During the meal the baby woke, and cried, and Ada picked him up. He looked at her with his face squeezed. Children in airplanes, she thought. Nothing but work and trouble. Still, it was better than driving for weeks, through violence and turmoil, as Wyatt yearned to do. She'd seen his maps, with the scribbled notes on times and distances and stopping places. At least he hadn't asked to take the car together, or even alone. At least he had enough money to bring his family home by air, above the troubles: revolution in Nicaragua, kidnapping in El Salvador. They'd given the car to Henry instead.

There were problems in Dallas. Maria's visa was valid, but too many Central Americans were trying to find refuge in the U.S. A man and a woman questioned the adults in separate rooms. They let Ada keep the baby with her. Clover was with Maria.

"No," Ada said, in answer to a question. "She's not a blood relation. She's my stepmother. She has a valid visa."

"Why didn't your father come with her?"

"He died."

"Do you have a death certificate?"

"No. I didn't know I'd need one."

"Does she have their marriage license?"

"No. We didn't expect to need that, either."

"The man with you. What's his relationship?"

"He's my husband."

"You were alone when you left the U.S."

"We married there, in Monteverde -- in Costa Rica."

"Do you have a marriage license?"

"The certificate is in my suitcase."

"You've been out of the country three years. Why?"

"Various reasons. My father was ill. I was caring for him."

The man and woman conferred. Ada heard the woman say, "This is strange." The man said to Ada, "Wait here. We won't be long."

They were gone nearly an hour. There was nothing to read in the room, and Gabriel was asleep. Ada centered down and waited.

The man returned. "Welcome back," he said, and handed Ada her passport.

Wyatt was waiting in the hall. He looked at his watch, then at the man. "We missed our connection, thank you."

"Wyatt," Ada said.

"Don't be so damn patient," he snapped. "They're supposed to work for us. I thought this shit went out with Nixon."

"Sir -- " the official began.

"I'm sorry," Ada said. "We're all very tired. We've had a long flight. We'll be going now."

Their bags were still on the carousel. They rented two carts and when they'd loaded them, set Clover on top of the heavy one, which Wyatt pushed. She sprawled on her back across the suitcases. Maria carried Gabriel, and Ada pushed the lighter cart.

Maria had never stayed in a hotel, and hadn't slept alone in years. At midnight she knocked on their door.

"May I talk to Clover?"

"Certainly," Ada said.

Clover was in a rollaway bed, next to her parents' king-size. Maria sat next to the girl and said, "Clover, I'm very lonely. Can we take your bed to my room, and you sleep there? I'm afraid to be alone. Everything is so strange."

"Isn't this home?"

"No."

Clover didn't want to. The room with her mother, and sleeping in the bed with the wheels, was an adventure.

In the end, Maria slept in the big bed with Ada, the baby between them, and Wyatt slept alone in Maria's room. He had to call the front desk for a key because Maria had left it inside her room. She was unaccustomed to doors that locked. She was unaccustomed to the need to lock doors.

At breakfast Maria couldn't read the English on the menu, and Clover pretended to help, using arbitrary Spanish names for the lines she pointed to on the plastic-covered list.

"They're all Tico," Wyatt said. "She doesn't know what we eat for breakfast. We'll have to order for her."

She didn't like her scrambled eggs. She tried Ada's pancakes and didn't like those, either. She liked Wyatt's hash browns, so he traded with her.

"Try ketchup on them," he suggested.

"What's that?"

He poured from the bottle.

She tasted. "This is good!" She tipped the bottle, but it was pointing toward her, and ketchup splattered onto her blouse.

"We'll have to unpack and get her a clean blouse," Ada said.

"No," Wyatt said. "There isn't time. We'll clean it up."

"It will set."

"Can't be helped. Buy her a new one later. More important to catch the plane."

The latch on a suitcase broke at check-in. An airline employee strapped it shut. Then one of Clover's sandals came apart, after the bags had vanished into the machine. None of the airport shops had any children's footwear, and there was little time left before their flight.

"I'll carry you piggyback," Wyatt said, because she always enjoyed that.

They arrived home an hour after sunset. Gabriel had been wailing for so long his voice was beginning to sound hoarse, and his cries were interrupted by pauses and coughs. Wyatt unlocked the back door and did a brief walkthrough of the house.

"Looks fine," he said. "Buzz did a good job. I'll have to buy him something nice. A new guitar. Now let's get these kids settled. They need to sleep."

Since he had always spent more time away than at home, and had never had more overnight company than a woman, his own bed was the only one in the house. He made it up and gave it to the children and Maria. He and Ada slept downstairs, on the floor, on and under the few extra sheets and blankets. They used their clothing for pillows. Ada slipped out of bed when she heard the baby cry. When she returned, her nightgown was milk-stained.

"Are you asleep?" she asked.

"No."

"Will you show me the house again? The other time it was all cluttered."

The sun wasn't up. They walked about in their bare feet, turning on the lights. The front room, which now ran the width of the house, had weight training equipment, and a grand piano, and shelves of books, but the interior wall was gone, and the space was more open. "Ignore this stuff," he said. Instead he showed her the pegged floors, and the hand-hewn oak beams in the ceiling, and the pale-yellow moldings with grape vines painted along them. He showed her the mantel above the fireplace, where someone had written "A world of strife shut out, a world of love shut in", in pale blue, in a flowery script.

"I love that," she said. "Let's make that our family motto."

She looked out the windows, and opened the doors, and felt the walls with her hand. She'd forgotten the depth of the windows, how deeply recessed they were in the thick plastered log walls.

"Rewiring was hell," he said.

"After I finished the second and third stories I built the garage and the studio. Crazy." He shook his head. "I didn't need all that space. I couldn't afford the construction. I mean, who was I building for?"

"Us." She grasped his arm. "But you didn't know it yet."

The kitchen was the same size as the front room, but the table was small, the appliances few and also small -- only a refrigerator, stove, and microwave. The second floor was more modern than the ground floor -- four bedrooms, with three baths, the bedrooms wallpapered or with wood panelling, and the bathrooms tiled. All but the master bedroom, where Maria and the children were still asleep, were empty and dusty. The third floor reminded her of the house that was now Owen's alone: a dormered room on one side, and on the other side, at the back of the house, two smaller rooms, one of them a bathroom. They looked out the window at the studio.

"Is that where you play your music?"

"Sometimes."

"Will you play me Weightless?" she asked.

"You know that song?"

"It's my favorite."

"You listened to my records?"

"Yes. I didn't want to tell you. I was embarrassed. I had them all for a while. Even when you weren't part of a band."

"Including the albums I played backup on?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It was a way of keeping part of you. I even taught myself to like music."

"Well, then," he said, and led her downstairs, and played the piano until Maria came and said,

"Childs are sleeping!" and launched into rapid Spanish.

He lowered the cover over the keys, and Maria went back to bed. He and Ada repaired their own bed on the floor. During the night, the arrangement came apart, and there was a sort of valley in the middle, odds and ends of bedding to either side of it.

"I love your house," she said. "I mean, our house."

"Good. I don't want to move. I plan to die here."

"Me, too. Do you think it would wake the children if we made love?"

"No."

Afterward she said, "I think I'm pregnant. I've been starting to feel that way again."

"Too soon. We need time to get settled. The other kids are too small."

"Hush," she said, "you've made me tired," and fell asleep.

For the next few months, every day was busy from the time they rose to the time they retired. They put up a big whiteboard, where they wrote everything they had to do. Whenever they erased a line, another was waiting to take its place. Ada needed a car, and Wyatt's truck needed repair. Ada's belongings were still in Nina's basement, to be retrieved. There were cooking utensils to be acquired, and beds and bedding, and clothing, and toys for the children. Each room had to be cleaned, and the windows washed. Wyatt was to disassemble the exercise equipment and move it to the basement, and Ada had to teach Maria how to use the phone, and the phone book. The house, during Wyatt's time away, had developed loose shingles, and a basement pipe had begun to drip. Then, when these and other chores were almost disposed of, spring arrived, bringing new ones: the house needed painting; the lawn was ruined because no one had been tending it; Ada wanted a garden. There was still too much to do, and the new child would be coming soon, so they wrote Henry and apologized for not being able to visit that year.

Each day, on average, was a bit more settled, but none the less busy. Wyatt hung a swing on the big oak, and made a sandbox for the children. He bought a cradle and a baby monitor and the infinitely many other odds and ends they would need for the new child. Maria learned to use the kitchen, and to do a bit of American cooking. Clover began to speak English with everyone but Maria. Gabriel's walking and talking improved, and he followed his father everywhere. And Ada gave birth to Melody.

This girl slept little, and waved her arms a lot. Except for her energy, she was no trouble. She was alert and healthy, never getting colic or ear infections. Maria said she had never seen a baby that always wanted to be with people, and so rarely cried from being too excited. Instead she cried when she was left alone, or nothing was happening. They kept her in the kitchen, where Maria could occupy the baby with talk and play while she worked. The new table was large enough to set Melody on in a child carrier, with room to work and eat around her. It was always cluttered, but there was always room to spare.

Ada returned to school for a teaching degree and spent her time at home in the kitchen with Maria and the baby, studying and watching her family flow. Wyatt was travelling to L.A. and Austin and Nashville for recording sessions, and backing bands on their tours. He was rebuilding his career, which had suffered from his absence. Most of their arguments were about his being gone too often and too long.

"I need you here," she would say. "I need your help."

"Can't," he would reply. "Money's shrinking. How am I going to put these kids through college? How am I going to heat the house when we're old?"

There was nothing to be done, because he wouldn't listen. She relied on Maria for the things she couldn't do herself, when her husband was gone.

"You don't mind taking care of the children while I study?" she asked.

"No. I am not lonely then," Maria said. "When the others don't need me, I always have Melodia to talk to."

Even as an infant, Melody disliked clothes. She removed her diapers as soon as she figured out how; her parents were thankful that she potty-trained very early. In the bitterest winters she would throw her heavy coat on the ground, no matter how many times they put it on her. In hot weather she liked to be naked; if her mother dressed her, Melody sneaked outside and took off her clothes. Ada and Wyatt were rarely angry with her, because she was so cheerful, and so affectionate, but the spontaneity and intensity with which she expressed her affections sometimes disturbed Wyatt.

Of the three children, she walked at the earliest age. She was fascinated with her body. She did cartwheels, and handstands, and splits, and always showed these tricks to visitors. In grade school she discovered horses, and spent hours with the Larsons, who lived a block away, and kept a pony and a pinto horse on their large lot. She briefly took karate. Her truest love was dance, but she couldn't stick with lessons. She tried modern dance, and tap, and ballet, but every time found herself adding steps and techniques. She left all the classes because of the rules. The only thing she stuck with was gymnastics.

Wyatt watched the children and began to feel old. These little people weren't what he'd expected. They were like three songs played simultaneously and too fast. He wanted to slow them down and listen to one at a time. Each was always at the perfect age, but changing too fast. He wanted time to see and memorize and fully appreciate their changes. No sooner had he noticed a child invent a new quirk or skill than another child drew his attention. He foresaw the day when he would be left standing in the road, watching their dust receding in the distance.