I guess that was the first time I felt really close to Mother. I get along with her about as well as a daughter can, but they say girls always get along better with their fathers, and boys with their mothers. And that’s true in this family because Daddy never really got along with my brother. I used to watch him look at Dewey sometimes. He’d look at him for a long time, and shake his head and turn away. It wasn’t like he was disgusted with him—like Dewey thinks—more like he wanted to say something to him and didn’t know how. It must sound like TV, but that’s the way he would look. I think lots of times he wanted to say something to Dewey, but said it to me instead. I get along with Daddy about as well as anybody in the world, and that’s not really saying much.

After my parents stopped talking to each other, Dewey and my father couldn’t talk without arguing. It was like Dewey was arguing in place of Mother. Daddy would say something, anything, and Dewey always hopped in on it. I stayed out of it. I used to try to break it up by doing something silly or cracking a joke, but it never worked, so I just started to leave the room.

When all this was going on, Bethrah was the only person who saved me from being miserable all the time. She’d talk to me and cheer me up. But she had things to worry about too—after all, she was expecting a baby soon—and couldn’t afford to get all messed with my problems.

She had the baby in August and it was beautiful, a very light coffee brown with light brown eyes. I loved to take care of it. I’d do all kinds of nutty things like hold it, and close my eyes and pretend I was nursing it. I’m certainly going to nurse my children when I have them. Bethrah used to answer all the questions I had about breast feeding, and she’d tell me some very funny things. Like there was the time she went into New Marsails to a hen party and came home that night and asked me, “What time did my baby eat?”

“He started to cry at seven and I gave him a bottle,” I told her.

“I thought so.” And she smiled to herself and giggled. “At about seven, I started to drip, and ache, oh goodness, I just ached like I’d been punched and I had to get up and go drain. I knew my little boy was hungry.”

Just imagine, she was twenty or thirty miles from her baby and she knew he was hungry. It must be wonderful to feel that close to someone.