Since she obviously was not going to get him, I started down the hall to his room. On the way I glanced at the drawings of mountain flowers he had done last spring. Laura had encouraged his artwork after he'd produced the sketches of high-country animals. These delicate pen-and-ink works were of bluebell, fireweed, daisy, lady's slipper - all part of a project on nectar producers. Arch had chewed his tongue and furrowed his brow while drawing the details of tendrils and stamens.

Arch was the other problem-in- residence. Never gregarious, he had seemed even more isolated since the beginning of school. Twice he had come home with a black eye and a note from the principal saying he had been in a fight. I knew better than to pry. Or worse, rescue. I just wanted to understand what was going on.

Since Laura's death he had become even more withdrawn. Whenever I was near he spoke on the phone in a hushed tone. His eyes glazed more and more in indifference, as if he were taking lessons from Patty Sue. Our days of counting spoons, of telling stories, of loitering next to the hill of pumpkins at the grocery store to choose just the right one for a jack-o'- lantern - these were over. Immersed in fantasy role-playing games, he prepared and embarked on elaborate paper adventures, the purpose of which eluded me. As I edged away from the drawings and approached his room I could hear the authoritative voice he invariably used when directing one of these adventures. I slid his door open.

"... and since you have trespassed the space in front of their lair," he announced, "you will be attacked by a low-flying straight line of stringrays-"

"Arch!" I stuck my head into his room. "Hate to interrupt. Breakfast."

He looked up at me from his neatly made bed. He was already wearing his white shirt and black pants. Soon he would cover this outfit with one of our white chef's aprons.

"To be continued," he said, and hung up. Behind the glasses his eyes were inscrutable.

"You're all right?" I said, half statement, half question. "I'm not hungry," he said with straight-lipped calm.

"For eggs or anything. Let's just go."

And so we did. Patty Sue ate all the eggs. We packed the van and set out.

The air was cool but calm, quite different from the snarling frost-blowing beast an October day could be. At eight thousand feet above sea level, snow and cakes fell unexpectedly. After eleven years I'd learned how to adjust the recipes, but driving the van through storms and over ice remains a challenge. This day the aspen leaves moved languidly as the van sputtered out of the driveway's dust. Above, the sky was deep blue and cloudless, as if nature were holding her breath before the first storms. Starting the descent to Main Street, we passed a vacant lot and had a glimpse of the far distance.