We've all just come together. Several generations."

Budd: "You said that there was one figure, one man —"

Mary: "There's always been one central figure."

Budd: "And he was nice?"

Joan: "Was he tall?"

Mary: "No, they were all little guys. He was my protector. Everybody else who was around was always really very — they were doing a job they needed to do, and that was it.

There was no — they weren't angry or mad or happy about it. They were just doing what they had to do. But this one guy, in all instances, this one guy — when I got scared he calmed me down, when I felt bad he made me feel better." (Note: Others have had a very similar experience of a "friend" or a "protector." The perceived sex of the guide is not consistently opposite, but very often is.)

Whitley: "What does he look like?"

Mary: "He looked like all the rest, really."

Whitley: "Which is?"

Mary: "The same small people, you know, four and a half or five feet tall. With the gray skin and the large heads and the big, fluidy, black eyes that went on forever."

Whitley: "In other words, you wouldn't identify him as a human being."

Mary: "No, not in my town, anyway. New York is a different story. Regardless of whether or not any of it was anything more than a dream or what, I know the emotions I've had to deal with through the years have been real all the anxiety that doesn't have any source."

Whitley: "Any of your kids?"

Mary: "Yeah."

Whitley: "How do you feel about that?"

Mary: "That's the only part of it that really upsets me. I guess it's Just the mother instinct in me. I want to know everything that's happening to my children and I want to be there when it's happening. I don't like the idea of someone screwing around with my kids, and me not knowing about it. They're so defenseless, you know, it's not fair. As if we aren't all as defenseless as children, but somehow my mothering instincts are the only thing that turn me on, make me mad. There's only one thing that I'm really angry about, and I don't really understand that. I told Pat, I don't feel like being angry for me, anyway, is going to work. I have enough trouble dealing with everyday life. There are a lot of stresses, and I don't cope with stress really excellently well. I just get by, like everybody else. So I don't see any point in inflicting any more stress on myself by getting all worked up and angry over something I have no control over. Something that no matter how damn mad I get, it ain't gonna do no good. I'm just gonna make myself get worse. So I haven't whipped up a lot of anger over this, other than about my kids."

Whitley: "So basically, you just decided —"

Mary: "Live with it."