Sister thought for a moment, her eyebrows squeezed together into a crease. “I guess being a woman, particularly a Southern woman.”

I looked at her in amazement. Surely she wasn’t serious. What kind of a burden brought three rich husbands, three wonderful kids, a secure place in the world, and the nerve of a bad tooth?

“You see, we’re brought up to be too sweet, too subservient to men, to society in general.”

“When on God’s earth have you ever been subservient to anybody? Or sweet, for that matter? On the Concorde coming back from Paris, you rearranged where half a dozen people were sitting so you could be near Peter Jennings.”

“Who slept the whole way home. And I was sweet and didn’t wake him up. He’s got a lot of gray, I noticed. Do you think he uses Grecian Formula? Or that five-minute stuff? They could put that on him right before he goes on the air. If he sweated he might be in trouble, though.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“Don’t be tacky.”

We pulled into my driveway just as it began to mist. It was well above freezing so ice was no danger, but Woofer would miss his walk again. I told my burdened Southern Sister goodbye and went over to the igloo to check him out.

“Come inside a while,” I told him.

He grudgingly agreed. He followed me into the house, I gave him a couple of dog biscuits, and he stretched out on his rug to nibble at them. Muffin eyed us from the center of the kitchen table. I took her down, gave her a couple of Pounce treats, and went to check my messages.

My only E-mail message was from someone advertising SEX SEX SEX on the Internet. I get quite a few of these ads, having wandered one day onto a Website called Amazon Lovers or something like that when I was trying to order a book. I think I am now on some kind of international list of large lesbians.

I deleted the SEX SEX SEX, which zipped me back to Haley’s last message about the pope. I reread it and realized she was probably in Rome by then. I couldn’t have been happier for her. This time last year she had been a widow, lonely, still grieving for what might have been with her husband, Tom, whose life had been severed by a drunk driver. Tom on his way home from work with flowers and a Valentine for Haley.

I touched the computer screen. “Be happy, darling.”

There were three phone messages. One was a siding company, the second one wanted to sell us insurance, and the third one surprised me so I had to sit down.

“Patricia Anne?” It was a woman’s voice and she was whispering, but I recognized her before she said, “This is Virginia. Please call me at 615-555-9678. I need some help. Bad.”