"Hey," I said. "We'll eat, and the house is paid for. Metal Fab isn't a vital organ." The last statement I wasn't sure about. The company Fred started and has nurtured for thirty years is vital to him. "It'll be okay," I said again.

"Sure it will. I'd like to hang onto it for a few more years, though, and sell it so we can retire with nothing to worry about." He got up and reached for my hand to pull me up. "Come on. It's too pretty a day to sit here moping."

"But why didn't you tell me?"

"There's not a thing you can do."

"I can worry with you."

"That's why I didn't tell you. I don't want you worrying."

Alan's car pulled into the driveway.

"This is between us. Okay?"

"Okay," I agreed.

Lisa leaned over the fence. "Hey, you two lovebirds. We've brought the biggest pizza you've ever seen."

It was nice having the two of them for a quiet visit. They live in Atlanta, as does Freddie, our oldest, and when they come they usually bring the children. But this weekend their boys were on a camping trip with the Scouts in the Smokies.

"I cried," Lisa said, "when I put them on the bus. They're growing up too fast."

"You need to think about having another one," I said.

Lisa and Alan both laughed. "It's Freddie and Haley's turn, Mama," Alan said. "Speaking of which, we've been at Haley's apartment watching basketball, and the ENT was there, Pop."

"Ah. The power of prayer." Fred reached for another piece of pizza. Worry hadn't affected his appetite.

About two o'clock in the morning, though, he was up taking Maalox.

"You're sure you're okay?" I mumbled.

"I'm fine. I promise. Go back to sleep, sweetheart."

And I did.

The wedding was on Saturday. Sunday was a quiet day. Lisa and Alan left around three to go back to Atlanta. We rented a movie at Video Express, and I opened a can of chicken noodle soup for supper. Fred didn't want to talk about Metal Fab, and Mary Alice didn't make one of her usual pop-in visits. It wasn't until Monday that, as Mama always said, the fit hit the Shan.

It started peacefully. Mary Alice called and asked if I would like to have lunch with her and Meg Bryan at the Tutwiler, that Meg was going to the library and she, Sister, thought it would be nice to take her out to lunch and the Tutwiler was so convenient and so elegant since it had been completely remodeled that Meg would be impressed, surely, since she, Meg, remembered the old Tutwiler, the one that hadn't even been at the same place and what had been where the

Tutwiler was now had been the Ridgeley apartments. Did I remember when the only drugstore open at night in Birmingham was the one in the old Tutwiler? Right in the middle of town and nobody ever robbed it, did they?