I didn’t know what to do. If I said it was bad, she’d sull up or maybe cry. She cried a lot when I didn’t like her stuff. And if I said it was good when it really wasn’t, she’d get very encouraged and sit right down and type it up all nice and neat and send it off to Playboy or somewhere, and then get all broke down when it came back rejected. I used to hate mail-time on Saturdays, when I was home. About eleven o’clock, if she had a story out, she’d sit down on the couch and open the drapes on the front window, watching for the mailman. She’d sit there with a cup of coffee in her hands. She’d start doing that about three days after she’d sent a story off, I think. I guess she did it every day while it was out. I don’t know. But I’m sure she did. She wouldn’t even write while she was waiting for the mailman. When she was waiting for the mailman, she wouldn’t do anything but look out the window. Every once in a while, she’d get up and go to the front door and open it, and look up the street to see if she could see him coming. And finally, there he’d be. She’d get up and get over to one side of the curtains, and peek out to see what he was pulling out of his bag. If it was just some small stuff, some white envelopes, or circulars from TG&Y or somewhere, she’d rush out as soon as he put the stuff in the box. But if she saw him pull a long brown manila envelope out of his bag, she’d jerk the curtains back together and sit down fast on the couch and put her face in her hands.

She’d say: “It came back,” like she was talking about a positive test for cancer of the womb. She’d sit right there and shake her head and never lift her face from her hands.

“I don’t want to go out and get it,” she’d say. “Lonnie, you go out and get it.”