Swing and a Miss

It was the last game of the summer.


The village was gathering around the field, settling in with cold lunches and soft drinks, spreading blankets and watching the makeshift teams warm up.  It was a near perfect day for baseball - the sun was high and cool ocean breezes drifted over us while fluffy, white clouds drifted overhead.  The sky was a deep blue and startling bright.  The teams took their places, Uncle Shad fired his starter pistol, and the game commenced.



Strike!  Rowena shouted at the first pitch, earning a modest grin from the mound and a collective glare from the dugout.  


Nana dished out cold chicken and potato salad, sweet pickles and olives, bottles of root beer.  My mother unwrapped slices of brown bread spread with butter and homemade blackberry jam.  We ate from paper plates and in a lapse of protocol strictly reserved for such occasions, drank right of the bottles.


Strike two!  Rowena yelled from behind home plate and the infield moved in slightly.


There was ginger ice cream in miniature dixie cups with tiny, flat wooden spoons and baskets of wild strawberries glazed with sugar.  Warm and well fed, feeling as if life could hardly get any better, we sprawled on the grass with my grandmother overseeing us from her lawn chair, her knitting in her lap.  My brothers began a game of cards and the dogs, full of scraps and sunshine, slept side by side and nose to nose.


There was a sudden crack of a bat as one of the Tiverton boys connected solidly with a pitch.  Heads turned but the ball drifted left and into foul territory, just a few feet from the tree line.


Three and two!  Rowena called loudly and the Tiverton boy shrugged and returned slowly to home plate.


I found myself getting sleepy and leaning back against the dogs' warm bodies I closed my eyes.  I could smell the salt air and the grass, feel Fritz and Lady breathing quietly, hear the tinny sound of country music from a far off radio.  I listened to the shouts of the players and the crowd cheering.


Strike three!  Rowena's voice cut through the afternoon haze, Yer out!


I don't remember who won or lost that summer afternoon.  Truth to tell, it didn't matter much.  What I do remember is the sights and sounds of summer, the coming together of an entire village and a childhood that I wished would last forever.

Cleared for Take Off

One perfect summer when I was about ten, umbrellas began to go missing all over the island.

As they were small things and not much used except by the tourists, the disappearances rated only slight notice, most folks thought they'd simply mislaid or forgotten them, but Uncle Shad began to suspect there was a plot in the making although he was hard pressed to say why exactly. Don't be a jackass, Uncle Willie advised him, Ain't no money to be made in kidnapped umbrellas. But Shad was convinced and began discreetly following the tourists, tracking their movements and watching their rented homes, following them and their children. In time, he discovered a clue - each and every family had made some kind of contact with Willie Foot prior to an umbrella abduction. Where Willie goes,he reported triumphantly, Mischief always follows! Not even my grandmother could dispute this evidence, circumstantial as it was. Willie's escapades were well documented if not legendary and islanders had long since stopped being surprised at his ingenuity. His mind was a mystery but his actions usually followed a well thought out if slightly bizarre path. Well, Nana said, If nothing else, Willie's a creative thinker. What can you do with umbrellas?

Swords? Uncle Shad suggested tentatively.

Chimney covers? Uncle Willie asked with a wink. Parachutes?

Nana frowned at them then turned to Ruthie and me, playing jacks on the kitchen floor. Girls, she called, If I gave you an umbrella and it wasn't raining, what would you do with it?

Fly! Ruthie immediately responded.

Just like Mary Poppins! I added.

Shad and Willie both laughed but Nana's face turned thoughtful. Indeed, she said, Of course you would.

A week or so later at the Sunday School Picnic, just as the softball game was getting underway, Willie Foot came streaking across left field, trailing a stream of tied together umbrellas in his wake and clutching open ones in each hand. He dodged one of the Sullivan boys in center field and somehow managed to trip up young Walter Ryan in right, then headed directly for the embankment, reached it, and before anyone could get to him, leaped off with a mighty war cry - gravity and wind did the rest, miraculously carrying him barely past the rocks, through a flock of startled sea gulls, and with an impressive splash, into the blue green ocean. Before the startled onlookers could react, there was shouting from below as Uncle Shad and Uncle Willie appeared in a dory, rowing for all they were worth toward the umbrella littered water and hauling the little man's body out of the sea.

Man overboard! I heard Shad holler and then, We got 'im, Alice!

Heads turned toward my grandmother, placidly packing up the remains of lunch and smiling slightly. She was never to say how she knew when and where Willie would appear or what he had planned and both uncles stuck to their story that they were simply in the right place at the right time. The next morning each found a box of rocks at their back doors while we discovered a tidy stack of umbrellas neatly arranged in the woodbox.

Nana smiled that same smile. You're welcome, Willie, I heard her say softly.

Peace on Earth

After an all day and night rain on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning finally comes - it's clear and cold and the sky is still trying to clear.  Merry Christmas, I tell the small brown dog peacefully asleep on my pillow.  The black dog stirs and nudges me with her nose.  And to you too, I say.  The cats, being cats and very wise, watch and wait - they will spring awake and rush for the kitchen when I throw back the covers, but not before.  


All over the city - all over the world - I imagine children are waking, some to their first Christmas morning.  Sleepy parents are gathering their wits, cameras are being set up, coffee is being brewed and church bells are ringing.  Tis the season for gifts and family celebrations, homecomings and hope.  For this one morning, I think, 
all is well with the world.


May there be peace and enough to eat for everyone.  May there be shelter and warmth, an end to violence in all forms.  May confused and troubled minds be clear and self respect restored for all.  May we all find a better way.

And may The Cat Who Lives in the Garage and all others like her, come in from the cold.

Pass the Sugar, I Want a Divorce

Cold, irritable, and complaining about the number of parents and children ahead of us in line, my mother drank coffee from a cardboard cup, regretting her promise to take us to see Santa Claus and displaying a definite lack of Christmas spirit. My brothers went first and then it was my turn in the lap of this department store Santa who smelled of stale beer and cigarettes. And what's on your Christmas list, little girl? he inquired with a ferocious pinch of my cheek and a false laugh. A divorce for my daddy, I said quite clearly and my mother, suddenly as red as the imitation Santa's suit, grabbed my wrist and pulled me away with a vicious jerk. The store fell suddenly quiet when she slapped me, only the strains of "God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen" piped in through the loudspeakers were audible, then stunned parents began gathering their children and hurrying toward the escalators. My enraged mother, now the center of attention and white faced with fury, pushed and shoved her way through the crowd, dragging all three of us like rag dolls and cursing like a sailor. Just wait until your father hears about this! she told us with a grim, tight lipped sneer/smile, You'll wish you'd never been born!

Fortunately for me, she was wrong - my daddy was saddened and disappointed by my lack of tact but reluctantly proud of my honesty, Inappropriate and misplaced as it was, he told me with a small and hesitant smile, It's just not a good idea to antagonize your mother, especially not in public, so no television for a week. My brothers, deemed to have been innocent bystanders and not part of any conspiracy to humiliate her, were summarily pardoned.

The storm swirled for a day or so, kicked up some dust and pointed remarks, then blew itself out and the skies cleared. Christmas was three weeks out and I was sent to my grandmother's to help with the decorations. By the time I returned, the incident had been rewritten and by virtue of some clever editing and no rebuttal witnesses, had become the tale of a long suffering and martyred mother with a brood of disagreeable, ungrateful children and a spineless, easily manipulated husband. This new version went unchallenged for the most part, Anything to maintain a fragile peace, my daddy was to tell me in an adult conversation many years later at The Parker House, Children are resilient and your mother needed her dignity.

Nothing is ever as simple and straightforward as pass the sugar, I want a divorce but some things ought to be.

Cover Up

With Christmas just a few days away, I find myself thinking about snow - the pretty White Christmas kind that falls from a dark blue, star studded sky.  It's a romantic vision.

Family holidays have mostly brushed by me these last few decades - I choose to sleep late and spend the days with my animals. I don't think too much about past Christmases or birthdays - it seems pointless - by nature I am emotionally solitary and a little withdrawn, uncomfortable with gift giving and getting, restless in the company of more than a handful of people, even those close to me.  I prefer the protection of my camera lens in a crowd and the anonymity of a dark bar to a well lit room.  It's a kind of self imposed isolation but it comforts me.

When I left the photo store after a ten year run,  I took a two year break from retail before returning to work in a wine shop.  For the first few months I felt at home - nearly every face was familiar - and people told me often they were glad to see me back in the retail world because I was such a "people person".  I found this to be an odd and troubling compliment, mostly because it was patently untrue, but also because it made me think of how we see each other.  If people saw me as so personable, I wondered, how accurate was my view of them?   How much of our real selves to we actually share with others and how much do we hide?  Was it shyness or self esteem?  Confidence or fear of being exposed?  If you were to scratch the surface of another person you know, would you be surprised?



There are genuinely nice people in the world - not nearly enough in my everyday world and none at all in politics, banking, the law or health insurance - kindness can't rule the world, after all, and niceness does have its sappy side.  But at this time of year, it seems like we could all put in a little extra effort and not regret it.

So while I think about snow, I don't miss or expect it.  Like my niceness, I suspect it's too often just a cover up.  

The Technical Side of Being Single

Being more than a little electronically challenged, I was less than enthusiastic about the local cable company's recent upgrade. The adaptor boxes arrived and sat on the kitchen table for several days until the cable went out and I was forced to connect them. While I now have picture and sound on both sets, the remote control power button doesn't work on the flat screen and the remote doesn't work at all on the smaller one. All things considered, I'm consoled by the fact that they work at all - I have a natural distrust of technology and my English major background failed to prepare me for the technical side of being single.


Used to be, when presented with an electronic challenge, my friend Scotty would drop by, appraise the situation, and then without the first glance at the instruction manual, put it together and make it work, whatever "it" happened to be. He saw clarity and sense in the little plastic bags of nuts and bolts Uand order in the jumble of cables and wires and diagrams. It's a guy thing, he would tell me with a crooked grin but I thought it was just how his mind worked - he liked working with his hands and putting things together, he liked being needed. He could connect a video recorder or install a window unit or fix a capricious vacuum cleaner. He printed his own black and white photographs, enjoying the creative process from start to finish.

I myself, am the no assembly required, just plug in and go, out of the box ready type. I prefer things to work simply and right with a minimum of fuss and small parts. Several pages of instructions - even when written in two languages and illustrated - depress me and I feel defeated before I begin. I've also realized that I dislike asking favors from friends so depressed and defeated or not, I unpack whatever tangle of equipment is included in whatever device, locate my glasses and a Phillips head screwdriver, and say a small prayer for patience. I already hate every minute it takes.

Such is the life of single woman, born out of time and too proud and stubborn for her own good.

And a final word about "xfinity", the new and improved cable service - once again, progress for its own sake with absolutely no redeeming features - the picture now randomly and constantly pixilates and breaks up, the sound abruptly stops and starts with no warning, the screen freezes then returns with dialogue and movement radically out of sync.  Could be I'm not the only one technically inept.

Old Houses

I didn't think much about the lack of hot water on Friday morning - it's an old house and routinely high maintenance - I went about my morning chores, and to save a few steps, left The Cat Who Lives in the Garage a bowl of food on the back deck rather than take it to her inside the old wooden structure.  As soon as I got to work, I called the heating and plumbing people - they assured me they would be able to make a service call that day and I promptly shelved the problem in my "things that will be fixed later tonight" file.

We worked our usual half day Friday and I was home by noon, having rearranged my day to meet the technician rather than go from work to the grocery store - it was a minor inconvenience at the time, but this is a busy season for heating and plumbing companies, and the technician, a tall and lanky man in denims and a faded blue railroad cap, didn't arrive until just after 4:00.  Over the frenzied barking of the dogs, he introduced himself as Ken and gave me a friendly smile - I collared then locked up the dogs and pointed him to the garage - he tipped his cap and casually walked toward the back gate.

A few minutes later he was knocking at the back door - the friendly smile had turned into a genuinely serious look of concern - and I followed him to the garage where he showed me the self destructed water heater, sitting forlornly in a pile of burned leaves and ashes.  Scorch marks went all the way up one side and the wooden wall, just inches away, was blackened with soot.  It took several seconds for me to fully comprehend that there had been a fire, several minutes before I realized that it was a miracle anything had survived - the garage is old and made of wood, filled with a decade's worth of cardboard boxes, plastic bags of trash, discarded carpet and old half full cans of paint.  Dead, papery leaves cover the floor and collect in every nook and corner, including where the now defunct water heater stood.  It was, I began to understand as I watched Ken pick and pry at the old heater in search of a cause, an ideal environment for fire.  Shaking his head and looking at me as if I'd just won the lottery - the fire had died for no apparent reason without spreading and taking everything with it from garage to trees to my house and the one next door and at that moment, I think we both knew it - Ken was grimly silent.  I found myself thinking of a line from an old blues song my daddy had taught me, His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.


Come Monday, a new water heater will be installed.  Between now and then, cold showers seem a small price to pay.

Hand in Heart

In the past four months, she has given birth to her second child, had an emergency appendectomy, been in two car wrecks, suffered a ruptured cyst on her ovary. And on Sunday morning, her daddy refused the last minute desperate measures that might have saved his life and lost his battle with heart failure. His death was not easy, not peaceful - just the end of a long and painful struggle - those he leaves behind are frozen with grief, stunned by the unwelcome invasion of guilt and relief they feel. Death, my daddy had told me so often, is always hardest on the ones left behind.

Being estranged from my family, I was spared this particular hardship. I received news of my mother's death through a telephone call and learned of my daddy's through a letter and newspaper clipping from my cousin - it was very much like reading of the passing of a long lost relation turned stranger - any feelings I might have once had were dead and buried and I searched in vain to grieve, eventually coming to think that I'd already done so years before. There was nothing left to mourn or be missed and while I was curious about this lack of emotion, I was also grateful for it. At twenty one, our little nurse doesn't have this insulation - she comes from a close and loving family and her emotions are vivid and sometimes chaotic, always right there on the surface for anyone to see. A part of me envies her unrestrained feelings and her tears while another part feels just the slightest contempt - I wonder if love is not just a habit or worse, an obligation - I have more feelings for my animals than I can remember having for my parents or either of my husbands and this forces me to consider the possibility that something is lacking in me.

I don't like admitting it, but I can't remember any real sense of loss when my daddy died. I read and re-read the obituary notice but it was as if the connections had rusted out over time. I felt a faint sadness but I didn't cry or lose any sleep, had no gut wrenching regrets. He was, in many ways, a foolish and flawed man, but also a gentle and fine man. Perhaps time really does heal all wounds - or perhaps they just wear away from not being thought about.

Seems love and loss go hand in heart or not at all.

Food for Thought

When it came to everyday meals, my mother was a perfectly adequate if uninspired cook.

Standard evening meals (with the exception of spaghetti every Wednesday and beans and franks each Saturday), consisted of mashed potatoes, two vegetables - one green and one yellow or orange - and some variety of meat, chicken or chops, an inexpensive pot roast or meatloaf. But when it came to desserts and breads, there was a time when she could and regularly did outbake everyone I knew, both my grandmothers included.

In her kitchen, there were rules with no exceptions. Artificial ingredients were absolutely forbidden - the very idea of whipped cream from a pressurized spray can offended her and the mere mention of a sugar or salt substitute could get you unceremoniously tossed out on your ear. She shunned the use shortcuts and most anything that needed to be defrosted. No ready made mixes where allowed and the concept of margarine was too insulting to be discussed. When she made strawberry shortcake, it was from scratch - fresh berries and cream whipped by hand served in flaky, still warm pastry shells. I began coming to terms with her alcoholism when the shortcake was served on store bought spongecake with frozen strawberries and Cool Whip. There were no more marathon Saturday morning baking sessions, no more fresh breads or egg tarts or slabs of apple pie with sweet, sticky juice and a hand laid criss cross crust. She wouldn't admit it, but she'd always baked by memory and instinct and with both beginning to fail, she found having to rely on an actual cookbook to be degrading - it hurt her pride. Any damn fool can cook out of a book,

she wept to my daddy after a disasterous mixup with sugar and salt and an inedible banana cream pie. And with that she put away her baking dishes and mixing bowls forever and we came became a Saralee and Aunt Jemima family.

Not long after that, the house I'd grown up in was sold, my daddy moved in with my grandmother, and my mother found a place in the country where she spent her days alone and didn't cook at all except on weekends. The isolation allowed her to drink without discretion or recrimination and it was here she began a gradual descent into the fuzzy world of dementia and eventually cancer. The cabinets in the tiny kitchen bulged with cereal boxes and multiple stacks of canned goods, rotting food cluttered the kitchen sink, the refrigerator reeked from spoiled milk and moldy packages of meat but the liquor cabinet was always fully stocked, a half dozen or so six packs of beer crowding out the back up stash of icebox manhattens in their slim, dark, dust-free bottles.

My mother's table - too often the prelude to an after dinner battle with food as the fuel - became a place to play cards, fold clothes, and answer letters. She was right about any fool being able to cook from a book and I learned to make green beans and porkchops and the like - but I never took much pleasure in the kitchen and I never, ever stopped missing that shortcake and apple pie.

The Owl in the Oak Tree

The owl in the oak tree had huge yellow eyes. He sat motionless on a branch, blending perfectly with the dusky October light and I would never have seen him but for the light breeze that stirred the leaves for a quick instant. I'd never seen an owl in the city before, never mind in Nana's well kept back yard and there was something weirdly witchy about his presence - I didn't know why, but it was spooky and felt wrong. When I closed my eyes for a few seconds and then looked back, it took another several seconds to find him again, like one of the hidden objects puzzles my daddy liked to work. Your eyes can play tricks on you, he used to tell me, Look really hard then relax your eyes and see the whole picture. And like magic, something I'd been staring directly at and not seeing would appear as clear as day. The owl in the oak tree was like that - shrouded and yellow eyed and mysterious, there one minute and gone the next. I decided that my imagination was running away with me and took a tentative step closer - with a whispery flutter, the owl suddenly spread its wings, turned its yellow eyes in my direction and took flight. I instinctively dropped to the grass and covered my head with my hands but the owl soared well past me and glided away. Had I felt a rush of wind from his wings or imagined it? Nana was calling me to supper by then and I ran to tell her of the owl - the somehow magic owl, I was already thinking - she listened absent mindedly while brushing grass off my jeans then reminded me about elbows on the table and told me to finish my milk.

My daddy arrived not long after, frayed and preoccupied from a long day, too tired to eat. I thought of telling him about the owl but didn't - I'd begun to get the idea that the owl might not have wanted anyone to know about him, that maybe it ought to be a secret. By bedtime, I was certain that he had been a magic owl and that grownups wouldn't have been able to see him anyway, better to keep him to myself. I dreamed of his yellow eyes and camouflage feathers, of being being carried away on his wings and flying into the dark night skies to places only imagination could take you. But time passed, nights got colder, and by the first snow I wasn't even sure he'd been real - an owl in the city wasn't at all likely, I knew, and early fall nights with shadows and lights in conflict could easily play games with your eyes. I outgrew the notion of magic owls in oak trees but never completely gave up the possibility.

There are still early fall evenings where shadows and light play in the oak trees and night birds sing. Who knows that a yellow eyed owl might not be watching from the unfallen leaves, watching and waiting to take flight and show off a little magic.

But for the Grace of God

The rain began in the small hours of Sunday morning, hard, cold and without let up. It's December now and this small southern city, which barely a month ago was so filled with warmth and sunshine, has slid across the threshold to winter. The dogs have to be hand carried out and The Cat Who Lives in the Garage retreats to the relative shelter of that structure. When I bring her food and water, she cries at the injustice of it all - it's cold but dry, I remind her, and she could come inside the house at any time - but she fears these unknown walls and waits impatiently for me to leave. That night the rain beats like pellets on the roof, floods the streets and gutters, and gives me vivid dreams. A crack of thunder startles the cats and they scatter for cover while the dogs, one per pillow, growl and shiver and edge nearer to me. There but for the grace of God, I tell them quietly. The black one nudges my shoulder until I put one reassuring hand on her still damp coat - the small brown one slips under the covers and curls against me - they both whine very softly at the fierceness of the storm and one by one, the cats gradually return and take their places. We all sleep but it's light and restless. By morning, the weather still hasn't cleared and it seems I can't take a step without a nervous animal underfoot. The steady rain continues, pacing itself, I think, conserving its energy and endurance, waiting us out. There's no point in railing against nature but when I finally leave and find myself very nearly ankle deep in water in the driveway, I rail anyway - cursing the cold, the persistent downpour, the flimsy umbrella, the need to work for a living, and most of all, anyone and everyone who is heartless or ignorant or just plain irresponsible enough to leave an animal behind to fend for itself. There is, I believe, a special place in hell for such people and it's never too soon to get there.

Back in the Light

Over the last dozen or so years I've taken hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures of musicians. As photographs go,

this one is far from perfect - I was caught off guard and it's poorly lit and cluttered with microphones - but still it's the only one that nearly made me cry. It's one of those moments when the stage becomes secondary and the emotion between two old friends shows its face despite the audience and the cameras and the chatter.

God gives, but if you misuse, He can take away. A wildly talented and successful singer and songwriter in Nashville can trip and fall and wake up homeless, hungry and broke, living on streets that show no mercy for his plight and no appreciation of his gifts. It's a hard fall into the shadows - family is lost, friends give up, guitars are pawned, reclaimed, and pawned again - days and nights blur into years of lost time and hopelessness. Nobody knows you when you live day to day and wake up under a bridge on a cold, rainy Nashville morning. You might sell your soul for a hot shower and a fix or a drink but even a shave is out of reach until you're ready to climb up and out and even then it's a long haul back to the light - the climb is treacherous with missteps and backsliding on every level. Not many make it and even when you're back on firm ground you can hit a rough patch and lose your footing again. And then, a friend extends a hand, a woman offers forgiveness, an audience celebrates your return - someone in the crowd shouts out Welcome home! and suddenly you're back in the light with a clear mind and a grateful heart and you decide to stay.

That's the story behind this one, very imperfect photograph - a small moment between old friends, a moment when the music begins to play again and the lyrics make sense again.

You've been in the shadows a long time, old friend. Welcome back into the light.

Gunshot to Glass

I watch The Cat Who Lives in the Garage adeptly descend from her perch on the fence and approach the food bowl. She keeps one eye on it and the other on me and my camera, pausing every few steps to assess the danger and listening carefully to the frenzied barking emanating from inside the house. The dogs are not pleased with her presence and they want her - and me, I'm sure - to be quite clear about their feelings. She keeps her guard up and stays alert but when she reaches the food dish she ignores the non-stop barking and concentrates on her meal. In the battle to win her trust, I feel we've reached another milestone but experience tells me that the finish line is still a very long away,

It also occurs to me that trying to befriend this animal ( although to what end, I still don't know ) is an exhausting and highly frustrating process. It's hard enough to build trust within a species - and there you frequently have the added benefit of a common language on your side - while all I have is friskies, a stubborn streak, and a good heart.

Of all the bridges we build to try and connect to each other, trust is the strongest, the most delicate, the most sacred.

It can stand for a thousand years unsupported or come crashing down like gunshot to glass. Once broken, it may be patched and over time, even repaired, but without its original integrity, it can't ever be made as new. No matter how deeply the seeds of suspicion are buried, the heart always knows they're still there, pushing gently and slowly but with great resolve, toward the surface. Each and every day after each and every rehab, I prayed for my husband and myself, wanted so desperately to believe in his sobriety that I was consumed. And always, the disease came back, and with it the inevitable cover ups and lies and betrayals. On the surface, I willed myself to believe, but deep in my heart, I knew - the rebuilt bridge was in serious and mortal danger of collapse and I was afraid I might not make it across in time.

I don't know what The Cat Who Lives in the Garage has experienced with humans or what circumstances brought her to my door, only that her instincts to be wary are fully engaged and that she is prepared for betrayal. Convincing her to trust me is likely to be a long and rocky road, mostly uphill and it may even prove futile, but I'm committed to trying.

Stray cats and alcoholics, I think to myself, there ought to be a country song in that somewhere. Meanwhile, the cat eases so close I could reach out and touch her - but I don't. I'm beginning to see that the way she looks me is the way I looked at my husband, through a filter of suspicion, doubt, and a safe distance away. No sudden movements, I remind myself with a sigh, no gunshot to glass.

A Better Class of Horsethief

Mark my words, my Aunt Helen said darkly as she adjusted the bow on her silk blouse, I pride myself on my tolerance but breeding will tell. No good will ever come from allowing the child to associate with the lower classes.

Oh, put a sock in it and have another drink, my love, Uncle Eddie advised, You spend too much time in that Beacon Hill elevated atmosphere.

Helen, dear, my grandmother added sweetly, More sherry? Your glass is empty. Again.

Aunt Helen sniffed in her overly delicate way, produced a lace handkerchief from her cashmere sweatered sleeve and glared first at her husband, then at her sister in law, but, I noticed, accepted a third or possibly fourth glass of sherry. The dispute was over her proposal that I spend a year or two at her elite girls school - I was in need of what she called "finish and polishing" - it made me sound like a manicure, I had complained to Nana and then made it clear that I would rather die then take one step over her snobby threshold. My grandmother had smiled, a little bitterly to be sure, but reassured me I had nothing to fear and my daddy had laughed outright at the suggestion, earning a look of pure malice from Aunt Helen's side of the table.

Really, Guy, she had said sharply, Are you against the child's betterment?

His usually gentle eyes narrowed at this and for once, my daddy - always the pacifist and peacemaker - spoke without thinking first. Would she learn better manners than you have, Helen?

There was a moment of shocked silence before Aunt Helen abruptly excused herself and hastily fled the room, lace handkerchief clutched in one white knuckled fist. Uncle Eddie sighed hugely and poured himself a generous sherry but made no move to follow. Well, my grandmother said mildly, That went well, Edgecombe. Nothing like a little class warfare to clear the air.

My fault, my daddy muttered, I know she meant well.

The hell she did, Uncle Eddie shrugged, She meant to hit a nerve. She's never gotten over her great grandfather being a horsethief.

Several pairs of eyes turned to him in disbelief.

Oh, yes, he sighed, A better class of horsethief to be sure, he started as a schoolteacher, but they hung him all the same. Damn fool woman's still not over it, always been afraid someone would find out and ruin her reputation at that stiff necked school. Christ, it was over a hundred years ago!

Nana began to laugh, softly at first and then wildly until tears were welling up in her eyes. My mother joined in, my daddy followed, and finally even Uncle Eddie gave in, his shoulders shaking so hard that his sherry spilled on the linen tablecloth. It took him the rest of the day, after we were all sworn to a lifelong silence, for him to coax Aunt Helen back and my daddy had to make an apology - before witnesses - but there was no more mention of my changing schools.

Scratch a saint, find a sinner. Or maybe an unrepentant horsethief.