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of the maple beside the pathway, softens her age lines, and in this moment I remember her young. The way she’d wing open the car door with such force it would spring back and hit her hip. The way she’d always laugh at that and say, “One of these days I’m gonna learn!”
    Still spry, she bends over without so much as a groan and plucks up the diaper Trixie’s just dropped. My youngest stands there with her little tush shining brighter than a harvest moon beneath her pajama top. She jumps up and down, arms stretched toward her grandmother.
    But Mom embraces me first. I feel little again. It’s wonderful.
    Then she hugs her grandchildren, Trixie first.
    I turn to Trixie, full name Bellatrix. We named all our children after constellations or stars. Wacky, I know. But Rusty got the idea, and I failed to speak up. “Go get me a diaper.” Trixie climbs away.
    Mom presses the wrinkles out of her pantsuit with the palms of her hands. She kicks off her high heels and places them on the steps. Unfortunately for me, Mom’s fashion sense skipped a generation and went straight to my Lyra. “I’ll take care of Trixie. If you don’t leave soon, you’ll be late. Brian will be in in a minute. He’s talking to his latest paramour on his car phone.”
    “Did you remember your insulin?”
    She hits her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I’ll get your brother to run back.”
    I reach for my wrap and slide my feet into new pumps. Five dollars on the clearance rack at The Shoe Nook. “Hey, how’re you feeling today? Any dizzy spells?”
    “Just one. Got out of bed too quickly. But I didn’t fall.”
    “Good.” I keep waiting for “the fall.” Anyone with an aging parent does. But thankfully it’s still future tense. “Okay everybody, give your mother a kiss!”
    Lyra reaches out first. I really don’t deserve this child. When Rusty left to sing with Heavenly Harmonies, God knew I needed a companion, and He appointed Lyra. I’ve never cut down Rusty in front of the children, and they deem him a celebrity of sorts, because they’ve actually seen him on some religious cable network. Personally it’s all a little too Lawrence Welk for my British Invasion taste, but it helps pay the bills and keeps me from worrying about sex ten months of the year. He mostly sings before audiences of Sunday-dressed seniors, warbling numbers like “Just a Little Talkwith Jesus” and “Mansion over a Hilltop,” eating meals at places like Denny’s, IHOP, and Chili’s, and smiling that show-biz smile. My life, however, consists of changing diapers and arranging menus, driving to lacrosse games, and wiping crumbs off countertops while filling out permission slips and popping multiplication flashcards in Persy’s face. But the verbal photograph of Rusty I hand to the kids each day as I read them his e-mail is always covered by a soft-focus lens. It would only hurt them to complain, to voice my loneliness and my fears and my disgust with both of us, with him for leaving, with me for waving him off with a brave smile. And yet I long to tell it like it is, to hold him accountable to his own children.
    I kiss Persy and Trixie and tell them to be good for Winky and Uncle Brian. Trixie and I rub our kisses in.
    My brother meets me on the doorstep. A very polished male. I think he showers at least twice a day. Wears leather jackets in the winter and watches all the latest films from France and Bollywood. We share hair color and eye color and not much more. Today he’s dressed in easygoing khaki pants and a moss-colored, heavy-weave T-shirt that fits as perfectly as a paper band around a stack of crisp bills.
    “Hi Bri.”
    He kisses my cheek and removes his cap. “Ivy, darlin’. You ready for this?”
    “Nope. But hey, I’m curious enough to want to see what’s happened to everyone.”
    “Yeah. Know what you mean. At mine, I couldn’t believe how some of those girls turned out. But then, you know I like them older anyway.”
    I