heartbreaking funeral, I began to think about calling off

the wedding. August 21 did not seem like a good date, John

Wescott did not seem like a good person to marry, and I

couldn't see myself in the long white silk gown Mrs.

Wescott had offered me. We had gotten engaged at Christmas,

while my mother was starting to die; she died in May,

earlier than we had expected. When the minister said, "She

was a rare spirit, full of the kind of bravery and joy

which inspires others," I stared at the pale blue ceiling

and thought, "My mother would not have wanted me to spend

my life with this man." He had asked me if I wanted him to

come to the funeral from Boston, and I said no. And so he

didn't, respecting my autonomy and so forth. I think he

should have known that I was just being considerate.

After the funeral, we took the little box of ashes back to

the house and entertained everybody who came by to pay

their respects. Lots of my father's law school colleagues,

a few of his former students, my uncle Steve and his new

wife, my cousins (whom my sister Lizzie and I always

referred to as Thing One and Thing Two), friends from the

old neighborhood, before my mother's sculpture started

selling, her art world friends, her sisters, some of my

friends from high school, some people I used to baby-sit

for, my best friend from college, some friends of Lizzie's,

a lot of people I didn't recognize. I'd been living away

from home for a long time, first at college, now at law

school.

My sister, my father, and I worked the room. And everyone

who came in my father embraced. It didn't matter whether

they started to pat him on the back or shake his hand, he

pulled them to him and hugged them so hard I saw people's

feet lift right off the floor. Lizzie and I took the more

passive route, letting people do whatever they wanted to

us, patting, stroking, embracing, cupping our faces in

their hands.

My father was in the middle of squeezing Mrs. Ellis, our

cleaning lady, when he saw Mr. DeCuervo come in, still

carrying his suitcase. He about dropped Mrs. Ellis and went

charging over to Mr. DeCuervo, wrapped his arms around him,

and the two of them moaned and rocked together in a

passionate, musicless waltz. My sister and I sat down on

the couch, pressed against each other, watching our father

cry all over his friend, our mother's lover.

When I was eleven and Lizzie was eight, her last naked

summer, Mr. DeCuervo and his daughter, Gisela, who was just

about to turn eight, spent part of the summer with us at

the cabin in Maine. The cabin was from the Spencer side, my

father's side of the family, and he and my uncle Steve were

co-owners. We went there every July (colder water, better

weather), and they came in August. My father felt about his

brother the way we felt about our cousins, so we would only

overlap for lunch on the last day of our stay.

That July, the DeCuervos came, but without Mrs. DeCuervo,

who had to go visit a sick someone in Argentina, where they

were from. That was okay with us. Mrs. DeCuervo was a

professional mother, a type that made my sister and me very

uncomfortable. She told us to wash the berries before we

ate them, to rest after lunch, to put on more suntan

lotion, to make our beds. She was a nice lady, she was just

always in our way. My mother had a few very basic summer

rules: don't eat food with mold or insects on it; don't

swim alone; don't even think about waking your mother

before 8:00 a.m. unless you are fatally injured or ill.

That was about it, but Mrs. DeCuervo was always amending

and adding to the list, one apologetic eye on our mother,

who was pleasant and friendly as usual and did things the

way she always did. She made it pretty clear that if we

were cowed by the likes of Mrs. DeCuervo, we were on our

own. They got divorced when Gisela was a sophomore at Mount

Holyoke.

We liked pretty, docile Gisela, and bullied her a little

bit, and liked her even more because she didn't squeal on

us, on me in particular. We liked her father, too. We saw

the two of them, sometimes the three of them, at occasional

picnics and lesser holidays. He always complimented us,

never made stupid jokes at our expense, and brought us

unusual, perfect little presents. Silver barrettes for me

the summer I was letting my hair grow out from my pixie

cut; a leather bookmark for Lizzie, who learned to read

when she was three. My mother would stand behind us as we

unwrapped the gifts, smiling and shaking her head at his

extravagance.

When they drove up, we were all sitting on the porch. Mr.

DeCuervo got out first, his curly brown hair making him

look like a giant dandelion, with his yellow t-shirt and

brown jeans. Gisela looked just like him, her long, curly

brown hair caught up in a bun, wisps flying around her

tanned little face. As they walked toward us, she took his

hand and I felt a rush of warmth for her, for showing how

much she loved her daddy, like I loved mine, and for

showing that she was a little afraid of us, of me,

probably. People weren't often frightened of Lizzie; she

never left her books long enough to bother anyone.