Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,54

imagine what else I could do. With a sigh of sheer weariness, I hauled myself to my feet and opened the bedroom door to reenter my family's life.

It was like dipping your toes into a quiet pond, only to have a whirlpool suck you under.

Since this was the day before the wedding, Mother and Varena had every hour mapped out. Mother had to go to the local seamstress's house to pick up the dress she planned to wear tomorrow: It had required hemming. She had to drop in on the caterer to go over final arrangements for the reception. She and Varena had to take Anna to a friend's birthday party, and then to pick up Anna's flower girl dress, which was being shipped to the local Penney's catalog store after some delay. (Due to a last-minute growth spurt, Anna's fancy dress, bought months before, was now too tight in the shoulders, so Varena had had to scour catalogs for a quickly purchasable substitute.) Both Varena and my mother were determined that Anna should try the dress on instantly.

The list of errands grew longer and longer. I found myself tuning out after the first few items. Dill dropped Anna off to run errands with Varena and Mom, and Anna and I sat together at the kitchen table in the strange peace that lies at the eye of the storm.

"Is getting married always like this, Aunt Lily?" Anna asked wearily.

"No. You can just elope."

"Elope? Like the animal?"

"It's like an antelope only in that you run fast. When you elope, the man and woman who are getting married get in the car and drive somewhere and get married where nobody knows them. Then they come home and tell their families."

"I think that's what I'm gonna do," Anna told me.

"No. Have a big wedding. Pay them back for all this," I advised.

Anna grinned. "I'll invite everyone in the whole town," she said. "And Little Rock, too!"

"That'll do it." I nodded approvingly.

"Maybe in the whole world."

"Even better."

"Do you have a boyfriend, Aunt Lily?" Yes.

"Does he write you notes?" Anna made a squeezed face, like she felt she was asking a stupid question, but she wanted to know the answer anyway.

"He calls me on the phone," I said. "Sometimes."

"Does he..." Anna was rummaging in her brain for other things grown-up boyfriends might do. "Does he send you flowers and candy?"

"He hasn't yet."

"What does he do to show you he likes you?"

Couldn't share that with an eight-year-old. "He hugs me," I told her.

"Ewwww. Does he kiss you?"

"Yeah, sometimes."

"Bobby Mitzer kissed me," Anna said in a whisper.

"No kidding? Did you like it?"

"Ewwww."

"Maybe he's just not the right guy," I said, and we smiled at each other.

Then Mom and Verena told Anna they had been ready to go for minutes and inquired why she was still sitting at the table as if we had all day.

"You can manage at Dill's by yourself, can't you?" Varena asked anxiously. She'd returned from dropping Anna off at the party, complete with present. "You sure don't have to do it if you don't want to."

"I'll be fine," I said, hearing my voice come out flat and cold. I'd enjoyed talking to Anna, but now I felt exhausted again.

Mother eyed me sharply. "You didn't sleep well," she said. "Bad dreams again?" And she and Varena and my father stared at me with matching expressions of concern.

"I'm absolutely all right," I said, trying to be civil, hating them thinking about the ordeal again. Was I being disgustingly self-pitying? It was just being home.

For the first time it occurred to me that if I'd been able to stay longer after the attack, if I'd toughed it out, they might have become used to me again, and they would have seen my life as a continuation, not a broken line. But I'd felt compelled to leave, and their clearest, most recent memory of me was of a woman in horrible pain of both kinds, plagued by nightmares waking and sleeping.

"I'll go clean now." I pulled on my coat.

"Dill's at work checking his inventory," Varena said. "I don't know how long he'll be. We'll be picking Anna up and taking her straight to Penney's from the party. Then we'll come back here." I nodded and went to get my purse.

Mother and Varena were still fine-tuning their agenda when I walked out the door. My father was working a crossword puzzle, a half smile on his face as he caught snatches of their discussion. He didn't loathe this