At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,11

ways, they'd go running right back to school with stories about the hippies over by the river and how they had too many babies and too little money and maybe somebody should do something about it, help them out maybe, remind them that the world already had too many children.

Laquita didn't know much about the world, but she was sure her parents had too many children. There were babies everywhere you looked and smelly diapers and blankets and banana squished into the rugs. And with each new baby it seemed she got more forgotten. Why couldn't they be happy with just one or two babies like everybody else? Why did they think they needed so many? She couldn't imagine Noah's mommy with a houseful of babies all crying at once. She couldn't imagine Noah's mommy even visiting a house filled with babies, but that was just what was about to happen.

"You children stay here," Mrs. Chase said when they approached the rickety front porch and suddenly Laquita saw her house the way it must look to her. The missing step. The collapsed pumpkins left over from Halloween oozing seeds and smelling like barf. The baby shoe on its side near the door. Worst of all was the noise! Crying babies and the television and Daddy's voice sounding louder than she'd ever heard it.

Laquita stood near the top step and rested her hand on the splintered wood. Noah and Gracie stood close together a few feet away. They all turned slightly when they heard Mrs. Chase's voice, then Daddy's. Gracie's and Noah's eyes grew wide. Laquita felt the knot of fear in her tummy begin to untie just a little bit when her Daddy pushed open the front door and stepped outside. He scooped her up in his arms and said, "We're sorry, 'Quita, but your mom went into labor around lunchtime and we've been pretty busy. We knew our grown-up little girl would find her way home somehow"

He told Gracie and Noah that Laquita had a new baby sister and invited them all inside to meet Cheyenne Marie. Mrs. Chase said she needed a cigarette and would wait for Noah and Gracie on the porch. Laquita noticed that Mrs. Chase's hands were shaking and her mouth was set in an angry line.

Gracie's and Noah's eyes met and Laquita almost burst into tears. Cheyenne! Why did her parents like such stupid names? Why couldn't she be Annie or Mary or Sue like the other girls in class? Why couldn't she have brothers named Jack and Bob instead of Sage and Morocco?

Her parents never did anything normal or so it seemed to Laquita. She loved them but they always made her feel like she wanted to hide in the back of the station wagon and pretend she wasn't with them. Nobody else's parents painted hearts and flowers on their car. She hated the long black ponytail that swung between her father's shoulder blades and the way her mother would nurse one of the babies any time she felt like it, sometimes right in the middle of the candy aisle at the food store. Noah's mommy would never do something like that and she had seen the way Gracie's Gramma Del looked at her parents like they were the bad guys on a TV show. Why couldn't they just be like everybody else?

When she grew up, she would have her own house and she would live in it all by herself. Her house would have white walls and white carpets and a white cat with blue eyes and it would smell like the beach roses that grew by the fence. Her parents and her brothers and sisters could come for visits but they would have to sleep at the motel over near Eb's Stop & Pump because there would be only one bedroom in her house and that bedroom would belong to her.

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Gracie wanted to hate everything about Laquita's family but she couldn't. She loved the noise and the baby smells and the way everyone seemed to really love each other. Laquita's mommy had let Gracie snuggle right in the bed with her then placed the brand-new baby girl in her arms. Gracie had thought her heart would burst with excitement. The baby was so tiny, so perfect, and when she reached up and wrapped her tiny fist around Gracie's finger she felt like she did on Christmas morning only better. Imagine living like this all the time!

She looked at Laquita and wished