Chapter 24: Drive Time

Four months later, on a Saturday at seven in the morning, Jo stood in my front hall with two suitcases and a look of deep suspicion.

"Which one is the good one?" she asked.

"The big one."

"Shelby borrowed the big one."

"She returned it in September, and I had it steamed."

"I'm still not putting a baby in it."

"Nobody is putting a baby in a suitcase, Jo."

Ruth lay on the rug in a yellow sleeper, kicking at the beagle.

She was four months old, and she had the Colburn ears.

Dorothy insisted they came from her late husband.

Dorothy herself came in through the kitchen with a tote bag and a thermos.

"Coffee," she said. "Nobody is to talk to me until I've had it."

"Are you nervous?" I asked.

"I have never been on a plane."

"You bought a ticket."

"A real one." She sipped. "On my own card."

Last month she had stood in this same hall and told Padraig, "I'd like to see the sea your father always promised me."

Padraig came down the stairs behind her with the diaper bag over one shoulder.

He had trimmed his beard to a neat line.

He stopped on the bottom step when he saw me.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing."

"What?"

"You're dressed."

"I've been dressed for years."

"You're dressed for a plane."

I was wearing the blue dress I had bought for Lisbon in September.

It fit again, mostly.

The envelope came in the mail while we were loading the car.

It was long and white, from the county court, and it was addressed to Althea Reichart Colburn.

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