It

'Okay, Daddy,' she replied nevertheless.

She stood in front of the closed bathroom door for a moment, trying to get her mind ready for what she might see inside. At least it's daytime, she thought, and that brought some comfort. Not much, but some. She grasped the doorknob, turned it, and stepped inside.

4

That was a busy morning for Beverly. She got her father his breakfast — orange juice, scrambled eggs, Al Marsh's version of toast (the bread hot but not really toasted at all). He sat at the table, barricaded behind the News, and ate it all.

'Where's the bacon?'

'Gone, Daddy. We finished it yesterday.'

'Cook me a hamburger.'

'There's only a little bit of that left, t — '

The paper rustled, then dropped. His blue stare fell on her like weight.

'What did you say?' he asked softly.

'I said right away, Daddy.'

He looked at her a moment longer. Then the paper went back up and Beverly hurried to the refrigerator to get the meat.

She cooked him a hamburger, mashing the little bit of ground meat that was left in the icebox as hard as she could to make it look bigger. He ate it reading the Sports page and Beverly made his lunch — a couple of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, a big piece of cake her mother had brought back from Green's Farm last night, a Thermos of hot coffee heavily laced with sugar.

'You tell your mother I said to get this place cleaned up today,' he said, taking his dinnerbucket. 'It looks like a damn old pigsty. Sam Hill! I spend the whole day cleaning up messes over to the hospital. I don't need to come home to a pigsty. You mind me, Beverly.'

'Okay, Daddy. I will.'

He kissed her cheek, gave her a rough hug, and left. As she always did, Beverly went to the window of her room and watched him walk down the street. And as she always did, she felt a sneaking sense of relief when he turned the corner . . . and hated herself for it.

She did the dishes and then took the book she was reading out on the back steps for awhile. Lars Theramenius, his long blonde hair glowing with its own serene inner light, toddled over

from the next building to show Beverly his new Tonka truck and the new scrapes on his knees. Beverly exclaimed over both. Then her mother was calling her.

They changed both beds, washed the floors and waxed the kitchen linoleum. Her mother did the bathroom floor, for which Beverly was profoundly grateful. Elfrida Marsh was a small woman with graying hair and a grim look. Her lined face told the world that she had been around for awhile and intended to stay around awhile longer . . . It also told the world that none of it had been easy and she did not look for an early change in that state of affairs.

'Will you do the living-room windows, Bevvie?' she asked, coming back into the kitchen. She had changed into her waitress uniform. 'I have to go up to Saint Joe's in Bangor to see Cheryl Tarrent. She broke her leg last night.'

'Yeah, I'll do them,' Beverly said. 'What happened to Mrs Tarrent? Did she fall down or something?' Cheryl Tarrent was a woman Elfrida worked with at the restaurant.

'She and that no-good she's married to were in a car wreck,' Beverly's mother said grimly. 'He was drinking. You want to thank God in your prayers every night that your father doesn't drink, Bevvie.'

'I do,' Beverly said. She did.

'She's going to lose her job, I guess, and he can't hold one.' Now tones of grim horror crept into Elfrida's voice. 'They'll have to go on the county, I guess.'

It was the worst thing Elfrida Marsh could think of. Losing a child or finding out you had cancer didn't hold a candle to it. You could be poor; you could spend your life doing what she called 'scratchin.' But at the bottom of everything, below even the gutter, was a time when you might have to go on the county and drink the worksweat from the brows of others as a gift. This, she knew, was the prospect that now faced Cheryl Tarrent.

'Once you got the win dows washed and take the trash out, you can go and play awhile, if you want. It's your father's bowling night so you won't have to fix his supper, but I want you in before dark. You know why.'

'Okay, Mom.'

'My God, you're growing up fast,' Elfrida said. She looked for a moment at the nubs in Beverly's sweatshirt. Her glance was loving but pitiless. 'I don't know what I'm going to do around here once you're married and have a place of your own.'

'I'll be around for just about ever,' Beverly said, smiling. . Her mother hugged her briefly and kissed the corner of her mouth with her warm dry lips. 'I know better,' she said. 'But I love you, Bevvie.'

'I love you too, Momma.'

'You make sure there aren't any streaks on those windows when you're done,' she said, picking up her purse and going to the door. 'If there are, you'll catch the blue devil from your father.'

'I'll be careful.' As her mother opened the door to go out, Beverly asked in a tone she hoped was casuaclass="underline" 'Did you see anything funny in the bathroom, Mom?'

Elfrida looked back at her, frowning a little. 'Funny?'

'Well . . . I saw a spider in there last night. It crawled out of the drain. Didn't Daddy tell you?'

'Did you get your dad angry at you last night, Bevvie?'

'No! Huh-uh! I told him a spider crawled out of the drain and scared me and he said sometimes they used to find drowned rats in the toilets at the old high school. Because of the drains. He didn't tell you about the spider I saw?'

'No.'

'Oh. Well, it doesn't matter. I just wondered if you saw it.'

'I didn't see any spider. I wish we could afford a little new linoleum for that bathroom floor.' She glanced at the sky, which was blue and cloudless. 'They say if you kill a spider, it brings rain. You didn't kill it, did you?'

'No,' Beverly said. 'I didn't kill it.'

Her mother looked back at her, her lips pressed together so tightly they almost weren't there. 'You sure your dad wasn't angry with you last night?'

'Bevvie, does he ever touch you?'

'What?' Beverly looked at her mother, totally perplexed. God, her father touched her every day. 'I don't get what you — '

'Never mind,' Elfrida said shortly. 'Don't forget the trash. And if those windows are streaked, you won't need your father to give you blue devil.'

'I won't

(does he ever touch you)

'forget.'

'And be in before dark.'

'I will.'

(does he)

(worry an awful lot)

Elfrida left. Beverly went into her room again and watched her around the corner and out of view, as she had her father. Then, when she was sure her mother was well on her way to the bus stop, Beverly got the floorbucket, the Windex, and some rags from under the sink. She went into the living room and began on the windows. The apartment seemed too quiet. Each time the floor creaked or a door slammed, she jumped a little. When the Boltons' toilet flushed above her, she uttered a gasp that was nearly a scream.

And she kept looking toward the closed bathroom door.

At last she walked down there and drew it open again and looked inside. Her mother had cleaned in here this morning, and most of the blood which had pooled under the sink was gone. So was the blood on the sink's rim. But there were still maroon streaks drying in the sink itself, spots and splashes of it on the mirror and on the wallpaper.

Beverly looked at her pale reflection and realized with sudden, superstitious dread that the blood on the mirror made it seem as if her face was bleeding. She thought again: What am Igoing to do about this? Have I gone crazy? Am I imagining it?