“Grandma Lathrop told her,” Joanna explained. “She found out because she rode over on her broom yesterday morning and put the question to Butch. She wanted to know if his intentions were honorable.”

“What does that mean?”

“Whether or not he planned to marry me.”

“Why?” Jenny asked. “Because he slept over?”

Joanna was taken aback by the perceptiveness behind the question. Once again a well-thought-out talk with her daughter wasn’t going at all the way Joanna had intended, but she wasn’t prepared to tell any more half-truths, either. “Yes,” she said.

“It’s my fault then,” Jenny said. “I’m the one who told Grandma that Butch was there the other day when she called-the other morning. I didn’t mean to. As soon as I did, I could tell it made her mad. Now Grandma thinks Butch has to marry you?”

“Well, yes. Grandma’s a little old-fashioned that way.”

“But do you want to marry him?” Jenny asked. “I mean, really, really want to?”

Another direct question that deserved an equally direct answer-one that came from the heart. “Yes,” Joanna said. “I really do.”

Jenny sighed. “All right then, as long as you want to. Just don’t do it because Grandma says. She can be pretty bossy, you know.”

Joanna laughed outright at that. “I know,” she said. “And so can a few other people I could mention.”

“You’re not mad at me then?” Jenny asked.

“No. I’m not.”

“You won’t mind if. I tell you a secret, then?”

“What’s that?”

“I asked Butch if he’d go with me to the Father and Daughter Banquet next week. You know the one. For Scouts. You don’t mind, do you?”

In Bisbee the Girl Scouts’ annual Father and Daughter Banquet was a traditional affair. After the death of Joanna’s father, she and her mother had gone to war over the next scheduled banquet. Eleanor had insisted that Joanna attend alone, and had gone so far as to drive her to the high school and drop her off. Instead of going into the cafeteria, Joanna had bugged out on the festivities, walked for hours in the cold November wind and rain, and had ended up with a case of pneumonia for her pains. Jenny, it seemed, had taken charge of a similar situation in her own fashion.

“No,” Joanna replied. “I don’t mind at all. Of course not. Why would you think I would?”

“You know,” Jenny said. “Because of Daddy. I was afraid it was too soon. That you’d think I was forgetting him. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Joanna reached over and patted Jenny’s leg. “My feelings aren’t hurt,” she said. “I’m thrilled. You must like Butch almost as much as I do. But that doesn’t mean we’re forgetting Daddy. Or being unfair to him. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jenny said. And then, after a pause, “Where are we going?”

“Well, since you’re out of school an hour and a half earlier than anyone else will be and earlier than Butch is expecting you, I thought we’d go uptown and see what Marianna is doing. And Ruth, too, if she isn’t spending the afternoon at Jeff’s garage.”

“Don’t you have to go back to work now?”

“No,” Joanna replied. “It turns out I’m taking the day off, too.”

With temperatures in the fifties, the weather was cool and crisp. The sky overhead was a clear cobalt-blue. As Joanna drove up through Old Bisbee, she noticed that the red-and-gray hills, dotted with scrub oak, stood out in stark relief against the distant sky. The contrasts between earth and sky were so sharp that they reminded Joanna of the three-dimensional pictures she remembered from her father’s treasured old View Master.

When they pulled up to the parsonage, Joanna was relieved to see Marianne Maculyea’s old VW Bug parked out front. It was bad manners to show up unannounced like that, but most of what Joanna wanted to discuss with her friend wasn’t telephone-conversation material. In the past few days, telephones had intruded in her life far too much. She craved the comfort of human companionship, of looking someone in the eye and pouring out her heart.

“Run up and knock on the door,” Joanna told Jenny. “Ask Marianne if it’s all right for us to come in, or would it be better if we came back later?” Jenny clambered out of the Blazer, slamming the door behind her. “And if you can avoid it,” Joanna added, “don’t tell her what you’re doing out of school so early. I want to tell her myself.”

“She probably already knows about it, Mom. Doesn’t Marianne read the paper?”

Damn Marliss Shackleford anyway!

Jenny bounded up the steps and rang the doorbell. Marianne opened the door, and the two of them spoke briefly before Jenny turned and motioned for Joanna to follow. Then the child disappeared into the house while Marianne waited on the porch.

“Sorry I missed your speech at Kiwanis this morning,” Marianne said. “1 was feeling so rotten that I told Jeff to go on without me.”

“How are you doing now?”

“A little better,” Marianne said.

“But not much, from the looks of you,” Joanna observed. “Jeff tells me you haven’t seen a doctor yet, either.”

“Come on in,” Marianne said. “Is that all you came by for-to chew me out? Tommy’s been out of town on vacation for the last two weeks. He went home to visit his family back in Taiwan. He’s due back tomorrow. I have an appointment scheduled for Friday afternoon.”

Tommy was actually Dr. Thomas Lee, a Taiwanese immigrant doctor who had come to Bisbee’s Copper Queen Hospital as a way of paying off his medical-school loans. Once the loan obligation was repaid, he could easily have gone elsewhere. Instead, he had decided to make Bisbee his permanent home.

After Jeff and Marianne brought their adopted twins home from mainland China, Dr. Lee had become Esther’s primary physician. In the process of caring for the seriously ill child, he had become a close friend-an uncle almost-to the rest of the family. In order to help Ruth stay connected to her roots, he was teaching the family to speak two separate Chinese dialects. He was also helping turn Jeff Daniels into a passable expert in home-cooked Chinese cuisine.

“Well,” Joanna said, “that’s a relief. I’m surprised he didn’t insist on you seeing him long before this.”

“I didn’t tell him,” Marianne said, smiling wanly. “But I thought you’d be glad to hear that I was taking some of your advice, and not just about seeing the doctor, either. I was supposed to do housework today, but I’ve spent most of the morning working on the Thanksgiving sermon.”

The parsonage’s once pristine living room was a shambles. Toys, books, and papers were scattered everywhere. The couch was almost invisible beneath a mound of unfolded laundry. On the floor, smack in the middle of the debris field, lay Ruth and Jenny. Frowning in concentration, the two girls were building a structure out of a set of pre-school-sized Legos. Joanna and Marianne picked their way through the mess as far as the couch. There they took seats on opposite ends of the couch and heaped the clothing into an even higher mound between them. Once seated and without a word of discussion, they both began folding clothes.

“If you’re working on a Thanksgiving sermon,” Joanna said, “that must mean you plan to stick around long enough to deliver it. What’s the title?”

“‘Stop Digging’.”

“ ‘Stop Digging’,” Joanna repeated. “What does that mean?”

“You should know,” Marianne said. “You’re the one who told me to talk about the black hole. To stop digging is the first rule for getting out of holes.”

“You really are taking my advice.”

Marianne smiled. “I told you,” she said. Glancing at her watch, she frowned. “What’s Jenny doing out of school so early? She’s not sick, is she?”

“She’s been suspended,” Joanna replied matter-of-factly. “For fighting. Have you read today’s newspaper?”

“The Bee?” Marianne asked. “No. I just didn’t feel like it. Why? What’s in it?”

“Do you happen to have a copy?”