"Where'd you run across them fancy new arraignments, boys?" Everett asked. He had flapjacks in front of him, Patty-Rose on his lap, coffee in one hand, and the newspaper in the other. His hair might as well have been lacquered vinyl, but Everett didn't have the kind of face you could ruin with too much hair product. The older girls had gone out to play and Penny had left for her mother's, to retrieve her wedding dress–she hadn't promised the wedding would go through, but she wanted to be prepared for a miracle.

Pete had on a crisp gray shirt on that Everett had certainly never seen, but approved of, on Pete, at least. His suspenders might have been new, too–they also might have been Everett's, but before Everett could get a closer look, he heard a screech from the porch. Starla was awake. Everett's heart leapt to his throat–not in alarm–well, not entirely in alarm. He could not get enough of his girls these days. He was greedy for them, with all their ribbons and shouts and scents. He'd been watching them sleep. Everett loved Penny. It was a love that had as much to do with his sense of his Rights as a Husband and his Allure as a Fine Piece of Man as it had to do with Penny. He married her for love–of her–and pride–of her, and even Everett knew (at least a third of the time) that pride was his downfall. It was also Penny's downfall, and he strove in general to be an object of her pride, not an opponent. They certainly never wanted for passion. So it wasn't an un-generous love.

But Everett had forgotten what it was to hold his daughters in his arms and love them without condition, for their own sake. They were just so goddamn sweet. Their games, their voices–

Starla howled again, and Everett's hackles rose. Maybe not their voices. It was enough they were cute; he didn't have to kid himself.

He looked frantically from hand to hand.

"Want me to fetch in the baby, Everett?" asked Delmar. He'd taken a large bite at Everett's question–he could guess well-enough what an arraignment was–but he was through it now.

"Uh," said Everett, as he managed to find a spot for his coffee on the kitchen table. "That shouldn't be…" He tugged experimentally at Patty-Rose. She glared and wrapped her arms around his neck. She wasn't much of a talker yet, but she could make herself heard. It helped that she was heavy. "Well, see...sure, just be careful. Two hands." Delmar rumbled back from the table and strode, not remotely offended, out. He had on new overalls. Well, new to him. Everett felt that overalls stood outside the realm of fashion entirely, and accordingly that the individual merits of pair could not be evaluated by any standard of, say, pants. He did wonder if any overalls were a good choice for a man of Delmar's stature. He'd be a rude surprise if anyone mistook him for a boy from behind.

"So what about them clothes, Pete?" Everett asked again, as the screen door clapped shut.

"See, Delmar and me was drivin'." Pete was a nervous liar.

"Mm-hm?" Everett was drinking his coffee rapturously, eyes closed. Pete flared his eyes at the syrup dish.

"We was drivin' up to Canton, to...see about sendin' a letter…"

"And there was some folks on the road had been foreclosed on. Whole little family of 'em. We offered 'em a lift, but turns out they got a truck, just got too much to fit on it. They was tryin' to sell some, but we only had money for the stamp. They said we oughta take some stuff anyway, since they was only leaving it," said Delmar. "Terrible thing." The screen banged shut behind him as he concluded his flood of verbosity. Starla was sipping air on his hip, trying to decide whether she'd gotten what she wanted.

"Yeah. Terrible," muttered Pete.

"Shame. Lucky for you boys, though." Everett snapped his paper open. "There's a post office in Ithaca, you know."

"Huh! Guess we shoulda asked," said Delmar thoughtfully.

"Yeah! Practically kitty-corner. Always next time, though." Pete shook his head darkly and went back to his flapjacks.

"Everett?"

"Mm?"

"What do you like I should do with the baby?"

"The–?"

"Starla?"

"Dammit, I know her name. Set her in the high chair, there, I'll find that bottle in just a moment."

"S'in the icebox," said Pete. "Middle shelf, beside the deli meat."

"There ain't no deli meat."
"It was next to it when there was." Pete paused. "'Bout four o'clock this mornin'."

"Pete, are you slinkin' around my house, at four a-goddamn-m, pilferin' my deli meat?"

"It was just the couple slices balony. I'll owe ya."

"These is hard times we're in, Pete."

"It was some hard balony." Everett rolled his eyes and rose, finally having found a place to set down his coffee. Patty-Rose had a pretty good grip, so he had a hand free.

"Some houseguests you are. Usin' up the soap, usin' up the charcuterie, usin' up the sun porch. If you weren't such charmers you'd be out on the curb, I'll tell ya that much. Small wonder I'm goin' gray–the average American man, you know what he has to contend with? 3.76 persons per household, that's what, in conjunction with hisself. And we turn our gaze to us and ours, and see here we got us a man, a divorcée, si–seven little gals, three cats and two superannuated hayseeds, in five rooms an' a privy. We're turning this fine abode into our own cozy little fire hazard. I only have myself to blame, of course. Why–if you don't like anybody underfoot, why, you better quit makin' love and friends, and why bother–"

"Everett?"

"–toiling on, that's what I say, if you ain't makin' one or the other–or money. Anyhow, just lemme–"

"Everett, she's sleeping." Everett turned from the stove, bottle in hand and pan in the other. Delmar was whispering, and he was right.

"Oh. Well, that's alright. Don't wake her, then, just–"

"I could put her back out–"

"–put her back out on the por–Jesus, Delmar! Don't move her. She's bound to be up in a minute, just… hold her 'til I finish this, she's bound to be squawlin' again by then. Babies!" Everett grinned wildly and went back to heating up the bottle. "Just noddin' off apropos nothing, like narcoleptic banshees. Ain't that right, little lady?" he said, doubling his chin to address the toddler draped, like an iron cuff, around his neck. Patty-Rose would have fallen onto the stovetop if she'd fallen asleep right then, and gave no affirmation.

"Ain't it something, though," said Delmar. "They'll drop off right into their supper if you let 'em. Or down on the floor, or..."

"I ought to know, Delmar, I've had six, ain't I?" Delmar sat down carefully. Starla slumped against his chest. It didn't look very comfortable to him, but obviously she didn't mind. Still, he eased her horizontal, and studied her. Her veins were pink in her eyelids and blue in her temples. She was warm and damp, not yet grown out of her birdliness. She seemed awfully bendy, damp and new, but couldn't be younger than, what...Delmar couldn't count and hold important objects at the same time.

"She's awful long, ain't she?" he said. She wasn't particularly, but it was something to say about a baby.

"Sure she is! They're all slender. Graceful. Lithe. Chip off the ol' block. Well. All that's really more thanks to Penny."

"Got yo' eyes, though," said Pete, between bites.

Everett beamed, taken unawares.

"You think so? I figured that, myself, but then, I think they all take after me one way or another."

"Don't know I'd go that far."

"You know if you blow smoke in a baby's ear it'll stop 'em fretting?" said Delmar.

"That's nothing but an old wives' tale, Delmar." Everett swung Patty-Rose onto his back like a satchel, disencumbering himself to warm the milk. "Just wait 'til you got some gals a' your own, they'll teach you a thing or two about fretting. Right, darlin'?" Patty nodded.

"Oh, of course I ain't a father or nothin'. Got brothers n' sisters, though."

"I thought they was older."

"Those is different ones."

"Shoot, how many a' you are there?"

"Depends how you count, I guess."

"Depends on what?"

"Well, time was we had a round dozen, but properly speaking some's full and some're halves or steps, or...Lee died o'er in France...an' Hollis, well…he ain't dead, but he's a sorta...funny and nobody'd heard from him some time when I was sent up." Delmar stared at Starla another few seconds. "Suppose he might be dead."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll turn up," said Everett. "You never know when some kinsman or another's liable to drop out a' the blue an'–" Everett was cut off by a knock at the door. "Dammit," he muttered. Pete stood without a word and made his way to the hall.

Stepping over a different child–she had a name Pete had never heard of and lay stretched across the passage, busily eating a crayon–Pete opened the door.