THE WEEK BEFORE MOTHER'S DAY, NITA WENT OUT TO THE nursing home with an orchid and a small present she had wrapped for Leota Quarles. She was not in her room, but the nurse was, arranging items on the bedside table. The room looked different. “Is Leota at lunch?” Nita asked, standing in the doorway.

The nurse, startled, looked around. “Miz Motes, didn't you get my message?” she said.

“What message?”

“I left it with your daughter last week.”

Nita flushed and held the plant awkwardly out in front of her. She shook her head slightly. “She must have forgotten to tell me.”

“I thought you knew. I'm sorry. Miz Quarles died in her sleep last Tuesday night.”

ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, LOGAN STAYED AFTER SCHOOL FOR band practice so Nita went by the middle school to pick up Whitney. She was still shaken by the news of Leota Quarles's death and by the knowledge that she had not known about, and therefore hadn't attended, the old woman's funeral. She couldn't see Whitney when she pulled up in front of the school, so she parked in a spot close to the flagpole to wait. A few minutes later, a girl climbed out of a truck across the parking lot and leaned in the passenger's window to collect her book bag. She wore a skirt short enough to show off her long lovely legs and also her black thong underwear. The girl stood up and Nita, shocked and curious to see who had allowed their daughter out of the house dressed like that, craned her neck to see.

It was Whitney.

She watched her daughter saunter across the parking lot toward the car. She opened the rear door and threw her backpack in and then climbed into the front seat beside her mother. Nita sat for a few minutes, staring at the flagpole.

“What's wrong?” Whitney said.

Nita turned her head slowly. “Last week. Someone called me about a Mrs. Quarles. You were supposed to give me a message.”

Whitney snapped her gum and rolled her eyes. “What about her?” she said.

“She died.”

Whitney slouched down in the seat, putting her knees up on the dash. Nita started the car and backed up slowly, eyeing her sullen daughter with an expression of disappointment and concern. “Did your father see you before you went to school today? Did he see the way you were dressed?” Whitney had been spending the week with Charles.

She blew a bubble. “Christ,” she said.

“Don't say ‘Christ.’ And don't sit like that.”

“Why not?” Whitney turned her face to the window but kept sitting the way she was. She plucked idly at her hair.

“Because it's not what a nice girl would do.”

“I don't care about being a nice girl. I don't want to be a nice girl,” Whitney said, pushing herself upright.

“Seat belt,” Nita said. Whitney slammed the belt in the buckle and Nita put the car in drive. She drove slowly past the pickup truck, trying to catch a glimpse of the driver. Then she circled the lot and came back up on the other side of the truck.

“What are you doing?” Whitney said, her voice edging toward panic as Nita slowed down. “Mother, what are you doing?” She put her hand over her eyes and turned her face to the window.

Nita stopped beside the truck and put her window down. “Excuse me,” she said loudly.

“Mother,” Whitney groaned.

“Yoo-hoo,” Nita said, her little hand fluttering. The driver, a young man with long sideburns and a goatee, poked his head out the window.

“Hey, how you doing?” Nita said.

He looked at her and smirked, stroking his chin. “Not too bad,” he said.

“Good,” Nita said. “Hey, what's your name?” Whitney pushed herself back against the seat, trying to blend in with the headrest.

“Darrell,” he said.

“Well, hey, Darrell, I'm Whitney's mom. You may not know this but Whitney is twelve years old. Now I don't know how old you are, but I'm guessing, since you're driving, that you're at least sixteen, and probably a lot older than that. Whitney has an older brother who's sixteen and I feel sure he would have told me about you, if he knew you. So I'm guessing you're older than that.”

She grinned at him and he grinned back.

“Now you may not know this, Darrell, but the statutory rape laws in Georgia are pretty severe. Whitney's daddy is a lawyer and I can guarantee that if he finds out about you, he will make it his sole mission to see that you spend most of the rest of your life in prison. Whitney's two uncles played football at Ithaca High School and her granddaddy has one of the finest gun collections in the county, mostly shotguns and hunting rifles, and more recently a .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic that he takes out faithfully every weekend for target practice. He's a real good shot. You see, Darrell, what I'm trying to do is get you to see the big picture. Well, do you see it? Do you see the big picture, Darrell?”

Obviously, Darrell did. He put his window up and started the truck's engine. They watched him roar out of the parking lot and fishtail onto the highway with his tires squealing and a black plume of smoke following in his wake like a trailing tornado.

Whitney slumped against the passenger door. “I hate my life,” she said.

“Of course you do,” Nita said cheerfully.

She drove straight to Charles's office. “Now what,” Whitney groaned.

“I want Daddy to see how you went to school today. I want him to know how you looked when you left his house this morning.”

Whitney took a napkin out of the glove box and quickly began to wipe her face clean of rouge and lipstick. She tugged at the hem of her skirt until it grazed the tops of her knees.

“Don't bother to roll down your skirt. I'll just make you roll it back up,” Nita said.

Charles's new office was in the front of a rambling Victorian house that had been cut up into a warren of small offices, rented mostly by attorneys and court reporters. Nita and Whitney went up the bricked front steps and through the double doors into a small receptionist area. Mrs. Corley looked up and smiled. “Hello, Mrs. Broadwell,” she said, coloring slightly. “I mean, Mrs. Motes.”

“Hello, Mrs. Corley. Is Charles in?”

“He just got back from court.”

He had heard her voice and he hurried out of his office, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Hello, Nita.”

“Hello, Charles.” She was always a little embarrassed when she first saw him. They had been married for sixteen years and he had ruled her life and the children's lives like a petty tyrant. Charles was one of those people who could not be happy and could not bear to have people around him be happy. Still, she had loved him once, a long time ago. Nita nodded for Whitney to sit down in one of the chairs in the waiting area. “I'll be just a minute,” she said. “I want to talk to your father alone.” Whitney scowled and slumped down into a chair, picking up a magazine.

Charles followed Nita into his office, closing the door softly behind him. She looked lovely, with her hair pulled up on the back of her head and small tendrils curling around her face and the nape of her neck. He would think he was over all that and then he would see her, or pick up an article of clothing that held her lingering scent, and then it would come flooding back to him. “Please sit down,” he said nervously, indicating one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“No, I can't stay,” she said. It was always so awkward between them. Nita tried to keep their face-to-face meetings to a minimum. “I have to get home and make dinner.” She hadn't stopped to think how that would sound, but seeing his face tighten, she hurried on. “It's Whitney,” she said. She told him quickly about what had occurred in the parking lot. “You have to be careful when she stays with you. She may look presentable when she's heading out the door to school, but you've got to check her backpack. She usually hides her makeup and an extra pair of clothes in there.”

Charles started to speak and then closed his mouth. He was determined to convince Nita that he had changed. That he was a new man. “None of this would have happened if she hadn't gone to public school,” he said. There. It had slipped out despite his best intentions.

“It has less to do with public school and more to do with parental supervision,” Nita said firmly.

“And who was this boy?”

“I don't know. Darrell somebody. But I don't think we'll have to worry about him anymore.”

The desperateness of the situation came gradually over Charles. He slid down into his chair with his arms resting stiffly on his desk. “Oh my God, she's capable of anything,” he said.

“Well, Charles, she's a teenage girl, so technically that's true.”

“Oh my God,” he said.

“It's not that bad. She's just a little rebellious. She just needs a firm hand.”

Charles sighed. He stared bleakly out the window. “I'll talk to my mother,” he said.

Nita blinked. She opened her purse and took out a Kleenex and then closed it again.“This is not something your mother needs to get involved with, Charles. This is something you and I need to handle. Together.” She blew her nose and threw the Kleenex in the trash.

“Yes, yes, of course, I didn't mean anything by that,” he said quickly. Trying to win Nita back was like trying to coax a timid little bird. He had to be patient. And clever. “It's just that she's been spending a lot of time with my mother.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “But you're still her father. And Virginia doesn't seem to be much of a disciplinarian.”

He saw her expression and said, “You don't mind, do you? Them spending time together?”

“No, of course not.”

“They haven't seen each other in a while and Mother was anxious to reestablish a bond,” he said. “A connection.”

“Tell your mother to check her backpack before she drops her off at school,” she said, moving toward the door.

“Oh, right,” he said, rising.

“Good-bye, then.”

“I can have Mother pick her up here, if you like.” He tried to take her arm but she moved ahead of him quickly and opened the door.

“No, that's okay. I'll drop her by your condo on my way home.”

On the ride over to his condominium, the girl was sullen and quiet. With her scrubbed face and skirt tucked demurely around her knees she looked more like a girl again, and less like an adolescent sex kitten.

“Next time I get a phone call and you answer, I expect you to give me the message.”

“Whatever,” Whitney said.

“And I told Daddy to check your backpack for makeup and extra clothes before you go to school.” Nita slowed down and pulled into the parking lot of Charles's condominium. “And Grandmother, too, if you're staying with her.”

“Great,” Whitney said, gathering her belongings. “She's the only one who doesn't treat me like a criminal. She's the only one who doesn't treat me like a child, and now you've ruined that, too.” She opened the door and slid out.

“If you don't want to be treated like a criminal then don't act like one,” Nita said, but Whitney had already slammed the door and was running up the stairs with her backpack bumping against her hip. Nita sighed and turned off the car. She couldn't very well just leave Whitney alone. Not after what happened in the parking lot. She would have to stay until Charles got home. She looked up at the window of Charles's condominium and was surprised to see a figure standing there. Nita leaned forward to look and the figure lifted its hand and waved.

It was Virginia. Relieved, Nita lifted her hand and waved back.

BY THE END OF JUNE THEY HAD FINISHED LAYING THE UTILITIES to the Culpepper Plantation project, and by the middle of July they were set to begin work on the first spec house. Virginia and Redmon had a cocktail party at their house to celebrate. It was a small group. Nita was there with Jimmy Lee, Whitney, and Logan, and for some reason Virginia had insisted on inviting Eadie and Lavonne, so they were there, too. Redmon stood in the corner discussing business with Jimmy Lee. Lavonne, Nita, and Eadie stood over by the French doors overlooking the backyard. Della Smurl, with Whitney and Logan's help, passed around trays of stuffed mushrooms, bruschetta, and smoked crab.

“Hey, Della, how's Martha doing?” Nita asked. She'd gone to high school with Della's daughter, who'd graduated with honors and gone to college at Sewanee, and later, to law school at Vanderbilt.

“She's doing okay,” Della said. “She's practicing out in Los Angeles, some kind of law where she represents all them rappers and singers with funny names who talk like they were raised without a mama. Just talking trash all the time and singing about it, too.”

Lavonne said, “Entertainment law?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Della stood there looking glumly out the French doors at the dying sun that disappeared slowly behind the trees and distant rooflines. Her bottom jaw jutted out from the severe plane of her face like a cliff. “My mama wouldn't have allowed such trash talk in our house. My daddy was an elder, you know. I was raised with the Temptations.” Her face brightened suddenly. “Now there's some boys who could sing and dance,” she said. She was holding a tray of smoked crab but that didn't stop her from showing off a couple of dance moves, taking a few tiny steps forward, a few tiny steps backward, and sliding to the side on one leg.

“Della!” Virginia said sharply.

Della stopped dancing. She dropped her head between her shoulders and swung around to face Virginia. “Yeah?” she said sullenly.

“Did you check the cheese toasts?” Virginia said. She smiled, showing her sharp little teeth. It was one of the things she was most proud of, the fact that at her age, she still had her own teeth. Lavonne, looking at that blinding row of gleaming enamel, was not surprised. She had read somewhere that rats lose several sets of teeth over a lifetime and then promptly grow new ones.

Della said, “No, I haven't checked the cheese toasts, have you checked the cheese toasts?” and turning she moved off, slow and ponderous as a battleship.

Virginia giggled nervously. “It's so hard to get good help these days,” she said, but quietly, so Della wouldn't hear.

“I'm surprised you don't look into getting yourself some Guatemalans,” Eadie said. “You could bring a whole family up and pay just one but have the rest of them work like slaves, even the children.”

“Really?” Virginia looked interested. It took her a minute to realize Eadie was kidding. “Excuse me,” she said, patting her smooth hair. “I'll just go check on things in the kitchen.”

“I think you had her going there,” Lavonne said to Eadie, as they watched Virginia swagger toward the kitchen in her high-heeled sandals.

“If I'd known this was going to be a dry party, I'd have brought my own giggle juice,” Eadie said gloomily, lifting her iced-tea glass.

“Virginia's trying to wean Redmon off the Jack Daniel's, so I hope y'all don't mind going without alcohol for an hour,” Nita said. “I hope you can hang in there another forty-five minutes without a drink.”

“Damn, girl, do I sense a bit of sarcasm in your voice?” Eadie said.

“Just look at that poor slob,” Lavonne said, nodding her head at Redmon, who stood slumped against a wall, awkwardly clutching a glass of soda water. He was dressed in a dress shirt opened at the collar and a pair of khaki slacks. His hair was slicked back off his face and she'd made him remove his gold chains and rings. The overall effect was that of a cuffed dog who'd just had his ass shaved. “Do you think Redmon had any idea what he was getting into when he married Virginia?”

“She's whittled him down pretty good,” Eadie said, shaking her head. “Another couple of years with Virginia and he'll be nothing but a stick of kindling and a little squeaky voice.”

Even Nita giggled at this. Across the room Logan set his tray down on the coffee table. He glared at his grandmother as she stuck her head out the door and called to Whitney. Virginia hadn't said two words to him all night. He made her nervous and she overcompensated for this by chattering on in a bright cheerful voice and never allowing him to say a word. Under this barrage of false gaiety, Logan became more and more sullen and morose. Charles treated him pretty much the same way, only he spoke in an affected masculine voice and asked Logan serious questions about his future. Things like, Have you thought about college? or What do you think you'd like to major in? Logan, of course, answered these as smart-ass as he could. He had not yet forgiven his father for his childhood. Forget college. I'm thinking about going to tattoo school and opening up my own parlor right here in Ithaca, he told his dad once, and Charles's right eye began to flutter and he looked like he might be on the verge of a stroke. Or, hell, clown school's a possibility. I hear there's always a market for clowns. You can't beat the clown business for job security.

The problem with Virginia and Charles was that they didn't get Logan's sense of humor. They got caught up in the way he looked, six-foot-three with a Mohawk and Doc Martens adding another four inches, black eyeliner and a lip ring, and the truth was, he did look a little scary. But deep down inside he was a poet with a sense of humor, as the lyrics of his latest love song, “Kill Me,” could attest.

Nita waved at Logan across the room and he waved back and went to stand with Jimmy Lee.

“This place reminds me of a haunted castle,” Eadie said, glancing around the big room with its cathedral ceiling and tall windows and gaudy masculine decor. “It's kind of creepy.”

Nita smiled. “You should have seen it before Virginia redid the kitchen and dining room and got rid of the red carpet. She told me she's planning on redoing the whole house but she has to do it slowly so Redmon won't freak out.”

“Myra must be spinning in her grave,” Lavonne said, noting the Elvis photo collage and the Naugahyde seating arrangement with built-in beer cooler that Redmon was proudly showing off to the other envious males. “She had one of the nicest houses in our old neighborhood.”

“I think that's part of the problem,” Nita said. “When Myra was alive, Redmon had to live the way she wanted, and when she died he just went wild and bought himself the swinging bachelor pad he'd always wanted.”

“Well, I can't believe Virginia agreed to live here,” Eadie said. “This place gives me the creeps. I wouldn't be surprised to see Boris Karloff step out of one of the closets.”

“Oh look, there's Boris now,” Lavonne said, and when they all turned to look, she said, “Nevermind. It's just Redmon.” Eadie snorted and poked Lavonne with her elbow.

“Behave,” Nita said.

“And I still don't get why Virginia invited us,” Eadie said. “I mean, I know she and Jimmy Lee are business partners, which is kind of weird in itself if you ask me, and she's Whitney and Logan's grandmother, so that explains why you and Jimmy Lee were invited. But why did she ask us to come? What's she got up her sleeve?”

“Maybe she's just trying to be nice,” Nita said, ignoring the look Eadie and Lavonne gave each other. Lavonne folded her cocktail napkin into a tiny square. “Y'all should give her a chance. You never know what it is that makes some people act the way they act.” Nita clutched her glass and tried not to think about how foolish that had sounded. She hadn't told a soul about what she'd discovered about Virginia's tragic childhood, not even Jimmy Lee.

Lavonne and Eadie stared at her. Eadie said, “What do you know that we don't know? Come on, Nita. Spill it.”

Virginia came out of the kitchen with her arm around Whitney's shoulders. They were giggling and sharing some secret moment, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Nita was glad to be spared a discussion of Virginia's childhood. She was glad to see Whitney had found a family member she could confide it. Adolescence was a tough time and all the child- rearing books she had read said it was important for girls to have a strong female role model they could rely upon. A teacher, a counselor, an older friend or family member. Rarely a mother, the books said. But that was normal. All teenage girls are locked in a love-hate relationship with their mothers, but that would change over time, the books promised. Nita could not remember ever hating her mother. Loretta always insisted that Nita had been “sweet as a watermelon's heart” as a girl, but that was beside the point.

The dying sun caught in the tops of the distant trees, shimmering the glass of the tall windows and filling the room with a warm glow. It occurred to Nita that the people she cared the most about were here in this room, with the exception of her brothers and her parents, and no one expected Virginia to invite Loretta to anything. It would be like sticking two pit bulls in a kennel crate and telling them to be nice. Everyone in this room was connected in one way or another. They were like one big family. She was glad that Virginia had finally understood this, too. Still, she wished Charles could be here to enjoy this moment of family togetherness. She wished he could be here to witness how far his mother had come.

She walked over to where her daughter and ex-mother-in-law stood, arm in arm, still giggling. “What's so funny?” Nita asked, trying to get in on the joke.

Virginia lifted one eyebrow and looked at Whitney, who immediately stopped giggling. “Nothing,” Whitney said. She yawned and wandered off to talk to Lavonne and Eadie.

“We were laughing at something that happened to one of her friends at school,” Virginia explained.

“Oh,” Nita said. She smiled and sipped her tea. “Why isn't Charles here?”

“Well, of course I invited him, but he has to be in court early tomorrow. He's getting ready for a big case,” she lied. She had told Charles two days ago about her plans and he had reacted quite unexpectedly, refusing to go along with her scheme. She had, of course, proceeded anyway. She had spent hours today making discreet phone calls to several professors at the University of Georgia, to an official at the Georgia Bureau of Indian Affairs, and to a Creek activist named Leonard Twohorses. Then she had called her attorney.

“I hate that he's not here to see the children and everybody together,” Nita said.

Virginia looked at her curiously. After a moment she shifted her gaze across the room to where Whitney stood talking with Lavonne and Eadie. It was too late to start wallowing in forgiveness and goodwill at this stage of the game. The plan was already in motion and Virginia was determined to see it through to the end. As her daddy used to say, She would see it through even if it meant hairlipping the governor and every mule in Georgia.

“I hate that he's not here to share in the celebration,” Nita said, still talking about Charles.

“Well, I'm sure he'll hear all about it,” Virginia murmured, staring at her granddaughter.

Charles would thank her for this one day, she was sure.