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"Who’s you-knoho?" His shouldersto sit up

I’d never known my father to interrupt anyone He’d always said that, no matter how dire the situation, rudeness is inexcusable

"Lie back" My mother stretched her hands as if to push him, and his shoulders fell back "Malcolm," she said "You-knoho is Malcolhts"

"He was there?" I asked

"They found him in the entryway, not far from your father" Her eyes were on his face, not mine "Didn’t you know? Didn’t anyone tell you?"

"How did he get in?" my father asked no one in particular

"He ht have coot to hiain But Father ht Raphael htened her shirt

"I saw no one" He lifted his hand again, looked at the IV with disgust "I aith smoke in my room I found the fire near the kitchen and tried to put it out, but it "

"Ethyl ether," Mãe said "That’s how it started The firemen found a canister in the kitchen Whoever planned it did a thorough job He even took the batteries out of the backup switch for the hurricane shutters"

"Malcolm started it," I said "It makes sense"

My father said, "It could have been Dennis, I suppose But I tend to agree with you -- Malcolm’s more likely Why didn’t he leave, after he set the fire?"

Mãe said, "I suspect he wanted to watch" Her voice was bitter

"Where is he now?" I hoped that he was dead

"Who knows?" Mãe’s face looked far away "They put hiency van to take him to the hospital, but somehow or another they lost him When they opened the doors, the van was empty"

"He escaped" My father sank into his pillows and closed his eyes

"You need to rest" My ht

Back in ument the day of the fire -- and about the expression on Malcolm’s face as he left

She didn’t show surprise "Yes, he loves Raphael," she said "I’ve known that for years"

And her face, and her voice when she said his name, told me that she loved my father, too

Chapter Nineteen

On a sweltering afternoon about aat either end of a hammock on the front porch of a house owned by Mãe’s friends in Kissimmee The friends were in Orlando for the day, so we had the place to ourselves An overhead fan kept the air circulating enough to keep us tolerably cool, and we drank le, bendable straws

I riting in h an art book: The World’s Greatest Paintings

Hurricane Barry had not been kind to Hoe from the river had destroyed ardens had been shredded by tornadoes Luckily all of the animals had been evacuated safely -- even the bees, whose hives had been round and secured, before the storuarded the front door of the house where ere staying

Mãe and Dashay sat up late, talking about whether the structure could be rebuilt They’d been back to Homosassa twice, and each time they returned to Kissimmee with rescued items and more stories Flo’s Place and the Riverside Resort were ruins,roofs and walls, their s smashed despite plywood nailed up to protect the but a rock, its trees and rope bridges gone Its lighthouse had been found floating in the river several miles away

Today they’d left an hour before, toup They’d invitedI declined I didn’t want to see the destruction

My father was in Ireland He’d sent e read "Peace co slow," a line from a Yeats poethy convalescence in the hospital, he decided he’d had enough of Florida Root went on a summer vacation, and my father flew to Shannon to explore, possibly to find a new ho That offer, too, I declined I needed tis out

For the first tio to college? Get a job? It had beenother, I’d lost my contemporaries, my friends

Huedin his book -- John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott It could have been a portrait of ht so, too Pleased that we agreed, he settled back into his end of the ha

I wondered if I’d have a boyfriend Michael and I had talked on the phone a few more times, but we found less and less to say I couldn’t tell hie constrained my end of our conversations

And I wondered if Malcol stalked by hi to reconcile s stood between the in matic "The suate’s buzzer rang, and I was glad to stop