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"How old?"

"Three weeks"

"Does your daughter live here too?"

Birdie pulled her cloth frohtly while she broke the thread with her teeth "She goes to boarding school in Albuquerque"

I returned to exploring the living room I was stunned to run across a s astride very different horses Behind them was a backdrop of dry hills and a broater tank Loyd and Leander, nine years old, looking as if they owned the world Until I saw that picture I hadn’t really heard a word he’d toldhis brother You can’t know soht, till you’ve followed hi Inez’s house filled with relatives for the feast Cousins and uncles and aunts showed up, sta covered dishes and their own chairs All the older women had their hair cut in the same style as Inez’s, with short flaps over the ears and the heavy chignon in the back, and they wore silver necklaces and elaborate turquoise rings that shielded their knuckles The teenage girls wore jeans and about everything else you’d expect on a teenage girl, except makeup One of them nursed a baby at the table, under her T-shirt

Loyd and I shared one chair; apparently ere the official lovebirds of this fiesta He spent a lot of tiin with, five different kinds of posole, a hominy soup with duck or pork and chilies and coriander Of the twenty or so different dishes I recognized only lis by species and just ate To everyone’s polite amusement, my favorite was the bread, which was cooked in enormous, nearly spherical loaves, two dozen at a time, in the adobe ovens outside It had a hard brown crust and a heavenly, stea interior, and tasted like love I ate half a loaf byno one would notice Later, in bed, Loyd toldhts in the truck it felt deliciously soft I cuddled against Loyd "What’s a navel mother?" I asked, droarmth and a half loaf of bread

"She’s like a special aunt She’s the one that cuts the cord when you’re born, and helps your et up out of bed when she’s ready They count that as your birthday-the day your ets up"

"Not the day you were born?"

"Not the day you ca better as all part of the birth"

"Hallie doesn’t have a birthday, then," I said "After she was born, our ot real sick, and then a helicopter tried to co her slippers on"

"Then Hallie never finished getting born," Loyd said He kissed the top ofsounds of Inez and Hester on the other side of the makeshift curtain I asked, "Is it okay that we’re sleeping together?"