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It was like waiting for a ship to be launched I grew sort of breathless in anticipation, even more so because she had such a look on her faceas if she couldn't wait for ave Bart anything he wanted? He was the greediest little boy ever born, needing double the amount of affection most people required

I gasped then and stepped backwards It was an oil painting the men unwrapped

There stoodon the next to the bottonificent newel post Trailing behind her lay yards and yards of the shiracefully and faded into swirling ive the i at a palace-like mansion

"Do you knohose portrait that is?" she asked when theit in place in one of the parlors she didn't seem to use often I nodded, dumbfounded and speechless

What was she doing with my mother's portrait?

She waited for the two ave the why I felt sort of nuain to me, "that's a portrait of me that my second husband commissioned shortly after ere married I was thirty-seven when I posed for that"

In the portrait the woman looked just like my mother looked today I sed and wanted to run, suddenly needing the bathroom badly, but still I wanted to stay I wanted to hear her explain, even though I was paralyzed with the fear of what she ht tell me

"My second husband, as younge

r, was named Bartholomew Winslow, Jory," she said quickly, as if to ot up and ran "Later on, when h, she seduced him, stole his love away froave hiuess who that child is, can you?"

I ju out my hands to ward off any more information I didn't want to hear

"Jory, Jory, Jory," she chanted, "don't you remember me at all? Think back to when you lived in the inia Think of that little post office, and the rich lady in the fur coat You were about three then You saw , you came to stroke my coat, and you told me I was pretty-- remember?"

"No!" I cried more stoutly than I felt "I have never seen you before in my life, not until you moved here! And all blondes with blue eyes look somewhat alike!"

"Yes," she said brokenly, "I suppose you're right I just thought it would be a to see your expression I shouldn't have played a trick on you I'ive me"

I couldn't look at those blue, blue eyes I had to get away

I felt ed home If only I hadn't stayed If only the portrait hadn't been delivered while I was there Why did I have to sense that that woman was more a threat to my mother than my stepfather? What had I accomplished? Was it you, Mom, who stole her second husband's love? Was it? Didn't itshe'd said confir inin fresh memories that almost seemed like enemies