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Daddy fell deeper and deeper into his own grave of despair His eyes remained bleak, dark, haunted I had never understood how ht was only her silly little jabber However, without it, our ho on the previous I realized that Mother had created all the real ossip filled with funny, inconsequential information about this one or that apparently had provided Daddy with a very necessary contrast and respite from the reet hi, to whirl around him in her newest dress or float her hand under his nostrils to give hine

He could tolerate her illness because there was always the false hope that ste miraculous could still happen, that medicine and science would produce a cure just in time, what the Greeks called their deus ex machina, a last minute device to save the day and restore our world to its balance and health

However, once death ca, all that hope died with Mother's last breath In the beginning, right after her funeral in fact, it was still difficult to believe she was gone The heavy truth lingered like a persistent stor in oing to see her again

Even Belinda had trouble reviving herself Sh

enaps, or just curled up like a baby in her bed and stared at the wall, her thuainst her lips Her friends called, but her conversations were far shorter than usual and none of theed them with her tears and moans of sorrow

None of us had htmare continued to shadow our days until I announced I was returning to work Up until now Daddy had visited the offices briefly and kept up with important business events over the phone Our co

"We've got to get back to full-tiht at dinner "Mother wouldn't want us to ray faces and sadness," I said

He nodded "Olivia's right," Belinda said "I' to turn down another invitation"

"That's not exactly what I meant," I snapped, but she didn't want to hear me

The next day she was off with her friends, returning to the Bubble Gum Club and her

unproductive activities If Daddy had difficulty seeing hoasteful she was before, he was incapable of seeing it now It was almost as if he didn't notice her existence She neededwith her pleas She wanted to stay overnight at soht party, take a weekend in Boston? He nodded, waved his hand, not even co her to do

I was busy filling in for hi things forward again, reements and checks I reported it all to him, but he listened with half an ear and asked few questions

Sa the architect around to discuss hoould modernize the older portion of our home and hoould expand it Daddy sat in on sos, but offered little coood distraction for me, especially when I faced the realization that this would betime

The work began almost iress Once a week I would go to the site with hiht in his prediction about Samuel Sa and the new additions to the house were being completed at twice the pace normally anticipated

"It's wasteful," I told hiet into the house a month or so earlier"