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girl, bravely ventured to tell her mother that she felt ill. 'It's my stomach', she said. The other children nodded vigorously. The baby spit up its milk.
    'Go upstairs and lie down', said their mother, without any apparent concern. 'When I finish here, I '11 come up and see how you're doing.'
    'Rachel', said Larry hesitantly, i feel funny too. You think there might have been something wrong with the pork chops?'
    'Nothing wrong with the pork chops. I had one a while ago, and I feel fine. Go watch television.'
    Larry sighed. At least she had spoken to them. Maybe she would get over whatever it was that had her on edge. Maybe, he ventured to hope, there wouldn't be any fight at all.
    The four children left the kitchen quietly; they went upstairs, following their mother's directions, and lay in their beds. In a few minutes, Larry turned off the television and went upstairs after them. He passed their bedrooms, and heard their muffled groans through the closed doors. He would have stopped to see about them, but was in too much pain himself. He pushed open the door of the guest room and fell across the bed - he had not been certain that he would make it to his own bedroom at the end of the hall.
    Less than an hour later that evening, Sarah Howell was alone in her kitchen. The room was dark but for a single fixture above the sink. Here Sarah stood, washing the day's dishes, and staring with a small smile out into the yard that separated Jo Howell's house from that of Becca Blair.
    This was the first time in the entire day that Sarah had been wholly alone, and she was enjoying the restfulness of it. The noises of the plant had been left behind, and the hundred women and men all trying to chatter and gossip over a staggering number of decibels. Jo and Dean were in the far part of the house, and it was with some relish that Sarah calculated the number of steps that lay between her and them. She imagined the dark kitchen behind her, how she would have to move slowly across that tiled floor, to keep from knocking into the table. And the living room was dark as well, and cluttered, so that she would have had to proceed even more cautiously. At last she would reach the little hall, which would have to be crossed, and that was at least a couple more steps, and then, even standing at the closed door of the room in which Jo watched over her son, Sarah could have chosen not to knock at all, could have decided that it was best not to turn the knob.
    Ana in front of Sarah, out the window, was a flat piece of grassy ground, empty and still. Two fingers of concrete pointed up from the street and Becca's two-door purple Pontiac rested just within Sarah's sight. The moon was out, and full, and the empty yard was illumined with a dim, grey light that was peaceful and chill.
    Becca Blair's house was dark, but Sarah could see only her kitchen and dining room windows, and it was probable that there were lights in rooms on the other side. But while Sarah looked out the window, Becca's kitchen light was switched on, and in only another moment, the back porch light. Becca Blair flung herself out the back door; a rosary swung and glinted in her hands. The screen door slammed sharply behind her.
    Sarah leaned forward over the sink and put her face near the screen of the open window. Becca ran up to the house and looked up at her friend. Excitedly, she cried, 'Coppage house gone up in flames! Larry and Rachel and ever' one of them five kids still inside! You come out here, Sarah, and you can see the smoke!'
    Quickly, Sarah stepped outside and joined her friend. They moved together to the street in front of the houses and gazed in the direction of the Coppage house. A siren started up to their left, where the fire station was located a few blocks away. The house was too distant for them to see flames, but frighteningly, the stars in a large section of sky, in the direction of the Coppage house, were obscured beneath a veil of smoke that was black as the