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‘And I’m glad to see you too, Amanda,’ her brother said from just behind Katie’s shoulder. ‘It’s so nice of you to drop in for a moment to pick up your kid!’

‘No sarcasm, Harry,’ his sister responded. ‘And that’s just what we’re doing.’ She turned back to Katie to explain. ‘My husband has had some bad news,’ she said quietly. ‘He expected to be sent up to Richmond, and instead they’ve given him his unconditional release.’

She turned back to Harry. ‘We expect to stay one or two days, brother dear, and then we’ll be on our way. Sometimes, I don’t think you love me, Harry.’

‘Oh I love
you
,’ he contributed. ‘It’s that idiot husband of yours that I can’t stand. Where is he now?’

‘He’s out struggling with the luggage,’ Amanda reported. ‘He’ll be along in a minute. He’s had one terrible blow to his pride. And just remember one thing. I happen to love that idiot.’

‘Well, there’s no accounting for taste,’ her brother laughed. He stepped around the wheelchair, lifted his sister up off the floor, baby and all, and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Choo, choo,’ Jon squealed, caught in the crush.

Katie watched them, as Harry swung his sister and the baby around in welcoming circles. It reminded her too much of home, where the circle of her siblings would close around her to shut out all hurt and pain. Just thinking of it brought a tear to her eye, but no one else noticed, so she let it flow free.

There was a banging noise at the door, and a tall man, burdened with four suitcases, stomped into the hall. ‘Where do you want all this junk?’ he asked in a hard, clear voice. Without waiting for an answer he dropped them all on the floor in a jumbled pile, and stepped forward. He was looking at his wife. It might have been the sharp hiss of Katie’s shocked intake of air that caught his attention. He looked down at the chair, and a surprised look flashed across his square blond head. ‘Katherine,’ he exclaimed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Eubie?’ she questioned, hardly believing it. ‘Eubie Fairfield?’ It was too much. There had been too many surprises in the day, too many pains, too many aches. She pushed the throttle to full speed, whipped around, and raced down the hall to her bedroom, leaving the hall full of people to watch in stunned silence.

By the time she was in the room with the door shut behind her she could hear pursuing footsteps. She fumbled frantically for the lock, then realised how unusual it would have been for a dining room door to have a lock. She could see the knob rattle as the door started to move inward towards her. Without giving it much thought she jammed on the forward control of the wheelchair and rammed its foot rest up against the door. The little electric motor under her seat wailed at the load, but the door was gradually forced closed.

‘Katie,’ Harry yelled from outside. ‘Open this door. We have to talk.’

‘I don’t have a thing to say to you,’ she yelled back at him. ‘Go talk to Eloise. Leave me alone!’

‘By God I will,’ he roared. She could hear him stomp down the hall yelling ‘Eloise’ at the top of his lungs. Katie kept the nose of her chair grinding into the door until she was sure he had gone, then she wheeled herself around, drove over to the bed, and managed to struggle up out of the chair. Tears were blinding her, confusing her, as she toppled over on to the bed. ‘I don’t know what I’m crying about,’ she mumbled. Could it be Eubie? Or Harry? Or—just the pain and loneliness that had struck her out there in the hall, when she suddenly realised that, despite their differences, they were all a family. Excluding her. And very suddenly the hall had become cold, dark, rejective. Very suddenly she had become the outsider, a long way from home.

‘So what do you do now, Katherine?’ she asked herself. ‘The baby has his mother back. Eloise has her man. Even Eubie is safe with his family—damn that man. Aunt Grace is going to the World’s Fair. So is Mary. And I might just as well go home to Ohio.’

Acknowledging defeat was half the problem. The rest should be easy. She rolled over on to her back, banging her damaged foot against one of the bedposts. The sharp pain helped to clear her mind. She snatched up the telephone, and started to dial Humbersville, Ohio.

There was something wrong. The telephone did not ring at the other end. Perplexed, she depressed the handswitch and waited for the dial tone. Nothing happened. She rattled the telephone and thumped its base. Still nothing. Cursing under her breath she jammed the handset back on the cradle and stared at it. Her lifeline to the outside world had been cut off. She pounded an exasperated fist on her cast, trying to think of some way to escape. Walking was definitely out. But what else was available?

She swung herself back into the wheelchair and went over to the window. The green lawn still sloped down to the edge of the bluff. The bridge stood waiting, a patient slave to movement. On the other side, in the parking lot, her own VW, the Reliant, and the Mercedes, as well as a beautiful Jaguar. Driving her own car, she knew, would be impossible. The cast could not possibly fit the clutch pedal. But the Mercedes had automatic drive! If she could find the right keys, it offered a chance to take her escape. And she need only go as far as the nearest airport. As for her clothes, handling two suitcases was beyond her. She would have to leave them all behind.

Driven by determination, she wheeled round for the door, and then had second thoughts. Running away again. Her only solution to a series of difficult problems. Leaving behind her all the unfinished business—and Harry! Maybe just this once she could muster enough strength to see a problem through? Just one time, so that in the long dark years ahead she could remember that at least she had tried?

A knock on the door interrupted her reverie and, before she could answer, Mary opened it and came in. The younger girl was flushed with excitement, her cheeks a glowing red. ‘Do you want me to help you get ready for supper?’ she gasped.

‘I—what’s all the excitement?’

‘You didn’t hear it? Mr Harry has been roaming around the house like a chicken with his head cut off. He cornered Eloise in the library, and they must have had a real donneybrook of a fight! Even with the door closed I could hear some of it. And your name appeared in the conversation several times, Katie.’ She broke into giggles as she went over to straighten out the bed. ‘And so Eloise is hiding in her room and says she won’t eat with us tonight, and she wants a tray in her room, but Mr Harry, he said, “the hell she will!” ’

‘And Mr King?’

‘He’s still in the library. Boy is he tying one on. Straight Bourbon, right from the bottle. Wow! And that’s only half of it!’

‘What’s the other half?’

‘Well, you don’t know, I suppose, but Miss Amanda, she’s just like her brother. When she’s mad, look out! Anyway, she and her husband went out on the patio— and you should have heard her dress him up one side and down the other! Lord love us, she chewed that man up and spit him out! And guess what, Katie?’

‘All right, I give up. What?’

‘Well, your name came up in that argument several times, too. And then Miss Amanda, she stormed off to her room and slammed the door!’

‘I—I think maybe I’d better skip supper, Mary,’ she said nervously. All her courage had gone down the drain. ‘I’ve got the feeling that I’m not going to like the main course tonight.’

‘Oh, you can’t do that,’ Mary wailed. ‘I’m making barbecued spareribs, Tennessee style. You said it was your favourite. We have got tables set up on the patio and everything, like a home-grown picnic.’

Yeah, spareribs, she thought to herself. You know better. If you step out there tonight the main course is going to be barbecued Katie Russel. Served with an apple in her mouth!

‘I—I think I would better stay in my room,’ she started to say, but at that moment a gleeful Aunt Grace came waltzing into the room. ‘You’ve done it, Katie,’ she carolled. ‘You’ve done it, you marvellous person!’

‘Done what?’ she asked in bewilderment.

‘You’ve got them fighting! I knew it you just kept at it that you would get a wedge going between them. Smart girl! And by suppertime they’ll be up to the boiling point again, and we’ll just sit there and make hay while the sun shines!’

‘I wish I knew what you were talking about,’ Katie said sadly. ‘There are so many confusing conversations going on around this house that I think only Jon and I are on the same frequency. Eloise is mad at me. Harry is mad at me. Amanda is mad at me, and I suspect Eubie is, too. I’m not coming to supper. I’m going to sit here in my room, or maybe soak my head, or maybe run away. Where are the keys to my car?’

‘They’re hanging on the rack by the back door, along with all the other car keys,’ Mary answered. ‘I’ve got to scoot. Don’t you dare miss supper.’

‘Of course she won’t,’ Aunt Grace chimed in. ‘This promises to be the best supper we’ve had since last Fourth of July.’

‘And I suppose you think I’m going to provide the fireworks display,’ Katie grumbled to her disappearing back. Well, you’ve got another think coming, she sighed to herself. It’s back to Plan One. When in doubt, run. And if I go very quickly, and keep terribly busy, maybe I won’t notice the pain so much! She snatched up a light jacket from the closet, and piloted herself into the kitchen without meeting anyone. From the patio outside she could hear Mary and Aunt Grace, as they arranged the tables for the barbecue supper. The rest of the house was quiet.

It took but a moment for her to discover the keyboard hanging in a dark corner. She rescued her own keys and those of the Mercedes. Then she whirled her chair around and made for the front door.

It was a struggle to get the door open, because of its strong retaining spring, but eventually she managed to edge her way out on to the ramp. She closed the door softly behind her, and pointed the chair towards the bridge. The chair performed its little miracle silently. It spanned the bridge quickly, and delivered her to the door of the Mercedes. She fumbled with the keys, managed to open the door on the driver’s side, and brought the wheelchair up parallel to the car.

The transfer from chair to car-seat was difficult. She was perspiring when she finally fell back into the soft cushions. Her foot had received two smart cracks against the side of the car, and the sudden pain had brought tears to her eyes. Sniffing them away, she struggled to swing her feet into the car. The weight of the cast on her left foot made it too cumbersome to handle easily. She stopped to catch her breath, and to run a finger through her unruly hair.

Using both hands to help, she finally manoeuvred the recalcitrant member into the car. She was out of breath, upset, and still sniffling from the pain. The lock evaded her trembling fingers. Not finding it, she dropped her head into the cradle of her arms across the steering wheel, and had a good cry.

‘Turn off the waterfall,’ she mumbled to herself a short time later. She pushed herself back into the seat and looked down to where her left foot was resting. It was edged into the corner, on top of the high-beam fight button. She flexed her right foot between brake and accelerator a couple of times. In the wiggling struggle to get settled she had come all disarrayed, she noted. Three of the buttons on her blouse had come unbuttoned, and her skirt was rutched up underneath her almost to hip level. She shook her head in disgust, flexed her right foot again, and bent over to look for the ignition lock. Her hand wavered towards it, but the key missed the hole twice.

‘It’s a little further to the right,’ the voice at her ear said softly. She was so startled that she dropped the keys to the floor, and no amount of stretching and struggling would bring them to hand again. She gave it up, disgusted, and looked up over her shoulder.

‘And just where do you think you’re going?’ Harry King, at his sarcastic best!

‘I—It’s none of your business,’ she spluttered. ‘I—I’m going home. I called my mother and she said I should come home.’

‘Among other things, you’re a little liar, Katie Russel,’ he said. ‘The telephone’s been out of service since early this morning.’

‘Well, if I
had
talked to her she would have told me to come home,’ Katie said woodenly. ‘A—and I’m going!’

‘So there!’ he added. ‘But not in my car, girl. That would be grand larceny. They treat car-thieves pretty badly around these parts, you know.’

‘I wasn’t trying to steal your damned car,’ she told him bitterly. ‘I was only—borrowing it. That’s all. Borrowing it.’

‘Lost your cool, Katie? Running away?’ He opened the car door to its widest, and slipped a hand under her knees.

‘What are you doing!’

‘Well, right now I’m looking,’ he replied. ‘Lord, what lovely legs you have!’

‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t you dare!’

‘No. Of course not.’ But he obviously didn’t mean it. He swung her up in her arms, careful not to bang the damaged foot, and carried her back to the wheelchair. ‘We can’t have much more of this,’ he continued. ‘You’re not the lightest girl in the world, you know.’

‘If you would leave me alone,’ she snarled at him, ‘you wouldn’t have this terrible trouble. I hope you slip a disc, or—or get a hernia, or something.’

‘All right, that’s enough!’ There was a warning note in his voice that she took trembling notice of. She pursed her lips to block off any further words, and took a stranglehold on the arms of the chair.

‘And now, Miss Russel,’ he continued softly, ‘we’re all waiting for you at the supper table. Giddyap. Hi Ho, Silver!’

‘Don’t be a wise guy,’ she snapped, through clenched teeth. But she complied, nevertheless, driving the chair slowly back across the bridge. He sauntered behind her, stopping at the far side of the walkway.

‘What are you doing?’ He was swinging the wire-mesh gate closed behind them. He snapped the padlock, and patted it.

‘Just making sure,’ he chuckled. ‘I’m not much for the forty-yard dash. I don’t think I could do it again tonight.

In fact, if I hadn’t seen you from the library window you would have been long gone, wouldn’t you?’

‘You can’t keep me here if I don’t want to stay,’ she told him coldly. ‘Is that what I am? A prisoner?’