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By Root 7090 0

would be waiting for him. He and she and Baby would ride in the funeral car together. He put away the work basket and fitted the coat with the mourning band very carefully on his shoulders. He glanced swiftly around the room to see that all was well before going out again. An hour later he was in Lucile’s kitchenette. He sat with his legs crossed, a napkin over his thigh, drinking a cup of tea. Lucile and Alice had been so different in all ways that it was not easy to realize they were sisters. Lucile was thin and dark, and today she had dressed completely in black. She was fixing Baby’s hair. The kid waited patiently on the kitchen table with her hands folded in her lap while her mother worked on her. The sunlight was quiet and mellow in the room. ‘Bartholomew--’ said Lucile. .What?’

‘Don’t you ever start thinking backward?’

‘I don’t,’ said Biff.

‘You know it’s like I got to wear blinders all the time so I won’t think sideways or in the past. All I can let myself think about is going to work every day and fixing meals and Baby’s future.’

That’s the right attitude.’

‘I been giving Baby finger waves down at the shop. But they come out so quick I been thinking about letting her have a permanent. I don’t want to give it to her myself--I think maybe take her up to Atlanta when I go to the cosmetologist convention and let her get it there.’

‘Motherogod! She’s not but four. It’s liable to scare her. And besides, permanents tend to coarsen the hair.’

Lucile dipped the comb in a glass of water and mashed the curls over Baby’s ears. ‘No, they don’t. And she wants one.

Young as Baby is, she already has as much ambition as I got.

And that’s saying plenty.’

Biff polished his nails on the palm of his hand and shook his head.

‘Every time Baby and I go to the movies and see those kids in all the good roles she feels the same way I do. I swear she does, Bartholomew. I can’t even get her to eat her supper afterward.’

‘For goodness’ sake,’ Biff said.

‘She’s getting along so fine with her dancing and expression lessons. Next year I want her to start with the piano because I think it’ll be a help for her to play some.

Her dancing teacher is going to give her a solo in the soiree. I feel like I got to push Baby all I can. Because the sooner she gets started on her career the better it’ll be for both of us.’

‘Motherogod!’

‘You don’t understand. A child with talent can’t be treated like ordinary kids. That’s one reason I want to get Baby out of this common neighborhood. I can’t let her start to talk vulgar like these brats around her or run wild like they do.’

‘I know the kids on this block,’ Biff said. ‘They’re all right.’

Those Kelly kids across the street--the Crane boy--.

‘You know good and well that none of them are up to Baby’s level.’

Lucile set the last wave in Baby’s hair. She pinched the kid’s little cheeks to put more color in them. Then she lifted her down from the table. For the funeral Baby had on a little white dress with white shoes and white socks and even small white gloves. There was a certain way Baby always held her head when people looked at her, and it was turned that way now.

They sat for a while in the small, hot kitchenette without saying anything. Then Lucile began to cry. ‘It’s not like we was ever very close as sisters. We had our differences and we didn’t see much of each other. Maybe it was because I was so much younger. But there’s something about your own blood kin, and when anything like this happens--’ Biff clucked soothingly.

‘I know how you two were,’ she said. It wasn’t all just roses with you and she. But maybe that sort of makes it worse for you now.’

Biff caught Baby under the arms and swung her up to his shoulder. The kid was getting heavier. He held her carefully as he stepped into the living-room. Baby felt warm and close on his shoulder, and her little silk skirt was white against the dark cloth of his coat. She grasped one of his ears very tight with her little hand.

‘Unca Biff! Watch me do the split.’

Gently he set Baby on her feet again. She curved both arms above her head