Halfway through the mass - but it wasn't a mass - the priest - but he wasn't a priest - said the kids could go to their Sunday school classes now. So we went too, Bobby and Lindsay and Andy and me, when the Sunday school teacher called out our ages. I was in a class separate from any of them and that's where I got the Pamphlet that I read in the back of the car on the way home.

The pamphlet that said that divorce was a sacrilege, that it was an abomination in the eyes of God.

The Catholic church had sacrilege too. The priests and nuns said "sacrilege" sometimes. Like when Sister Mary Olivier told us about the martyrs who wouldn't step on the cross, because stepping on the cross was a sacrilege. So they were burned at the stake, and St. Lawrence was roasted on a grid iron. After he roasted for awhile St. Lawrence said, "You can turn me over now. I'm done on this side." That showed he had a sense of humor. That's what Sister Mary Olivier told us.

I just hadn't known that Mama and Daddy committed a sacrilege, and I wanted to ask Mama if it really was, if it was a Catholic sacrilege, but I never asked. I left that pamphlet in the back seat of the car.

Being divorced was like that day in first grade after I had waited and waited for Sister Mary Oliver to say that it was time to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water, but she never did, not that day. School was almost out when Sister Mary Olivier noticed the puddle spreading from under my desk out into the aisle and asked, "What's that? Where's that coming from?" So everyone looked and saw the puddle and saw where it was coming from.

Then all the other kids were gone for the day and Sister Mary Olivier stood by my desk, saying, "Why didn’t you tell me you had to go to the bathroom?" She said it more than once. All the time I could see the puddle, even though I wasn't looking at it. It was still spreading out, getting closer to Sister Mary Olivier's heavy black shoe and I wondered if she saw and I hoped the puddle wouldn't reach her shoe.

Then the janitor came in with the big metal bucket on wheels with the wringer, and the smell that reminded me of when people threw up, but it wasn’t the smell of throwup but of disinfectant or whatever he put in the water.

When the janitor came Sister Mary Oliver backed away from my desk and I slipped out.

My dress wasn’t wet because I wasn’t sitting on it. The wood of the seat of my desk was wet, spongy and rough. The wood rubbed my leg and caught my underpants, so I had to jerk to get out of the desk.

No, actually divorce was like the day after that day, after I had wet my pants at school and everybody knew, and I always knew they knew, and I was the only one that wet my pants in the first grade. Divorce was like in second grade once at recess when this girl said to me, who wasn’t even in my class in first or second grade, but she was sitting by me on the blacktop, leaning against the concrete school building. She said, "You’re the girl who wet her pants in school last year."

I didn’t say anything to her, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the hard building.

"Aren’t you?" she asked.

I didn’t say anything. In a little while I got up without saying anything and walked to the other side of the blacktop.

So, even leaving Yakima, leaving my best friend, Tina, still there was one thing. In the new school, nobody would know.

Except for being divorced.

In the new school, in the third grade, in Missouri, being divorced was Mrs. Deaver calling me up to her desk to pick up my arithmetic paper after she checked my answers, just like she called up all the other kids, only Mrs. Deaver saying, "Sit down for a minute," in her soft voice.

Mrs. Deaver saying, "You're doing very well in arithmetic."

Mrs Deaver saying, "In fact, you're doing very well in all your work. You must have come from a good school."

Me saying, "Yes, I went to St. Paul's school in Yakima."

Mrs. Deaver was a nice teacher. She never yelled. Mrs. Deaver had light brown waved hair and smooth gray wool skirts and blouses with collars made of soft material that never wrinkled.

"Why did you leave Yakima?" Mrs. Deaver asked.

"I'm not sure exactly, " I said.

Mrs. Deaver waited for me to figure it out.

"My grandparents live here," I said.

"My father's still in Yakima, " I said, but I didn't mean to say that.

Mrs. Deaver looked at me, her face very still, listening to me carefully like grownup usually didn’t, only I didn’t want Mrs. Deaver to be listening to me so carefully just then.

"He's staying for awhile because he has a job there. He'll be coming later," I said.

Mrs. Deaver said, "I see."

Mrs. Deaver said, "Well, I'm sure he's very proud to have a daughter like you who does so well in school."

Mrs. Deaver said, "Go ahead and take a seat now."

One of those Sundays when we didn't go to church, Mama drove us instead out to a farm to meet a man she'd met who lived out there with his two kids, a boy Bobby's age, a girl my age. Mama turned the blue Plymouth into the long dusty drive, the car churning up dust. Out in a field by the side of the road some long grasses shook, then a girl ran out. Her hair, short and straight, chopped off evenly at the bottom, flew back she ran so fast. Her skinny legs flew like scissors opening and closing.

We drove closer to the house, a white house with a big front porch, some old chairs sitting on the porch. Mama stepped up the two little stone steps that led up to the wooden porch, walked over and opened the screen door and knocked on the front door.

A tall thin man with short dark brown hair opened the door. He pulled the door back further and smiled.

"Hi, Eileen," the man said to Mama. The man wore bright new jeans and a long sleeve flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and his arms looked almost as long and skinny as the legs of the girl running and running in the field.

"Hi, Sam," Mama said. Mama's voice was a little quiet like the first day in a new school, but even though her mouth didn't smile, her mouth looked full and pink and happy. Mama was pretty.

Sam reached out a hand to Mama and Mama took his hand, and Sam drew Mama towards him and Mama let him pull her a little ways, but before she got all the way to him she stopped and turned to half faced the rest of us coming in the door. She said, "These are my kids."

Sam squeezed Mama's hand before he let it go and then he reached out with his right hand to Bobby's right hand and shook it, saying, "Pleased to meet you. You must be Bobby." Sam turned half around then and called out, "Tim, come and meet our visitors."

Tim's hair was exactly the same straight brown as his father's. His eyes were the same soft brown. He didn't seem especially tall though, about my size, and he didn't seem skinny like his father and sister.

Sam squatted down on one knee to take Lindsay's hand and say hello. He got back up before he took mine. Sam's eyebrows came closer together when he smiled at me and said, "You must be just about my daughter's age." He turned around, "Tim, have you seen your sister?"

Tim said, "She took off as soon as she heard their car." Tim shook his head slowly and shrugged his shoulders up and down before he looked right at me and said, "Heather's real shy."

His father laughed, "Maybe she'll come back before you leave." Then he turned to say hello to Andy, but Andy leaned back against Mama's leg and used his hands to hold her dress instead of holding a hand out to Sam. Sam laughed again and said, "I guess she's not the only shy one."

Mama said, "Oh, that won't last long." Then she just stood there putting her hand on Andy's head and taking pieces of his hair between two fingers of her other hand, until Sam finally said about the purse Mama had hanging on the bend of her elbow, "Here, let me take that."

Mama had to take her hands off Andy's head in order to take the purse off her arm and when she did Andy came over and stood by me instead. Mama reached out to hand the purse to Sam. Sam took the purse with one hand. He took Mama's hand with his other hand. Sam pulled Mama over to him and held her close. This time Mama didn't pull away.

Sam said, "Tim, why don't you show our visitors around the farm."

In the road on the way to the pasture, Tim said, "I could show you our bull. Our bull is friendly. It's the cows you have to watch out for. We have some mean cows. But the bull's gentle."

Tim and Bobby and I were up front with Lindsay and Andy following behind us. Tim said, "We can get in over there," and pointed to a place in the fence where the lowest string of barbed wire was a little higher than it was in other parts of the fence. "Come on," he grabbed my hand and I ran with him. He dropped my hand to hold up the bottom string of barbed wire, Tim's hand between two barbs. "Here," he said, "duck under so it doesn't catch you."

So I got on my belly and crawled under.

"That's the way," Tim said.

Bobby had reached us by then, so he crawled under too while Tim still held the wire, then Lindsay and Andy. After that Bobby took the wire from the inside and Tim came through. Tim jumped up and brushed off his shirt. His shirt, white for Sunday or for visitors, had pulled out of his pants and he tucked it back in. Tim looked around, finally pointed a long ways away. "There's the bull."

He walked faster, but I didn't walk so fast to keep up with him as I had before. Bobby caught up with him. Bobby didn't look back, but Tim slowed down and turned around. Tim said, "This is a nice bull."

He kept going slow then so Lindsay and Andy caught up too and we were all headed towards that bull in a bunch. The grass of the pasture felt cool.

"Here he is, " Tim said and he walked up to the bull and started petting him. The bull's horns were dipped toward the ground because he had his head lowered to eat the grass. I walked over by Tim, but I didn't touch the bull.

"Here, feel how soft he is," Tim took my hand and put it over on the side of the bull. The bull was brown and white, white on its face, brown on its head and the outside of its ears, brown on its side, but with specks of white and white on the bottom of its side as it got closer to the bull's belly. Tim moved the flat of my hand down the side of the bull, then he stopped and left my hand there. It was like having your hand against a wall. Only this wall moved just a little back and forth, every time the bull breathed and when the bull stopped biting off the grass and swallowed I felt it on the bull's side where my hand was. I patted the bull in little strokes because I didn't want to move too far from where Tim put my hand. I didn't know how the bull would feel about it.

Andy came up and started petting the bull, right near the bull's stomach because that was where Andy could reach, and the bull didn't do anything. So I let my hand move down lower as I patted the softest white fur next to the bull's belly, but I didn't go any farther.

Bobby came up to my left, reached over and patted the bull too. Lindsay even came then, just reached her arm out and touched the bull on its side. The bull just stood there chewing on the grass.

Tim said, "You see, the bull's gentle, just like a cow. Except our cows are mean."

Tim said, "I could pull his tail and he wouldn't do nothing. " But Tim didn't pull his tail. "The cows would though, they'd kick. Our cows are mean."

So, we stayed away from the cows on the way to the barn. The barn was way up next to the fence on the part of the pasture that was nearest the house. From the outside the barn looked about the same size as the house, but once we got the big wooden doors pulled open so we could go inside the ceiling was so high up it looked even bigger. The cow stalls where the cows got milked were lined up on either side of a big trough filled with grain. No cows were in there but a couple of stalls had short stools inside. The barn smelled like manure and the grain had a grassy smell.

Tim showed us the buckets that the milk got milked into and the milking cans, big and silver, that the buckets of milk were poured into, and the ropes and halters on the wall. He led us around a wall that went nearly all the way across the barn into a second room. Tim pointed to the back and said, "There's another room back there with hay and stuff. It opens on the other side so the cows can be brought straight in for the night."

The room we were in was filled with stacked up bales of hay. On one side the bales were stacked like a staircase so you could climb up on them to the top. Next to the hay staircase was a wooden crib, about two feet high, like a big sandbox filled up with loose hay instead of sand. Tim jumped up onto the staircase of hay and climbed until he was almost to the top of the stack then he jumped straight out over the crib of hay and worked his body so he landed straight out flat right in the middle of the loose hay. He lay there with his arms and legs all spread out and his eyes closed.

Tim didn't look hurt but I wondered if he could be hurt. Then he opened his eyes and looked over at me and grinned. "You want to try it," he asked me.

"Yes," I said. I climbed up just the same as he had. I jumped out, way out in the air, turning my body to be spread out flat just the same as Tim did. Only then wondering if the hay was thick enough, landed on my back the same as Tim had. The hay was soft, not soft like the bull's hide, just soft to land in, pushing back a little springy like a mattress but softer than that, not as packed, dry and poky when you touched it with your finger. I laid there resting after the air, after falling, until Bobby shouted, "Get out of the way."

He was high up on the layer next to the top of the hay mountain, blue jeans and white T-shirt, short blondish brown hair, blue eyes. I wanted to lay looking up at him, but if I did he would be mad, so I rolled over on the hay until I had rolled to the edge, then I pulled my legs over onto the ground and stepped out.

Andy and Lindsay were climbing up the bales of hay and I helped them. Lindsay didn't need much help, but each bale came to Andy's waist and he had to grab the bale and pull his legs up on it. I helped by pushing up on his bottom while he pulled. Several rows before the top Lindsay stopped and said, "I'll jump from here."

I put my hands on Andy's shoulders to make sure he waited until Lindsay was out of the crib. I told him, "Jump way out, Andy." Andy landed right in the middle of the hay on his bottom.

This was all right. This wasn't like rides at the fair that you had to pay for. We could do it all day. Andy climbed out at the edge of the crib. I went up to the very top of the mountain of hay and jumped out. There was no way to be hurt, just jumping out free like that into the air, just lying there in the hay, smelling the hay smell. Watching Bobby helping Andy climb the bales. Tim by the side of the crib, not jumping anymore, just watching us jump, looking at me lying in the hay.

"Come on," he says, and reaches out his hand. I roll over to him. He puts his arm under my back, and lifts. I'm just as big as he is so I use my feet to help him get me up. I step on the board on the side of the crib and then down on the ground. Tim's arm is still around me just for a moment before I start back up the bales of hay.

Bobby stood over by the wall next to the other room of the barn, the one you entered from the outside. He looked through a crack. Bobby motioned us over, shushing with his finger. Tim and I came over. "They're kissing in there," Bobby said. Bobby pointed to a crack for me to look through.

Hay was stacked up in there just like in the jumping room, staggered like rows of bleachers. Mama and Sam sat about half way up. Sam had his arm around Mama, and Mama leaned back and closed her eyes, but they weren't kissing, just looked together. Maybe they would get married and we'd be able to move out to this farm.

Tim asked, "What are they doing?"

I said, "They're just sitting there now."

Bobby shook his head, said, "Well, they were really smootching away earlier." He sat down on the ground and leaned back against the wall between the two rooms. Tim sat down beside him and I sat beside Tim.

"It'd be great if they got married," Tim said.

"Yeah," Bobby said. "But who knows what grown ups will do."

***

Mama sat on the living room couch in a skirt like one of Mrs. Deaver's skirts. She wore a soft lilac blouse. Her hair looked the way it did when she put the hairspray on it, everything in place.

She said, "Kids get some nice clothes on. Sam is bringing Heather and Tim into town and we're all going out to a movie. "

It was getting dark by the time an old smoky blue gray pickup truck parked in front of our house, straight out in front of the picture window. Tim got out the passenger side while the engine was still running, waited for Heather then slammed the door shut. The weather had turned cold. Both Tim and Heather wore coats with scarves around their necks. Heather had a furry round hat with a tie under her chin, but Tim's head was bare and the wind blew his hair. The truck engine died, a truck door slammed. Sam walked around the truck then with Tim and Heather up to our front door.

I would have opened the door then, but Mama hurried ahead of me. She was at the door when they knocked, Tim and Heather ahead of Sam.

"Come on in, kids," Mama said, so they came past her and stood by me and by Bobby who came in while Mama was opening the door.

"Hello," I said to Tim, and then I turned to Heather and said hello to her too. She was the girl who was my age, and she said hello back okay even if she was shy.

I said, "You can take your coats off."

But Mama said, "Actually, we're going to go ahead to the movie now, so why don't you and Bobby and Lindsay get your coats on and help Andy with his."

We rode in the Plymouth to the movie but Mama let Sam drive. Lindsay sat in the middle up front and Mama held Andy in her lap, so just the four of us older kids sat in the back seat. Heather sat at the left window and I sat next to her, then Tim, then Bobby. It helped keep us warm to be so close together in the car before it heated up. Nobody said anything with the grownups there in the front, just all of us pressed together in the chilly dark.

The car barely got warm before we reached the theater and Sam parked the car while Mama and the rest of us stood in line to get the tickets. Tim stood next to me. His coat came open so I could see his gray sweater underneath. His sweater matched his dress pants. Soft gray, like his eyes soft brown. He looked sharp.

"Are you cold," Tim asks me and when I nod yes, he puts his arm around me for a moment. But Mama has the tickets now and Sam has come. We go into the theater. We follow the grownups but only Lindsay and Andy sit with them, the rest of us sit in the row behind them. Bobby goes in first, and Tim follows him, but when he does Tim reaches for my arm to make sure that I am in the seat beside him. Heather comes after me. The lights are already dimmed. I move my hand over towards Tim's seat and he takes it and holds it next to him on his seat. Tim holds my hand through the opening music. The movies starts and he's still holding my hand. In the middle of the movie he's still holding my hand, and I ask him, I whisper, "Are your parents divorced?"

"Yes, " Tim whispers back.