Ray, our neighbor before we left for Missouri, now our neighbor again, held his green hose, not a new slick green one, an old hose gone thick with all the water gone through it, stood there with the water coming slow through the hose just looping the stream around side to side over the grass, not even bothering to use his thumb on the end to make a spray of it, more relaxed than that, all the time in the world. The grass in Yakima where it almost never rained, thick and green because of the water from the Columbia to the Snake to the Yakima, irrigation water, plenty of it.

Between us the white picket fence that Daddy built, a low fence, so Ray looked up from watering, saw me, smiled, smiled slow, let his face take its time to finish the smile. Ray took one hand off the hose and brushed his spread fingers back through his short hair, said. "How does it feel to be back in Yakima?"

I moved my barefoot toes around in the grass, Yakima grass, cool on the hottest day. I said, "It feels good."

Ray nodded, a nod like, of course, put a hand in the pocket of his baggy gray trousers. "Yes," he said, "Yakima is the best place to live."

***

Everything the same in the house, except now there were two sets of bunk beds brought back from Missouri, one set for Lindsay and me. Before we left for Missouri Lindsay and I slept in a big double bed, the bed that used to be Mama and Daddy's bed before they got a new one. In the big bed Lindsay and I sometimes fought. When we fought, when we were angry, we had sides of that bed, a line down the middle that we couldn't cross. Sometimes when we weren't angry, when the bed didn't have sides, we'd stretch our legs way out across the bed, my legs wrapped over Lindsay's legs, her legs over under mine.

In the summer we'd fight about covers. Lindsay didn't want any. Lindsay said, "It's just too hot." I wanted at least a sheet, had to have one, pull it up right over my head, protection against the witches who come to cut off your ears

Once in my dream a witch cut me up into little pieces. I rode on a tricycle and the witch came and cut me into little pieces but I didn't feel the cuts, didn't feel cut up, just knew I was in pieces.

In another dream I escaped a witch by getting on a merry go round, the heavy metal kind with bars around the edges that you get inside and push, and the center place like a big cup where the little kids sit so they won't fall. The witch got on the merry go round too. I sat on top of the bars, but the witch got inside the rungs and she pushed and pushed and ran and ran but she couldn't catch me, the bars held her back. Only then somehow she got closer to me, was about to catch up, stretched out her long arm for me and I woke right in the middle of my scream, woke in time to hear myself scream the "hel" part of help, sat straight up in my bed, straight up and it took awhile before I was ready to lay back down again.

So I had to have a cover, but Lindsay never understood. Witches never bothered Lindsay. It was something about her, maybe like her having dimples when I didn't have any.

Up where I slept now on the top bunk of our bunkbeds the witches felt farther away and I didn't have to fight with Lindsay to keep the sheet over my head.

On the top bunk I dreamed of a planet, a planet covered with trees and birds, thick trees and birds with colored beaks, everything full of leaves and birds and color, everything rich. The leaves cool and soft like Yakima grass. I never touched them, but I knew that was how they felt.

This planet was right next to mine. The planets came so close they almost touched, maybe did touch, nudged each other, then bumped apart, like balloons might touch then move apart. The planets so close that I could step right over onto the planet of birds, so close I almost did, but first I woke up.

***

Daddy didn't pick us up on Sundays like he had right after the divorce, before we left for Missouri. He didn't come before school started. He didn't show up even after school started. Daddy didn't come at all until my birthday in November.

Tina was at my party, Tina who spent every recess in second grade with me. Some other girls were there too. All of us in the dining room taking our turn to hit the piñata with a blindfold over our eyes, when there was a knock at the front door. Mama finished tying the scarf to cover Leslie's eyes, before she said, "Just a minute, girls," and went to the door.

Leslie started whacking my brother's bat through the air. Tina and I kept close to her to turn her back to the piñata and away from the other girls. I didn't notice Daddy until he was right in the dining room, right next to me.

Then I didn't notice Daddy so much as Mama, staring at Daddy, her eyes narrower and her mouth pulled tight so her lips looked thin, Mama away from me and the girls at the party and turned towards Daddy.

Daddy wore jeans and a plaid shirt, what he usually wore when he hadn't just come home from work. He had something in his hands that he was holding in front of him, something of dark cloth that hung down with his hands grasping it at the top.

When we first came back to Yakima, to our house, I expected to see Daddy in the house because that was where he'd always been. When he wasn't there, when he didn't come, I had to put him out of my mind to keep from wanting him.

Maybe that was why Daddy looked so out of place in the white house, in the dining room that used to be the kitchen before Daddy built the new kitchen.

Daddy must have felt it too because he kept his head bent down and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, and he held whatever it was in front of him like he wanted to hide behind it.

Seeing Daddy, I had to miss him all over again, want him again. Then be glad to see him.

I started to say, "Hello, Daddy."

But I didn't say it, because Mama spoke then, her voice cold and angry and so low I think only Daddy and me heard her.

She said, "You could at least have wrapped it."

Mama was angry, so angry that she was still and perfect, her hair, reddish brown, more reddish brown against her white face. She let nothing come into her face. Mama stood up so straight in her good dress, with just a little tremble in the thin calf of her leg, the only place she let any anger out.

Mama turned away from Daddy, back to the party.

But Daddy was still there and he lifted his hands up and away from his body so the dark cloth dropped down all the way, and it was a dress, dark green. He shoved the dress out towards me, and I took it, but Daddy's hands stayed out in front of him like he was still holding onto the present.

I saw the dress but I was looking at Mama to see why she was so angry that Daddy brought me a present. But Mama was already tying a scarf on the next girl to hit the piñata.

Daddy said, "Well, happy birthday." He turned around and walked in long, fast steps so he was almost at the door before I got it out.

"Bye, Daddy," I said.

Then Daddy was gone, only the dress left in my hands.

The color was back in Mama's face. Her face was back to being the face she had for my friends whenever they were over. The face that smiled. Only before Daddy came Mama smiled like she was happy. Now she just smiled.

When I started to set the dress down on the table with the rest of my presents Mama said, "Why don't you take that dress into your bedroom for now and come back for your turn." Her voice was like it was when she talked to my friends, when she talked to me when my friends were there.

So I didn't look at the dress. I ran to my bedroom, tossed it up onto my bed and came back for my turn at the piñata.

After the party, after I found places for all my new things in my room, then I climbed onto my bunk and spread out the dress on top of the covers. The dress was so soft when you laid it down it didn't keep its shape but just made a heap. It was dark green, but not a solid dark green. It was like there were other colors, lighter and darker green and even other brighter colors inside of the dress, just under the surface. But not so you could touch it and say, "this is red." It was just that the red was in there somewhere.

My dress was rich, like the planet of birds.

***

The next morning when Mama woke us, I said, "I'll wear my new dress today."

But Mama said, "No, you should keep it for good," which meant for church because I wore a uniform to St. Paul's school.

So every week I wanted to wear my dress. But Mama would say, "You wore that last week, why don't you wear something different for a change?" So I'd put on something different.

But alone in my room, I'd reach in my closet and feel the soft of the dress, take it out of the closet and hold it near the light to see the colors all there under the surface, so rich, so beautiful, the colors I couldn't quite touch.