“All right, then.” But Tana did not sound thrilled. “I guess I should say congratulations or something like that.” But somehow she didn't feel like it. It seemed like such a boring bourgeois life, and after all Jean's years of sitting there waiting for him, she would have liked to see her tell him to go to hell. But that was youth thinking, and not Jean. “When are you getting married?”

“In July. You'll come, won't you, sweetheart?” She sounded nervous again, and Tana nodded to herself. She had planned to go home for a month anyway. She had worked it out with her summer job. She was working at a law firm in town, and they understood, or so they said.

“I'll sure try.” And then she had an idea. “Can Harry come?”

“In a wheelchair?” Her mother sounded horrified, and something hardened instantly in Tana's eyes.

“Obviously. It's not exactly as though he has a choice.”

“Well, I don't know … I should think it would be embarrassing for him … I mean, all those people, and … I'll have to ask Arthur what he thinks.…”

“Don't bother.” Tana's nostrils flared and she wanted to strangle someone, primarily Jean. “I can't make it anyway.”

Tears instantly sprang to Jean's eyes. She knew what she'd done, but why was Tana always so difficult? She was so stubborn about everything. “Tana, don't do that, please … it's just … why do you have to drag him along?”

“Because he's been lying in a hospital for six months and he hasn't seen anyone except me, and maybe it would be nice for him. Did that occur to you? Not to mention the fact that this did not happen in a car accident, it happened defending a stinking country we have no right to be in anyway, and the least people can do for him now is show him some gratitude and courtesy.…” She was in a blind rage and Jean was terrified.

“Of course … I understand … there's no reason why he can't come.…” And then suddenly, out of nowhere, “John and Ann are having another baby, you know.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Tana looked blank. It was hopeless talking to her. They never saw eye to eye about anything anymore. Tana had almost given up.

“Well, you could be thinking of that one of these days. You're not getting any younger, dear. You're almost twenty-three.”

“I'm in law school, Mom. Do you have any idea what that's like? How hard I work night and day? Do you have any idea how ridiculous it would be for me to be thinking of marriage and babies right now?”

“It always will be if you spend your time with him, you know.” She was picking on Harry again and Tana saw red at the words.

“Not at all.” Her eyes were fierce, but her mother couldn't see that. “He can still get it up, you know.”

“Tana!” Jean was appalled by Tana's vulgarity. “That's a disgusting thing to say.”

“But it's what you wanted to know, isn't it? Well, you can relax, Mother, it still works. I hear he screwed a nurse a few days ago, and she said it was great.” She was like a big dog refusing to release its prey, and her mother was hanging there, by the neck, and unable to escape. “Feel better now?”

“Tana Roberts, something has happened to you out there.” In the flash of a moment, Tana thought of the grueling hours of studying she had put in, the love she had felt for Harrison, to no avail, the heartbreak of seeing Harry return crippled from Vietnam.… Her mother was right. “Something” had happened to her. In fact, a great deal.

“I think I've grown up. That's not always real pretty, is it, Mom?”

“It doesn't have to be ugly or rude, except in California, I suppose. They must be savages out there at that school.”

Tana laughed. They were worlds apart. “I guess we are. Anyway, congratulations, Mom.” It suddenly dawned on her that she and Billy were going to be stepbrother and -sister now, and the thought almost made her sick. He would be at the wedding, and it was almost more than she could stand. “I'll try to be home in time.”

“All right.” Jean sighed, it was exhausting talking to her. “And bring Harry, if you must.”

“I'll see if he's up to it. I want to get him out of the hospital first, and we've got to move.…” She cringed at the slip, and there was a deafening silence at the other end. That really was too much.

“You're moving in with him?”

Tana took a breath. “I am. He can't live alone.”

“Let his father hire a nurse. Or are they going to pay you a salary?” She could be as cutting as Tana when she tried, but Tana was undaunted by her.

“Not at all. I'm going to split the rent with him.”

“You're out of your mind. The least he could do is marry you, but I'd put a stop to that.”

“No, you wouldn't.” Tana sounded strangely calm. “Not if I wanted to marry him, but I don't. So relax. Mom … I know this is hard for you, but I just have to live my life my own way. Do you think you can just try to accept that?” There was a long pause and Tana smiled. “I know, it's not easy.” And then suddenly she heard Jean crying at the other end.

“Don't you see that you're ruining your life?”

“How? By helping a friend out? What harm is there in that?”

“Because you'll wake up next week and you'll be forty years old and it'll be all over, Tan. You'll have wasted your youth, just like I did, and at least mine wasn't a total waste, I had you.”

“And maybe one day I'll have children of my own. But right now I'm not thinking of that. I'm going to law school so I can have a career and do something useful with my life. And after that, I'll think about all that other stuff. Like Ann.” It was a dig, but a friendly one, and it went right over Jean's head.

“You can't have a husband and a career.”

“Why not? Who said that?”

“It's just true, that's all.”

“That's bullshit.”

“No, it's not, and if you hang around with that Winslow boy long enough, you'll marry him. And he's a cripple now, you don't need a heartbreak like that. Find someone else, a normal boy.”

“Why?” Tana's heart ached for him. “He's human too. More so than most, in fact.”

“You hardly know any boys. You never go out.” Thanks to your darling stepson, Mom. But actually, lately, it was thanks to law school. Ever since Harrison, she had begun to feel differently about men, in some ways more trusting and open, and yet so far no one measured up to him. He had been so good to her. It would have been wonderful to find someone like him. But she never had time to go out with anyone now. Between going to the hospital every day and preparing for exams … everyone complained of it. Law school was enough to destroy an existing relationship, and starting a new one was almost impossible.

“Just wait a couple of years, Mom. And then I'll be a lawyer, and you'll be proud of me. At least I hope you will.” But neither of them was too sure just then.

“I just want a normal life for you.”

“What's normal? Was your life so normal, Mom?”

“It started out to be. It wasn't my fault that your father was killed and things changed after that.”

“Maybe not, but it was your fault you waited almost twenty years for Arthur Durning to marry you.” And the truth was that if he hadn't had his heart attack, he might never have married her. “You made that choice. I have a right to my choices too.”

“Maybe so, Tan.” But she didn't really understand the girl, she didn't even pretend to anymore. Ann Durning seemed so much more normal to her. She wanted what every other girl wanted, a husband, a house, two kids, pretty clothes, and if she'd made a mistake early on, she'd been smart enough to do better the second time. He had just bought her the most beautiful sapphire ring at Carder's, and that was what Jean wanted for her child, but Tana didn't give a good goddamn.

“I'll call you soon, Mom. And tell Arthur I said congratulations to him too. He's the lucky one in this deal, but I hope you'll be happy too.”

“Of course I will.” But she didn't sound it when she hung up. Tana had upset her terribly, and she told Arthur about it, as much as she could, but he just told her to relax. Life was too short to let one's children get the best of one. He never did. And they had other things to think about. Jean was going to redecorate the Greenwich house, and he wanted to buy a condo in Palm Beach, as well as a little apartment in town. They were giving up the apartment she had had for years. And Tana was shocked when she discovered that.

“Hell, I don't have a home anymore either.” She was shocked when she told Harry that, but he looked unimpressed.

“I haven't had one in years.”

“She saicL there'll always be a room for me wherever they live. Can you imagine my spending the night in the Greenwich house, after what happened there? I get nightmares thinking of it. So much for that.” It depressed her more than she wanted to admit to him, and she knew that marrying Arthur was what Jean wanted, but somehow it seemed so depressing to her. It was so ultimately middle class, so boring and bourgeois, she told herself, but what really bothered her was that Jean was still at Arthur's feet after all the crap she had taken from him over the years. But when she told Harry that, he got annoyed with her.

“You know you've been turning into a radical, and it bores the hell out of me, Tan.”

“Have you ever considered the fact that you're more than a little right wing?” She started to look uptight.

“Maybe I am, but there's nothing wrong with that. There are certain things I believe in, Tan, and they aren't radical, and they aren't leftist, and they aren't revolutionary, but I think they're good.”

“I think you're full of hot air.” There was an unusual vehemence about what she said, but they had already disagreed about Vietnam several times. “How the hell can you defend what those assholes are doing over there?” She leapt to her feet and he stared at her, there was an odd silence in the room.