Beautiful Faces

My readers know by now that I’m obsessed with faces!

I recently searched with Google on “beautiful faces”, and got lots of hits, though of course the tastes of people posting pictures of beautiful faces and my tastes do diverge to a minor degree.  Many of the faces were of famous actresses and models, and yet others of nameless women and girls.

Then, to my surprise, I found a photo containing a number of faces, all well known.  I thought I saw repeated faces, and I puzzled over them a little, until I was stunned to find what was really going on: the faces were being merged in pairs!  The first set of four faces merged belonged to Angelina Jolie, Ann Hathaway, Charlize Theron, and Elisha Cuthbert.

These women certainly have four of the most beautiful faces I know, but what is more amazing is that they must have been selected for ease of merging!  Reading on, I found four more faces merged, then four more, and finally yet another four.  The total list is:

Angelina Jolie, Ann Hathaway, Charlize Theron, and Elisha Cuthbert;
Hilary Duff, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel;
Kiera Knightley, Kate Bosworth, Kristin Kreuk, Mandy Moore;
Megan Fox, Monica Bellucci, Natalie Portman, and Scarlett Johanson.

I have my preferences; the women in the second set of four are certainly charming, and have powerful personalities, but their faces —except for that of Jessica Alba— are on the severe side, and they have unfortunately influenced the final result just a little too strongly.  Other faces that are missing, and favorites of mine, are Jennifer Garner, Jennifer Connelly, Audrey Hepburn, Kate Winslett, Isla Fisher, … if I keep going, I’ll find that most of my favorites have been left out!  Still, it was an interesting idea.

Here is the image showing the merging of the first four faces:

This particular merging of four faces was, in my opinion, the most successful.  Unfortunately, the final result is predictably generic, and not very beautiful after all is said and done.  The entire exercise left me surprised; I had not realized how beautiful Kiera Knightley’s face is, for instance; her personality comes across so strong in her movies, that you tend to attribute her beauty to it, rather than to her looks.  In fact, there are slight irregularities in her face that get in the way of her being classified as beautiful.  But oh, her charm!  Never was there so much charm in a face; no one can blush like Kiera can.  The merge of Angelina Jolie and Anne Hathaway is startlingly effective; you can see the potential in each of the two individual faces!  The merging of the other two is not, to my eyes, an improvement on either face; Elisha Cuthbert is a stunningly pretty woman, and so is Charlize Theron, but when merged the result is a sort of girl-next-door.

Reading further, I have discovered that this merging did not originate in the website to which I have given you a link; still, in the absence of a better reference, it is all I can give you at the moment...

Kay

Elly, Episode 6

 [Warning: this episode introduces very adult themes, including incest. Do not read if you are likely to be offended by this material.]

Helen picked Tommy up at the airport with Elly.  Tommy looked Elly over with interest; she had slimmed down, and really did look a sweet nineteen.  Elly scowled at Tommy for staring, and punched her on the arm.  Tommy only laughed.
Tom looked taller and bigger than she had looked that winter.
“Goodness, Tom, what do you eat out there?”
“Steak, mostly,” said Tommy, smiling.  She was beautiful, and had a sort of animal magnetism.  She wore shorts, and a loose shirt over a sport bra, and looked in the pink of health.
A few minutes after they were in the house, Tom and Elly were lying out—‘laying out,’ as they called it, in the sun.  They both had on the tiniest imaginable little bikinis, supposedly specially designed for tanning.  Helen spied on them from inside the house, and learned that Tommy had the wide shoulders and powerful legs of the Nordstrom clan, and the strong buttocks of her mother Elly.  Young Elly had the feminine lines of her grandmother, too, as well as her full, perky breasts.  Helen watched them fool around, but it was clear that though Elly was ready for serious fooling, Tommy only wanted to tease Elly.  It was heartbreaking to watch.  Helen was very fond of Elly, and felt very annoyed with Tommy.
The next day Tommy organized a trip down to Atlantic City, and took Elly with her in a rented car.  Maryssa was there when they set off, and she turned to Helen, wide-eyed.
“She’s really grown taller!”
“And heavier; she’s 195 pounds.  And an incredible sexual appetite.  She had sex with the entire wrestling team last year, I’m told!”
“Good heavens!”
Helen shrugged.  “She was a lovely girl until she left for college.”
“I guess college doesn’t suit everyone, then?”
Helen shrugged.  “These two are the exception.”
“Elly seems really sweet, and intelligent, and well-read, and thoughtful.”
Helen nodded agreement.  Elly had become a completely new person, and Penn State had had a wonderful influence on her.  Helen wondered what lay in store for Tommy.

Elly and Tom arrived back late the following day.  Elly was in tears, and shut herself up in her room, after ripping into Tom at dinner.  Apparently Tommy had been an insensitive pig.
Tom smiled and shrugged.  She was all tanned and golden, and looked good enough to eat, with faded blue jeans that hugged her legs like a second skin, and a loose shirt with several buttons opened, which showed off her bra-less chest.
She sat down, and slowly ate a large portion of chicken, and sat and talked until the others were done.  At least that was good.  Maryssa chatted to Tom throughout the meal, and Tom was very polite and courteous.  As usual Betsy offered to drop Maryssa off, and Tom raised her eyebrow at Helen.
Helen was annoyed with Tom, and simply ignored the unspoken question.  She got the kids ready for bed, tucked them in, while Tom followed her around, watching.
“Tommy, I’d like to have a long talk with you, girl.  I haven’t for a long time.  Except when I was in hospital!”
Tom laughed.  “Sure, sis,” she said, and put her arm round Helen.  They walked slowly to the sofa in the back, and sat down together.
Helen asked Tom about school, and then about the sex exploits, careful not to imply criticism.  Tom laughed and explained that it was all in fun.
“I train with them, you see, and we’re just all guys together.  One day, we decided to train in the nude, and pretty soon we were at it, right there.  Someone told Elly who was over in the pool, and she came to watch.  Once I got started, I was hard to stop!”
She paused and snuggled against Helen.  “I don’t know, sis,” she said, “sex is so much fun, but … it scares me sometimes.  It’s like, if I can have it, I don’t need air to breathe, or food to eat.  You know?”
“Yes … I was young once,” Helen said, but … it’s all gone.”
“Why, sis?”
“I don’t know, darling; it’s just gone.”
“I noticed you sent Maryssa away without a goodnight kiss, or a hug!  Aren’t you in love anymore?  Is it Amy?”
“No … Amy’s found someone else.”
“Then?  Is it some kind of dysfunctionality?”
Helen shrugged.  “After being hyper functional for 25 years, I guess I can take a break without being labeled, you know.”
There was a brief pause, and Tom said briskly, “Let’s go up to bed.”  Helen sighed.  There was so much more to talk about.
They closed up downstairs, and walked up the stairs, their arms about each other.  At Helen’s door, Tom asked softly, “May I come in?”
“Certainly,” said Helen, drawing her in.
Tommy held Helen by the arms.  “Sis … let me make love to you!”
Helen was astounded.  Still, not wanting to appear a prude, she remonstrated gently, “We’re sisters, Tommy; there are good reasons why this shouldn’t happen.”
“I don’t care.  We can help each other out!”
“I don’t need help!”
“But I do,” she whispered.

“Go away.”
It was several hours later.  Tommy had done the unimaginable, and seduced Helen.  Helen had always been reluctant to be firm with Tommy, ever since the younger girl had been born, and this night, too, she could not help being tender and loving towards Tommy.  It had been more than an hour before Tommy had realized that Helen was filled with self-loathing, despite her sweet participation in their lovemaking.  Tommy had begged to be forgiven, and Helen had forgiven her with a kiss, but the chemistry was gone, and Tommy retreated her heart like lead.  She had come to knock at Elly's door, forgetting that she had been mean to Elly the previous afternoon.  But Elly was all she had.
Elly was awake now, and angry.  Tommy’s eyes filled with tears.  She had to confess to someone, and it had to be Elly.  She began to sniff, and soon she was sniffing very loudly, wiping her nose on her shirt.
“Get off my bed, Tom.  I don’t want to talk to you!”  Elly gave her a vicious shove, and got her first clear look at Tom.  And a good whiff of her body odor.  “Whew, you smell like a whorehouse!  Jesus, what have you been in?”
“I just want to talk, Elly!” she whimpered.
Elly sat up in bed, tucking her legs under her.  She pulled up her sheet to cover her precious breasts.  You could tell you were in her bad books if she wouldn’t let you see her breasts.
“God, Tom, who did you spend the night with?  Were you driving around on the prowl again?  Who was it, Amanda?”
Elly couldn’t understand why Tom had come to her, if she had got lucky.  Something was wrong, and as usual, while she figured it out, her mouth was running away with her.
Tom sniffed loudly and said she had never left the house.  Elly continued to guess.  Indignantly she asked if it was Carol, “—the little slut!”  Tommy kept shaking her head, her face buried in her shirt, and suddenly Elly’s eyes grew wide.
“Oh my gosh, you didn’t!!  Please tell me you didn’t!”
Tommy nodded and wept vigorously, silent tears of shame.
“Oh Tom!” wailed Elly, her teeth clenched in frustration, shuddering with disgust, “How could you?  You know she’s too soft-hearted to throw you out!  She’d let you do anything to her!”
It was just barely getting light outside, but Elly turned her reading lamp on, a weak 40-watt bulb.
“Look at me, I’m talking to you!”  Tommy shook her head.  It was too, too awful.  “Okay then.  What happened?”
“She was feeling down … so I went in her room, I thought I was going to comfort her, and …”
“Shit!” Elly cursed softly, and Tommy curled into a ball of misery.  “You— fucked her all night?”  Tommy nodded, a tiny movement.  She didn’t look so big anymore, just a sorry girl who was feeling utterly miserable.
They heard the door to the bath close softly, and the shower come on.  “She’s washing herself,” Elly murmured, her soft heart purged of its anger against Tommy.  Tommy was sorry enough; it remained only to see if Helen was really hurt.  “That’s not a good sign … she must feel dirty, or something …”
Tommy looked up, and she saw her old friend’s face for the first time.  There was new misery in it, at the thought that Helen was disgusted with their act.
“I love her, Elly!” she said, brokenly.
“Of course you do, idiot!  So why did you do it?”
“You don’t understand … I felt … I felt … you know … after a while, I wasn’t just getting my rocks off, it was … we weren’t sisters anymore, Elly!”
“Yuck!” Elly said, grimacing.  She looked at Tommy, her fingers curled in disgust, but was unwilling to condemn her.  “It could happen … you didn’t grow up together!”
“It’s no excuse.”
“But you’re not sisters.  You only have two grandparents in common.  It’s like cousins.”
Hope lit up Tommy’s eyes.  “So it’s okay, then!”
“No, it isn’t.  She was in love with Maryssa, and you’ve sort of … raped her.”
“She wanted it, after a while!”
“That’s what every rapist says, Tom.  Get serious.”
There was a long, miserable silence.
“What shall I do?”
Elly felt great compassion for Tommy.  It helped that she had loved her for as long as she could remember.  She had loved other girls, but Tommy was truly the pole star of her night sky, the one unwavering love that had warmed her heart for all of her life.  What she wanted most was that Tom should become Tom again, not this egocentric, inconsiderate hedonist that she had become.
“I don’t know, Tom … you decide, and I’ll help.”
Tommy was shaking with the reaction.  Elly didn’t look as if she would touch her, though there was kindness in her voice.  Tommy was grateful for Elly’s quickness to forgive.  She would always love Elly, but her lust for Helen was something she could not understand, something different from the soft, warm, tenderness she felt for Elly, the love she had thought she could forgo for a semester or two.  But she had been wrong.
“Hold me!” she begged.
“Not until you have a bath,” Elly said, shaking her head in honest distaste.

The next day at breakfast, it was clear that Helen had been crying.  Her eyes were red, though she smiled at the children cheerfully enough.  Tommy’s eyes were red, too, though she, too, smiled at the kids, and nodded at their plans for the day.  It was Easter Sunday, and they usually went to church, but it didn’t seem to be happening.
“Are we going to church?  Why don’t we get ready, while Aunt Helen and Betsy decide?” said Elly, cheerfully.
“Church?  Do we want to go?”  Helen looked lost.  Suddenly, from being the calm organizing force she had been for two months, Helen was tentative and unsure of herself.
“Yes, we’re going,” Elly said.
Since New Year’s, they had attended this little oddball church near the house, a mixed church with both black and white people.  It was never crowded, and the music was awful, but it was church.  Betsy shepherded Carol into their little suite and promised they would be ready.  Betsy was very religious, but kept her preferences completely in abeyance to Helen’s.
Helen looked around, and found everyone gone except Tommy.  She smiled briefly then slowly moved to the stairs, her eyes lowered.
“Sis?”
“Yes, Tommy.”
“Can I talk to you?”  The words were barely audible.
Helen nodded and waited, still turned away.  Tommy had never seen her so defensive; Helen had always called the shots, however lovingly.  Helen was afraid of her now.  Everything about her declared it.
Tommy stood and came close, without touching her.  “I want you to forgive me!”
“No, Tommy; I’m the one who should have known better!  Let’s forgive each other … and forget it.  We have to get past this!”
“If you’d be more comfortable going to church, I’ll stay home!” Tommy offered.
Helen turned to her and looked so miserable and uncertain that Tommy’s heart quailed inside her, and she took a step back.
“I don’t know whether I should go, Tommy!”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore!”
The whole conversation had been conducted in an undertone.  Tommy heard someone emerge from Betsy and Carol’s side of the house, and she hurried up the stairs, past Helen, hoping she would follow.  Helen looked where Tommy had glanced, and followed Tommy, as if caught doing something suspicious.  She leaned against the door to her room, as though she was afraid Tom would force her way in.  Tom felt even worse than before.
“You should go, sis!!” she said, fervently, her voice quiet but full of conviction.  “God knows you’ve never done a hurtful thing in your life!”
At that, Helen burst into tears and went into her room and shut the door.

Tommy looked for Elly everywhere, and finally found her in Alison’s room, braiding her hair, while Carol was helping James tie his new shoes.
“Elly!” she whispered, from the shadows near the door, “Elly!”
Finally Elly looked up, and her eyes went wide as she saw tears running down Tommy’s face.  She dropped Allie’s braid and hurried to the door, looking a dream in her Easter dress.
“What now?” she demanded in a low voice.  “Did you talk to her?”
“Oh Elly, she just started bawling, and locked herself in her room!”
Elly was furious.  “Tom, get a grip on yourself, and go help the kids!  Wash your face first!  Jesus,” she muttered to herself, “what’s wrong with her?”
Tom went in the bathroom and cried for a few seconds, then washed her face, and hurried out to the room the girls had been dressing in.  There was plenty to do.  Where’s Elly, they wanted to know.  Tom just asked whether she could help, and Carol came to get her hair done.
“Oh, your hands feel so good!” Carol said, and Tom felt terrible.

Elly knocked, and finally just went in.  Helen was lying face down on her bed, and got up in fright.
“It’s just me, Aunt Helen!” Elly said softly.  Helen sagged back, wiping her eyes.  “Why are you crying?  Can I help?  Do you want to talk?”
“No, darling … I … I’m all confused, and …”
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, and into your clothes.  Here, wipe your eyes, sweetheart … oh … look how red your eyes are!”  While Elly talked, she bustled around, cleaning Helen up, distracting her, not giving her a chance to collapse and refuse to go.
Elly picked out a simple beige suit for Helen, with an off-white blouse; something unstructured and feminine, and presently Helen began to put on her hose and her bra, and Elly said a silent prayer of thanks.
“I know it’s Tommy,” Elly whispered.  Helen stopped dressing and turned her attention to Elly, ready to drop everything and talk.  But Elly kept fastening up the closures, and talking at the same time.  “She came crying to my room, and I couldn’t get any sense out of her!  After you’re ready, I’ll go see to her.”
“See to her, Elly!  I … I don’t know if I’ll go …”
“You know if you don’t, we’ll all stay …”
“No; if the girls are dressed, they should go.”
“Yeah; they’re all ready!”
“Then, you and Betsy …”
“You have to come!”
Helen looked just overwhelmed by it all.
“Aunt Helen, should I get Tommy to go, or should she stay behind?”
Helen looked at Elly, suddenly still.
“Did Tommy tell you that … last night, we—slept together?”
Elly was watching Helen carefully, expecting a long negotiation, and this direct question took her by surprise.  Helen’s face was expressionless, but her feelings were clear.  She was thoroughly unhappy, distressed and shocked.  She kept going purely on the force of Elly’s persuasion, and any moment she could simply give up.
Elly began to shake her head, then nodded slowly.
“I don’t think she was thinking, Aunt Helen!  I know you’re hurt, and she’s hurt, and I … I shouldn’t try to interfere, but I’m hurt, too!  I just feel … if we go to church together, we might feel less terrible!”
“I hope so, darling!” Helen said, barely audibly.

Elly got Tommy into a decent dress and hose, and a reasonable pair of shoes.  She refused to put on makeup, and they all looked rather like a funeral procession, except for Betsy and Carol, who looked wonderful.  Helen, Elly and Tommy sat together, Tommy with her head hanging low, Helen with her eyes downcast, and Elly looking thoughtful.
The children sang sweetly, recognizing some hymns, learning others as they went along.  There was the usual sermon about resurrection and sins and the usual themes.  Helen couldn’t resist stealing a glance at Tommy as they left church, and she caught Tommy glancing at her, and suppressed a blush.  The innocent love they had known was gone, and in its place was this uncomfortable feeling of intense curiosity, desire, lust.  Tommy’s spring dress was now too tight for her, and she kept trying to ease her shoulders.  Helen kept remembering how those arms had held her, how firm that young body had felt, and how those rosy lips had kept her prisoner.  It was wonderful, disturbing, exciting.
She had to get away to think.  With Elly feeling sorry for them both, it was impossible to think at home.  Helen had to get to Maryssa’s house and simply lie down and think.
They got home without incident, and Helen hurried to her room, picked up her phone and started to dial.  There was a knock at the door.  Elly came in.
“Knock and wait, Elly.  Wait until you’re called!”
“I’m sorry!”  Elly just stood there, looking upset.  “Tommy says hi, and she wants to know whether you’ve forgiven her, and what she can do to make it right!”
Helen took a deep breath and let it out.
“Come in and lock the door.”  Elly complied, looking frightened.
Helen put her arm around Elly, and Elly leaned into her, her fear finally relaxing.
“I just need to be alone, Elly!  I—I can’t deal with this, I just … can’t! ”
“You can!  I’m here, I’ll talk with you!  You’ve done so much for me, let me do this for you!”
Helen shook her head vigorously rejecting that idea.
“You have to help her.  Where else can she go?”

Having set Elly the task of talking to Tommy, Helen escaped to the Brooks’s home, and Maryssa puzzled over Helen’s odd behavior for several hours, after which Matt dropped Helen off at her front door.  She still did not drive after the accident, and anyway the old Cherokee was no longer in service.

Helen went inside, to see the family seated round the table, playing Monopoly.  Tommy was winning, and everyone was arraigned against her.  Helen felt sorry for her sister, and went to stand near her and watch, silently lending her support to the beleaguered girl.  Every move she made was met with resistance, complaints, mean remarks!  She wasn’t allowed any of the breaks the others gave themselves, all illegal, anyway.
Elly grinned at Helen, trying to convert her to their side.  She loved Tommy, but this was war!  Betsy sat on a side, reading, an amused look on her face.  She had supported Tommy, too, but Tom had done so well with ruthless cunning and disregard for the feelings of others, and in everyone’s opinion —except Betsy’s and Helen’s— Tom deserved no support!
Elly finally realized that Helen was going to stand by Tommy, no matter how much the others protested.  All the others had been asking Helen to come help them.  She watched with amazement when Helen began to massage Tom’s shoulders affectionately.  After her crying fit that morning, this made no sense!
Elly looked away.  “Aww, Tommy has a friend!” chanted Carol.  Elly glanced quickly back, and saw both sisters flush.  Tom affectionately rested her cheek on Helen’s hand, acknowledging Helen’s support.
Elly found it harder to concentrate on the game.  Something was happening across from her on the other side of the table, and Tom was making mistakes, too.  Was Helen deliberately distracting Tom?
Suddenly Tom was hit by one of those strange quirks of the game, and was assessed for taxes, and had to sell a lot of property to pay them.  Helen stood by, her hand gently resting on Tom’s shoulder, saying nothing.
After a while, Tom invited Helen to share her seat, and the two sisters were seated together, and Elly began to understand the complexity of the situation.  And Tom landed on Elly’s property, which she had just developed to the maximum.  Suddenly she was richer than Tom.
The game wound on, and Tom was run into bankruptcy, and Elly had the most money.  They decided to stop playing, because they were so happy Tom was broke!
Helen stood and asked quietly, smiling round at them, who was going to help with supper.  It was going to be fish, and she was going out to get it.  Of course they all volunteered, but Helen chose Tom.
Elly sighed as she watched the two of them put on their sweaters for the trip out to the store.  It was a bitter-sweet feeling when she saw Helen look up at Tom through the corner of her eye.  She was behind them, so she had only a restricted view of it, but it was the kind of look a girl gives someone when she almost dares not look, but must look.  It was the kind of coquetry she never expected from Aunt Helen.  And she saw Tom’s neck redden, as she opened the door for her sister.
She herded Ruth to the bathroom for her bath, after which it would James’s turn.  They had been playing out in the yard and were rather grubby.  As she undressed Ruth, she wondered what Tom had set in motion.  She had never seen Helen so flustered.

In the store, Tommy saw some flowers, and contrived to buy them without Helen seeing.  She hid them in the car, and went back inside to join Helen, burning with excitement.
“Where have you been?” Helen asked, and Tom heard the pleasure in her voice at seeing her again.
“I was off looking at something,” Tommy said, vaguely.
“What?”
“Oh, you know, the, er, Swimsuit Issue!”
Helen blushed prettily.  “Jeeze, Tom, …” she glanced around, as if to check whether they had been overheard, “if you want it that bad, I’ll buy you it!”  She seemed amused.  “I thought you were beyond just looking! ”
Tommy chuckled.  “You can never stop looking,” she said.  Helen picked up the magazine, coloring a little, and put it in her cart.
As luck would have it, their checkout clerk seemed interested in them.  They had a pleasant time flirting with her, a pretty young thing with short hair and a charm in a cord around her neck.  “Have a good holiday!” she said, and they wished her the same.
After Helen had put the supplies in the car, she turned to find Tom silently holding out a dozen beautiful long-stemmed roses.  Her eyes were troubled but pleased as she accepted the offering, and held her face up for a kiss.  She had worn her glasses, and looked uncannily like Elly in her expression.  Tom felt trapped in the tender net Helen seemed to be weaving.  One part of her mind knew it was pure instinct, and Helen had no wish to harm Tom, or keep her for herself.  But another part of her mind felt Helen was an adult, able to deal with emotions effectively and correctly.
The feel of the soft lips on her own aroused Tom even more.  They awkwardly separated, and Helen nervously put the flowers away, murmuring soft words of gratitude and pleasure.  Helen got in, and waited for Tom to shut the door.
“It’s the first time, after the accident,” Helen said softly.
“First time what?”
“Oh, … driving,” Helen said.  “You should put your seatbelt on.  See, that’s how I’m alive, Tom.”  Tom obediently put on her seatbelt.
There was a silence, as the power of the feeling between them seemed to gather to an unbearable pitch.
“That was very sweet of you, Tom,” Helen said softly.  “You have no idea how … wonderful it feels!  Like …”  Helen broke off, sniffing emotionally.
“You get flowers all the time, at concerts and stuff,” Tommy said gruffly, clearing her throat.
“Yes—yes, I guess I do!”
They were home.  Tommy got out, and gathered most of the bags, and held the door open for Helen.
Ruth wandered in, dressed in her sleep clothes, and Helen put her in her high seat with a kiss, and gave her something to do.  No others bothered them; they were left alone, and they cooked, talking little, enjoying being sisters, enjoying how similar they were, how similar they looked, the secret things that only they knew.  Then Tom came behind Helen and put her arms round her, and rested her cheek against Helen’s, and subtly they weren’t sisters anymore, not exactly.
“Mmm!  That smells so good!”
Helen gently pushed Tom away and turned to smile at Carol, and the others trooping behind her.  The meal began, with Helen trying to fill the awkward silence with a question or two, and soon James was telling some long story.
After dinner, Tommy pulled Elly aside and told her that she had bought Helen flowers.  Elly looked upset, but only nodded.  “I left them in the car,” she said, “What shall I do?”
“You gave them to her, right?”
“Er, yes.”
“Let her do what she wants, Tom; maybe she doesn’t want people asking questions!”
Tom nodded, coloring a little.
Ruth was asleep in her little seat, the others were heading down to the TV room to watch a special episode of Galaxy.  Helen and Tom converged on Ruth at the same time.
“I’ll do it,” Tom said, earning a shy smile of gratitude from her sister.  It was incredible, as though she had discovered a woman she had never met before, a woman, moreover, who was incredible, whose company gave Tom a strange, wonderful pleasure.  There was the same need to be with her sister, now, as she had felt with Elly in their teens, when it was agony to be parted from her.

They watched the episode all seated together, and it was a super one.  Helen was the central character again, in the role of Athene’s advisor.  (In the Galaxy story, Athene was a clone of Helen’s character in the show, Cecilia.  Athene had been left with a team of settlers on an Earth-like planet they had discovered.  The Advisor was an implant in Athene’s brain, which was a distillation of Helen’s memories, which Athene referred to as she needed.)  Unfortunately, the planet was subtly hostile, and the settlers were having a terrible time.  Amanda, the actress who played Athene had been made up to look even more like Helen, and she looked almost exactly like Tom!  In the story, Athene had fallen in love with the leader of the team, a man much older than her, and was subtly influencing the success of the mission.  She had given birth to twins, two girls, and was an incredible worker, looking after the children, helping to guard the camp, taking her turn with the men in exploration and scientific work, fighting for her rights.
The two-hour episode was a wonderful study of the psychodynamics of a small group.  Because of the added resource of her implant, Athene assumes the burden of camp counselor, even to women who view her as a rival.  Finally she brings dance and art into the community, as they strive to become more than mere survivors.  The episode encompasses a year in the life of the expedition, and ends with their thanksgiving celebration on the anniversary of landfall.
“Whew!” exclaimed Betsy, as the credits drifted by, “if that doesn’t win an Emmy, nothing will!”
“Really?” asked Elly.
“Well, look at how much care has gone into it!  Look at the writing, for heaven’s sake!”
“Yes, it’s wonderful writing,” Helen agreed, feeling pride in her team.  She mumbled something about how comfortable the words had felt when she read them.
“Let’s put on the evangelist!” Elly said, mischievously.
“Yes,” said Tommy, “I want to hear this feller.”
“Carol, would you take James upstairs, please?”
“But I want to see the evangelist!”
“I’ll take him up, Helen,” Betsy said, smiling as always.  “Maybe you can tape the evangelist for me, for when I’m feeling dangerously happy!”  They chuckled while Elly found the spot.

“The Lord accepts even the most wretched sinner!  No murderer is too guilty, no deed too foul for the Lord to forgive.  If she repents, she will be forgiven!  It was not the Lord who smote her, no sir!  It was not the Lord who laid her low.  It was that evil thing whose servant she was!  He smote her.  He smote her!  It is a lesson to us all.  The devil is a treacherous friend, indeed!  He raises you up, then he casts you aside.  But the Lord saved her, he sent rescue.  If she repents, as surely she must, she will be saved.
“Some time ago she spoke to the media.  She claimed to not understand my words.  She used all her high learning, her big words, to twist my words, to make it appear as though I was a simpleton, uncertain of my thinking!  But God’s wisdom is the foolishness of men!  Man’s logic is a pitiful thing when compared to the wisdom of God.  God’s word has stood for ages.  His word will live centuries after her achievements are forgotten!  Tomorrow, if …”
“Good grief,” exclaimed Tommy, he’s talking about Sis, isn’t he?  Again? ”
Helen looked shocked.  She knew she shouldn’t, but it was so unbelievable that the man should talk about her even after two months!  Did he talk about her every night?
“He’s obsessed with her,” Elly murmured, staring at the screen, as the man talked on and on.  There was nothing to be learned there.  Why did people watch him?
Long after the others had lost interest and gone, Elly watched the program, searching for some insight into the meaning of the man, his obsession, and his message, if there was one.

Tom watched through the window, unseen, as Helen went out to the car and brought in the bouquet of flowers, standing just outside the door to bury her face in them.  She brought them in, and Tom went silently down the stair to see what she would do.  She found empty bottles, and carefully trimmed the long stems, and arranged them in the bottles, looking at them with her head on one side, her face flushed with pleasure.  Tom went upstairs to her room, dressed for bed, and lay down, her head awhirl with wild, delicious, dangerous, salacious thoughts, thoughts that kept her awake, longing to hear her sister’s footsteps in the hall outside.

They drove Tommy out to the airport, and Helen and Elly watched as Tommy headed out through the gate, a tall, golden figure, so gloriously beautiful she seemed almost apart from the other passengers.  The almost colorless hair of her childhood had become a kind of sun-shot honey-blonde that was like a banner, floating high above the other heads of both men and women, telling them where Tommy was.
Once she disappeared from view, they turned away without a word and headed to the car.  Elly studied Helen surreptitiously, and saw the little signs of sadness she was expecting, the same disorientation some of which Elly was feeling herself.  But, miraculously, there was a light in her eyes, a sharpness that had been missing for months.  She wasn’t herself, the old Aunt Helen, not by a long shot.  But she was not the dull creature she had been before the break, content to putter around the house, who only really woke up when Maryssa was around.  That imagination was alive again!


Amy and David were married later that Spring.  Elly worked hard at school, and finished the semester in triumph.  She was the top in each of her courses, and all her classmates had learned to view her with respect.  She chose to spend the early part of the Summer with Helen in Philadelphia, and Tommy, again, chose to come join them right after school let out.
Tommy was bronzed and beautiful.  She had been swimming all semester, and she had tan lines in the shape of the sexy racing swimsuit she wore.  She had won two long-distance events in the intercollegiate meets, and had been feted as a possible swimming phenomenon.
Alone with Helen and Elly, she described how girls from her own school, who didn’t know her, and from schools to which they traveled for swim meets, all got crushes on her, and gave her little presents, and wrote her notes saying they liked her.  “People I don’t even know!  I mean, they haven’t really talked to me, or anything, right?  So one of them passes this little bag to me, and it’s a little Teddy bear key chain, and a note saying please write to me, and her email address, and a little picture of her!”  Tommy was a little red, with embarrassment and something that looked suspiciously like excitement.
“Let’s see the picture, girl,” said Elly, grinning, and Tom pulled out her wallet, and showed them four pictures.  “Oh jeeze, four! ” They were quite cute, too; some of them were in swimsuits.
“They’re so funny.  I’m adjusting my leg-band, and this girl is all eyes.  I ask, you like my legs?  She blushes and says, you look really strong!”  Tommy threw out her arms in mock helplessness.  “And afterwards, we go out to dinner, right?  And these girls, wearing next to nothing, right?  They all want to ride in the back of this one car with me!  Four chicks piled on top of me!”
“Bet you loved that!”
Tom laughed lightly.  She wore a dress with a tiny skirt, and bare legs.  Her legs were big, and she liked to sit with her legs thrown out wide, and her flared skirt tucked in between them in a slutty way.
“It gets better,” she said, looking nowhere in particular.  “One time, two of them slept with me.”
Helen and Elly expressed amazement.
Tom shrugged.  “It’s really a different culture.  They’re very simple and direct about sex, and they go to bed easily with a visiting team.  I was farmed out to the girls in the team, and they had decided I was going to sleep with these two, and we all got naked, and it was a sleep-over.  They got into bed with me, and we watched some dirty movies and petted a little, and then we get into bed and screwed around all night long!”

Helen was appalled, but she seemed to remember that at least a few of the girls in the swim team in Ohio had been very physical that way.  It didn’t seem appropriate to use the word promiscuous in connection with them, but over time, in some cases at least, it did seem to develop into the unfeeling and indiscriminate sex habits with which the term had come to be associated.
“Aunt Helen, since it’s just the three of us, couldn’t we get some adult videos and watch ’em?  Huh?”

It started innocently enough.  The girls got a couple of videos, and they watched them, all three of them the first night, and after that, Maryssa joined them.  They were fair, and Helen was surprised that some of the girls were really pretty, and some were very sweet, too.  Others were ugly, had ugly voices, were clumsy, or had badly done breast implants that made them look hideous.
“Jeeze,” Helen complained, what’s wrong with these people?  That was the worst thing I ever saw!  It was as believable as …”
“It isn’t meant to be believable, Sis, it’s just fantasy!”
Helen shook her head.  “There has to be some element of believability,” Helen insisted.  “Anyway, the next one has some of my favorite people in it!”
“Oh yeah?  Let’s see: Megan Miracle, Loretta Luscious, and Rohana …”
“Yeah,” sniggered Tom, “their names are usually the best part.”
“Rohana is just beautiful!”
They began to watch.

The several days of total absorption in watching pornography had begun to make Helen nervous.  She was, on principle, determined not to object to it as such, but she could see that the summer was about to be frittered away with little to show for it.  All four of them, what was worse, loved to watch the things, even if they were appallingly bad.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, Elly was the one who called for a slowdown.  Helen had given her a generous allowance, and then Helen got an old-fashioned letter from Janet, thanking her for helping to turn Elly around in her schoolwork, with money for Helen’s expenses enclosed.  Helen gave it all to Elly, privately, exhorting her to spend it sparingly.
“I’d like to send it back,” she had said, not bothering to hide her troubled feelings, “but I guess Jan needs to feel that she’s still your mother, Elly!  You know I love having you here!  You made this Winter and Spring so much more bearable than I had any right to expect it to be.”
Elly had taken the money reluctantly, not meeting Helen’s eyes.  “Tommy will want to get pornos with it,” she murmured.  “I’ve still got a lot of the money you gave me, Helen.”  She had taken to calling Helen that under the influence of Tommy and Maryssa.
“Well, let her do the buying, for a change!”
“Oh, she’s spent all her money already!”
Just then Tommy was heard coming in the door, and the little conversation had to be ended; Tommy came looking for Elly.
“What’s up?” she asked, seeing them talking.  It was a casual enough question, but the other two knew that she hated to be left in the dark about anything.  Elly quickly said that her mother had written to Helen, and sent some money.  “She’ll want some idea about how I spent it,” Elly said, “so I’m not going to blow it all on pornos.”
“Fine!” said Tommy, grinning.  “We’ll get summer jobs!”

The two girls set out separately to find work that very afternoon.  Finally, Elly came back, exhausted.  Helen was just finished cleaning the kitchen when Elly dragged herself in.
“How did you make out?” she asked, not too eagerly.  She like having Elly around the house, and secretly hoped she’d find a little work that would allow her to stay home most of the time.
“All the good jobs are gone!” Elly lamented.  “Taken, taken, nothing left.”  She collapsed on a chair.  She had dressed in a businesslike way, in a skirt and light sweater, her hair neatly braided, and wore a purse on her shoulder, instead of the little backpack she normally carried around.  “But I got something; waitressing.”  It was a children’s theme restaurant, one that they had often laughed at.  But it was now becoming a place where teenagers got together, just for laughs.  “Where’s Tommy?”

Helen said that her sister had left a little after Elly.
The door opened, and there was Tom, looking smug.  She wore a brightly-colored summer dress with bare legs and sneakers, and Helen could see Elly’s eyes moving over her with mixed approval and envy.
“Hi, everybody!” she called, and swaggered over.  She had the greatest swagger, Helen thought.  She eased into a chair, her legs spread carelessly wide.  Helen frowned, and she grinned and crossed her legs demurely.
Elly said that she had a job starting that evening.  “How did you do?”
“Oh, working mornings at BNB!”
BNB, as it happened, was an enormously successful bookstore and music chain of which Helen was the principal shareholder.  Acquiring the majority shares had completely wiped out Helen's corporate savings two years ago, but the chain had prospered under Helen's ownership.
“BNB!  I never thought of them!  Which one?”  Tom described which store it was.  It was one of the nicest BNB stores they had seen, with the toniest restaurant attached, near the richest residential area in their vicinity.
“Hell, Sis owns them, so I figured, why not?”
“I don’t own them, kid, just a majority share.”
“What’s the difference?  Anyway, I didn’t mention you at all!”
“Shit; you work days, I work nights, … this is terrible!” moaned Elly.
“Aww, you can get a night off, now and then!”
As they walked off arguing, Helen shook her head.  Elly was a real beauty, and there wasn’t a man alive who would have denied her a job if he had one to give.  But this was Elly: she was in one of her phases where she wouldn’t use her feminine wiles to get a job even as a last resort.  Tommy, in contrast, had rather a plain face.  Her body, too, was not pretty in a traditional way; her muscular upper-body was rather too masculine, but her sleek legs did catch the eye.  She had dressed deliberately to draw attention to her legs, with the short, short dress, and had made up her face with just a touch of color here and there that made it look more interesting without her appearing to be dolled-up.  Finally she had put on a bracelet, which softened the look of her arms, and evidently it had been all she needed.  She looked effortlessly upper middle class, lightly tanned, a rich girl out to get summer employment for a lark, and that was what the stores were looking for.  When she wanted to, Tommy could be as classy as anyone, and the problem was that she didn’t want to most of the time.
“When do you start?”
“Tomorrow, of course.”
Elly chewed her lip.  “Do they have more openings?”
“Oh … I’m sure they do,” Tommy said, gesturing airily.  “Wanna come along and ask?”
“Why don’t you ask, for me?”
“Me?”  Tommy looked doubtful.  “I don’t think that would be so good.”  Helen agreed that often stores wouldn’t hire friends, for fear of too much visiting.

Elly dressed carefully for work.  She was supposed to wear all black, and black hose.  She could wear a moderate heel, and after a week, she could ask to wear platforms.  “I’d rather not,” she muttered.  Helen had trimmed her hair neatly, and braided it.  It shone, sleek and neat.  Elly had a thick head of silky hair, and looked very elegant with her long braid.  Her head was just a tad large for her body, but her lovely eyes and long eyelashes distracted from it.  Her full figure was nicely proportioned, and she wore a firm supporting bra.  Helen knew her to be a flirtatious girl who liked fun as much as anyone, but when she dressed for work, it seemed that she dressed seriously.
Elly insisted that Helen should take her to work the first day.
“Why, darling?  Tommy would love to do it!”
Tommy nodded, grinning.  But Elly wanted Helen.
“You don’t have to get out of the car, or anything!” he said, pleadingly.
“How about both of us?”
“Fine, but you must come!”
There was a slight drizzle of rain as they headed out, and it was a little overcast.  Elly was nervous and talked all the time, until they were on the street of the restaurant, when she went completely silent.
They reached the restaurant, and Elly asked them to stop some distance from the entrance.  “Wait until I come out and wave, okay?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know … what if they decided they didn’t want me, after all?”
“Hah,” said Tommy, “they’ll want you, all right, looking like that!”
“Tom! ” Elly was indignant.  “I dressed as modestly as I knew how, you pig!”  She punched Tom on her arm.  Tom only laughed.
Elly got out cautiously, and stood, looking at the restaurant, and the people going in.  Then she saw another girl walking in the back door, obviously another worker.  She got out and quickly walked out to the restaurant.
“She has worked before, hasn’t she?”
“Oh sure,” Tommy said.  “Not waitressing, though!”
“Oh dear.  They’re throwing her in the deep end, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know,” Tom said, shrugging in the dark.  “Maybe it’s not such a busy night, or something.”
Elly’s upper body leaned out, and she waved to them.  Helen waved back, and drove slowly away.  She would call when she was done.

Back in the restaurant, Elly was greeted pleasantly, and given her uniform apron, and the pieces of equipment she was to use.  The lady in charge, a vivacious Italian woman of about forty, looked her up and down, and nodded with approval.
“You dress very nicely, Elly!”
Elly blushed and nodded.  The woman explained that there was a back room where the family ate, and she would practice on them first.  “They like to have fun, so watch out!”  Elly grinned.
It was informal to begin with.  The men joked around and gave her a hard time, but the older lady, presumably one of the matriarchs of the family, spoke slowly and carefully, ordering something fairly complicated.  Elly’s coach, the woman, stood at her shoulder, watching and encouraging her, and to Elly’s delight, it went perfectly.
Then she had to help carry an item out to the main floor, lay a table that had just been cleared, and then it was waiting until the family order was ready.
“Relax, Elly, you’re so tight!” the woman said, patting Elly’s back.  She rattled off something in Italian to Elly, and watched closely.  “Don’t speak Italian?”
Elly shook her head, wide-eyed.
“Not Italian?  There has to be some Italian in you, dear!”
Elly shook her head again and smiled apologetically.  “I’m all German, ’sfar’s I know,” she said, shrugging.
The woman grinned and nodded slowly.  “Well, Germans are all right,” she said, her eyes twinkling.  “So long as you don’t eat their food!”
The meal was ready, and she had to serve it.
She only spilled the water in her excitement.  Some children had been brought in, and it was getting tight around the table.  Everybody helped, and soon Elly was feeling better.  “Water—no problem,” they insisted.  “Marinara sauce, now—oh, that’s bad!”

The phone rang around 1 in the morning.  Elly sounded happy and excited.  Helen said she would be there in 10 minutes.
She knocked on Tommy’s door, and heard a mumbled reply.  She went in, and stood transfixed.  Tommy was naked, busily masturbating with an enormous dildo.
Not pausing an instant, she gasped for Helen to shut the door.  Helen obeyed, and stood watching like an idiot.  Tommy was almost home, and her arm moved like a sewing-machine, and the fury of her movement made Helen wince with pain.
Disgusting as it was, it was also beautiful.  Tommy’s eyes were closed, and her body so tense, there was a strange grace in it.  Then she began to slow, and gradually stopped pounding herself, concentrating on crushing her breast with her right hand.  She was a left-hander.
“Elly’s ready to come home,” Helen said, stupidly.
Tommy panted, eyes still closed.
“Need little time … must get dressed …”
“Do you mind, Sis?” Helen asked, meekly.
“Nah … just need to wash up a bit …”
She suddenly sat up in bed, and threw the dildo at the foot of the bed.  Then she sprang out of bed and strode around, trying to calm down.  Helen marveled at her.  How little she knew her sister!  Suddenly Tommy headed straight for Helen.  She grinned and lifted her bodily and set her aside, as she headed for the bathroom.

Elly was radiant but tired when they picked her up.  It was still raining, but the rain seemed to evaporate as it touched her.
“It went well, I take it?” Helen asked, smiling, as she drove off.
“Oh man!” said Elly, crushed against Tommy on the front seat.  “It was so busy!”
Tommy’s hand settled round Elly’s breast, and she sighed and batted against Tom’s face.  “Stop that,” she chided gently, “wait till we’re home!”
“I can’t; you’re so cute,” Tommy said.  She was.  It was almost frightening.

[K]

Elly, Episode 5

Soon, only Helen, Betsy and her kids, the Californians, and Elly, Amy, David and Ruth, Allie and James were left. The house seemed empty without the others. She called Westfield and said she wanted to take a semester off without pay, and the Dean said that would be perfectly acceptable. She was told that a small proportion of the students who had initiated requests to transfer had in fact changed their minds. They were going to be disappointed, but he hoped that Helen would return for at least a year, before she decided to leave the school. Helen rang off in a very disturbed mood.
Betsy began to assume that they would be based in Philadelphia for the next four months. She looked up schools, and Helen suggested their neighborhood Quaker school. She looked to rent a smaller home in a quiet neighborhood large enough to accommodate both families, and found one. David decided to head off for Westfield and initiate a search for a replacement. He had come in to Helen and laid his cards on the table. He wanted to have Helen adopt his child. He would like to be with Helen or near Helen, it didn’t matter, as long as he could be near the little girl as much as he could.
At the end of the week, they all moved to the other house, which was just a little smaller, but had a little fenced-in backyard. School was starting the next Monday, and Carol was resigned to going to a new school.
Helen took Elly to the local branch of Penn State, and she registered, and Helen paid the fees.
There was a line behind them of the varied types who enjoyed the bounty of Pennsylvania’s state higher education system. Helen gently herded Elly out, noticing curious glances in their direction. (Helen still looked familiar from certain angles.)
“That’s it?”
“What do you mean?”
“No applying for admission, yadda, yadda?”
Helen grinned. “Hoping to be rejected, were we?”
Elly looked startled for a fraction of a second, and then grinned. “Oh you kidder, you!”

“It’s really happening!” Helen said with wonder a short time later, as Helen, Amy, Elly, Betsy and the kids sat visiting with Sita and Lalitha. “We’ve got the schools all lined up …”
“For all the kids …” said Elly, with a wry smile.
“… yes, indeed; for all the kids …”
“My school sounds really different. At least it’s a nicer building.”
Carol always seemed to speak in code; you had to know what she was thinking. At least Helen understood about the school having a nicer building; the Friend’s School had a lovely old building, far more attractive to the romantic heart of young Carol than the warehouse-like home of Westfield Middle School, which must have been built in a fit of pique by the School Board.
“Gena loved it,” Helen said. “She loved the kids there.” Carol merely shrugged, reserving judgment.
“I won’t know anybody,” remarked Allie, whom Helen had neglected rather badly this holiday. She was working a tapestry from a kit someone had given her, and showed an interesting ability to sew and talk at the same time.
“Well, they’ll like you,” Helen said with confidence. It was impossible not to like the little five-year old, who did not seem to have a single flaw in her character.
“You’ll know little Gracie,” Sita pointed out. “She’s looking forward to going to school with you!”
Allie just smiled shyly and nodded. She had beautiful manners that came from the heart, out of a innate desire to make life pleasant for everyone. It was a trait she shared with all the Nordstrom kids, even James, who was just a tad more egocentric than the others.


Life in Philadelphia
Slowly, life in Philadelphia began to take its pattern. First, Elly learned to use the transit system, and find her way to and from school. Initially she grumbled a little. She didn’t like the kids, she didn’t like the courses, and most of all she didn’t like the trip to school and back. She didn’t whine, but when Helen—or anybody—asked her, she was prompt, precise and articulate.
At first Helen agreed with her, and quietly explained the different philosophy of such schools. “They’re principally for people who have been left behind, see, people who had to work right out of high school, or women who married early, and so on. Even people who get laid off their jobs, and need to qualify for a different kind of job. The whole …”
“And people who get thrown out of school. Right?”
Helen looked at her sharply, but then smiled. “Not primarily! Anyway, probably the one common denominator that I think I have noticed in so-called non-traditional students is that …”
“They’re dumb!”
Helen put her arm around Elly and smiled and said very gently, “Listen, sweetheart! Being able to put yourself inside the skin of other people; it’s a wonderful thing to learn! Please bear with me. I’ll make this short!”
“Okay,” said Elly in a low voice, looking fixedly in front of her. Helen studied her, somewhat taken aback.
“What was I saying … oh. No, they’re not stupid; it’s more subtle than that. Many of them have had great responsibility, lots of experience, done many things that you couldn’t do if you were dumb. It’s that … they want to be told what to think. They’re ready to learn information, not thought-patterns. The idea of learning new thought-patterns comes easily to younger students. To older, more experienced students, life has taught them that there’s right, and then there’s wrong. That’s what’s kept them alive and safe: doing the right thing. Trying to think how a Roman would think, or Mozart would think is very, very hard!”
“Uh huh,” said Elly. “Well, as I see it, that’s a kind of dumbness, too!”
“Oh, I don’t know. I had several older students, and it was getting pretty bad. The younger kids thought I would have to go at the pace of the older folks, and the older folks thought I was crazy. It was grinding to a standstill, until somehow a rivalry cropped up between the smartest kid in the class, and the oldest student, a little old lady.”
“Huh.”
“I just accidentally showed each set what the other set was doing!”
“Slimy!”
Helen laughed. “They needed that. The interaction made it happen. It’s true in every class I’ve taught; there’s always one or two kids who make the others believe that it can be done!”
“Aunt Helen, this shit is so freaking easy, it isn’t worth doing. I did harder things at Ferguson. I swear; we did this stuff in seventh grade! These people are morons!”
Helen smiled. “So you think you’re going to be the top of the class?”
“In English class, sure! Heh heh! Aunt Helen, you haven’t been in that class! It’s a total joke!”
Helen was disappointed and angry, but she smiled. “Hang in there, Elly. Don’t make it look too easy!”
The grin faded from Elly’s face. “You don’t believe me!”
“Don’t get mad, Elly, I’m only guessing. You have to believe I’ll be only too happy if you have an easy semester and great grades—don’t you?”
Elly shook her head. “I don’t know, Aunt Helen. I don’t know whose side you’re on, sometimes. I used to think you’d always take my side, no matter what happened! But I guess you’re too canny for that. I have some growing up to do. I thought I was smart, but I’m obviously not smart enough to argue with you!”
“Elly,” said Helen in a reasonable voice, “I’m trying to do something very different from what you’re thinking! Heaven knows I could use a little ego boost, but you must believe I’m not going to do it at the cost of humiliating you! No, I’m trying to give you a little insight into the mind-set of your classmates, so that you can respect them.”
Elly smiled sardonically. She only shook her head.
Helen sighed.
“Will you do me a favor?”
Elly shrugged.
“I feel … almost exiled from the academic world, sweetheart. I would love it if you would share a little of what goes on in your classes with me. Just so I can feel mentally alive. And I’m sure it’ll be beneficial to you, too, to have someone to talk to.”
“Yeah, okay. I have to go. Homework, you know.”
“Okay.”

Elly slouched away not looking back. But once she got into the dark of the living room, she looked through the intervening space to spy on her aunt. Helen was a demoralized figure, holding her head in her hands. Helen’s thought that she was in exile resonated strongly with Elly. The words had rung true: Helen was in exile, just as she, Elly was. It was a horrible, horrible feeling, and for once Elly was taken out of herself, into Helen’s mind, with an appreciation of Helen’s idea of getting inside someone else’s head.
For years, Elly had imagined that being Helen was pretty much the same as being Elly, except taller, older, more talented, and in a different situation. Tonight, she had begun to wonder at the thoughts and hopes that motivated Helen, as things she might not understand fully, but which she could appreciate to a degree. But the thought that Helen considered the motivations of Elly’s humble fellow-students of interest; that was a revelation. However much Elly pretended to scorn Helen’s words, Helen was still very high in Elly’s esteem. It all began to come together in Elly’s head —perhaps not consciously— that taking her fellow-students seriously was important. It was a very thoughtful Elly that moved away from the service-port.

The following week, Carol, Betsy’s younger daughter, began school with Allie. James went to pre-school. All three children found their classes much more diverse than they had been in Westfield. Carol was full of her interesting classmates, some of whom were as interested in ballet as she was, and told her all about the best places to get ballet lessons. Allie was equally excited, and told Amy in detail about the friends she had made, and how Gracie had introduced her to her friends.
James was the most matter-of-fact about his experience. “Yeah,” he said, “I had a good time.”
“Met a lot of kids?”
“Well, yeah. Lots of kids.”
“What kinds of kids? Indian, Black, Chinese, Arab, what?”
“I don’t know,” he said heavily, as though it hurt to think about it. “All sorts, you know. There’s a kid from … Ingen … Ingines … sump’n like that, …”
“Indonesia?”
“Uh huh. Ingenisia. Nice kid.”
It was all Helen could do to keep from hooting with laughter. This new cool James was just too much!

In spite of her tendency to interfere in some of Helen’s activities, Helen loved Ruth dearly. Every day, their bond grew stronger. Elly often found the two of them having a serious discussion when she came home from college. She was the first home, usually, since the others went home with Gracie and had tea with the little girl’s family first, before coming home. Elly arrived around four thirty on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and that’s when Helen was usually talking to little Ruth. The little girl even slept with her some nights.

Amy suddenly decided to visit Westfield. She told Helen she was going, and simply left one day.
“Where’s she going?” Ruthie asked, as soon as Amy had been picked up by the taxi. She hadn’t even asked to be taken out by Jim, but insisted on taking a bus. (Jim was on Helen's payroll, her transportation manager.)  Helen had never taken the bus, and was afraid it would take all of a day. Amy wasn’t angry, she had said, just impatient. Doing nothing in Philadelphia was dull.
“She’s going to Westfield. That’s where Daddy is!”
“Oh. Amy talk to Daddy?”
“Sure. Does Ruth want to talk to Daddy? Yes?”
“Uh huh. Telephone!”
“Right now? You’re ready? Talk to Daddy with the telephone?”
“Telephone!”
Helen dialed. She felt rather excited and a little shy as she waited for an answer.
“Hello, Westfield Veterinary Hospital, how may I help you?”
“Er, Lisa?”
“Yes, who is this please?”
“It’s Helen. Helen Nordstrom!”
“Oh, hi! Well, Doc went home early! He’s … well, I don’t know. You should check on him, Miss Helen.”
At least she was talking to her, Helen thought. She had half expected to be no longer on speaking terms with anybody.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh … this and that, you know. He … I think he’s depressed. He leaves early every day, and comes in late.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Well, you see, we got a new doctor, right? And he’s a total asshole. Never goes out of the office, gets me or Dr Powers to do everything. I don’t know why he bothered to apply, because there ain’t no way he’s gonna get a second year!”
“Gosh. So David might as well be working alone, huh?”
“Yes! All he does is give the occasional pill or injection, that’s all. Mostly just injections. Pills are too much work, I guess.” Just as Helen was beginning to feel like a heel for encouraging David to move to Philadelphia, Lisa asked, “When you coming back, Miss Helen? Dr David might stay if you come back. I think he misses you and the little girl something awful. I read in the papers about that accident! You okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine, Lisa,” Helen said quickly. “What did the papers say?”
“We heard you was lucky to be alive! Is that true? They do tend to go overboard around here with their stories, like if you caught a cold they’d say you was dying. So ignorant!”
“No, it was bad. The Cherokee was totaled.”
“Jeeze!”
I had to have all sorts of stitches. It was exciting!”
“Oh, be careful, Miss Helen; if anything was to happen to you, Dr David and the little girl will go crazy. How many stitches?”
“Oh …” Helen didn’t know. All she knew was that there were lots. “I don’t exactly know; around fifteen, maybe twenty?”
“Holy Jesus! On the nose, the head? Where?”
“On my cheek, a cut through the eye, on my scalp, … all over!”
“Good god! The baby … we heard you …”
“Uh huh. Well—there’ll be another time,” Helen said. She began noticing all the little aches and pains that she had gotten accustomed to over the last week or two. The greatest ache of all was in her womb, for this child she had so looked forward to seeing—to meeting— at last!
“That is so hard. I can’t imagine what it must feel like!”
“It’s all past, Lisa; I’m over it now.”
“You can’t possibly be! I can tell from your voice!”
Helen sighed silently.
“Miss Helen, where’s the dog? Is she out there in Philly with you?”
Helen remembered the dogs with a start. Anne was looking after them, supposedly.
“No, they’re right there in the house. Damn, I should check on them …”
“Tell Dr David to check on her; it’ll be good therapy for ’im. Oh Miss Helen, he’s in a bad way. Oh, here I am, pestering you, when you’ve got your own troubles!”
“I think I will ask him,” Helen said, smiling. That was Lisa all over. She was a soft-hearted girl who doted on David, but had a long-standing relationship with her young man which was not about to break up any time soon. She had her man trained, and wasn’t going to give him up.

“Hello?” The voice sounded a little dull for late afternoon.
“David?”
“Oh, hi!” Helen could hear him making noises, and imagined him getting comfortable. “I should have called, huh.”
“There’s somebody who wants to talk to you!”
“Who?”
“Hullo!”
“Hello, darling! How is my little girl?”
“I’m fine!” Ruth’s eyes lit up as she chattered to her father about Amy being on the bus, and she would be talking to him soon.
“Amy? What did you say, Ruth? Where has she gone?”
“She’s coming home! She’s coming see you, daddy.” Helen caught her breath; Ruth was putting on an innocent interpretation on Amy’s trip that might be difficult to resolve tactfully.
David asked to talk to Helen, and Ruth reluctantly gave the phone to her, looking a little cheated.
“What’s this about Amy?”
“She wanted to get back to Westfield; I think she’s just generally upset, and she hates having me in the house all day.”
David groaned.
“I talked to Lisa,” Helen continued, “and she told me about the new fellow.”
“Yeah, what can I say. Some people …”
“Don’t drink too much, David. I would help you if I could see my way through all this!”
“Just hang on, Sweetheart … I’ll come back as soon as I can get away. I’ll have to advertize again. Oh god, it’ll be a mess. I should just give him his walking papers.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“I … I’m too upset.” Helen felt his weariness in her own bones. Everything was going wrong.
“How are you eating?”
“Oh … spaghetti, you know; same old.”
“Maybe you and Amy can fix yourselves up a nice meal together!”
“When is she getting here? The one bus gets here around 11:30, and the other gets here around 8:00 at night.”
“She left in the morning, around 10, so …”
“That’s the 8:00 bus, then. It goes all over; Beaver Falls, Grove City, …”
“That’s the one!”
“I’ll pick her up.”
“She only brought one small bag.”
“It’s just … the thought of being met, I guess.”
“And check on the dogs, David, Anne is supposed to be looking after them.”
“Yes, I checked already. I met Anne; they’ve done a good job.”
They talked a little more, and Helen gave the little girl another few minutes, and after some sad goodbyes, they hung up.

Amy had set out with a lot of spirit, having finally decided to do something about the frustration that had weighed her down for weeks. She had expected many things, none of which had materialized. At first she had expected that Helen would quickly decide between David and Maryssa. She had no idea which one she would choose, though she had hoped that the little girl Ruth would win. Though Helen thought of herself as a slave to sex, Amy had come to believe that a stronger force had come among them, namely little Ruth. She had hoped that while she was away in France, Helen would have come to an understanding with the poor widower. It was almost the only outcome Amy could stomach.
The accident had shaken her utterly. It was days before she understood the sequence of events that had led to it; none of those in the house knew, or if they knew, were in a fit state to explain. Amy had returned as soon as she could, all her angry thoughts about Helen forgotten. It had been heartbreaking to see the woman all bandaged up, and something like fear had touched Amy’s heart. Helen had become a refuge for her, someone who was invulnerable, someone who would look after Amy, though for years it had been Amy that Helen ran to in illness or in a crisis. The sight of the photographs of Helen's crushed face had not helped.
Then Helen had gone off to the Brooks mansion, and Amy had had to keep things going at the house. Janet had been wonderful, as always, but now rather absent-minded. Tommy, Helen’s strange half-sibling, was remote and detached, but she kept track of Helen’s progress in the hospital, took messages, and kept little Ruth entertained.  Elly was shocked and upset, but helped as she could.
It had been David who had helped keep the house going, shopping, cooking, calming them down, being a solid presence. Amy often gazed at him when he wasn’t looking, full of sympathy for him, disgusted with Helen for not accepting him long ago, and being done with it.
As the bus wound it’s meandering way through the hills of Pennsylvania —who knew there were so many blasted hills?— Amy grew impatient, hungry, and as the sun began to set, which it did very early, Amy’s mood began to sink with it. The house would be cold when she got there. She would have to walk from the bus station, unless she called Jim up, and she associated Jim with Helen —even though Jim had been nothing but kindness itself to Amy, comforting her when she and Helen had had one of their frequent falling-outs. Her stomach was yelling for food, but the last time she had tried to get a bite, the bus had almost left without her. It was very dark, now, and the bus’s headlights cut a tunnel of light through the woods through which they were going. Several times a deer stepped onto the road in front of the bus, and the driver merely swore at it, and slowed down. The deer walked off, and they continued. Damn that stupid Helen! God, she was so dumb, to let a deer send her off the road.
“Westfield coming up, folks. We’re right on time.” Her fellow-travelers, all six or seven of them, had been calling ahead to be met. Amy was the only one who wasn’t being met. The gloom she felt was awful.
Westfield looked so unfamiliar from this approach; they seemed to have circled round and come into the town from a direction Amy had never suspected to exist. There was a small gathering of cars and people.
The door opened, and there was a blast of wintery weather blown into the bus. Amy was the last to get up, and the last out of the bus.
Suddenly, a tall friendly shape lumbered over.
“Hi, Amy!”
“David!” Amy grinned her pleasure. She forgot the entire journey she had been hugging to herself, planning to feed her misery with it for days. She put her arms around David, only caring that there was someone there to meet her. David returned her hug, patting her back. Words were not needed.
The driver was waiting for them so Amy could get her bag. David picked it up, and in no time they were in the Toyota, which started up with a slight hiccup, and they were rolling smoothly along, warm as toast.
“How did you know I was on the bus? Helen, huh?”
“And Ruth! They called around three.”
Amy sighed. “I don’t know how you stand her, David …” Amy smiled to soften her words. “… she’s impossible!”
“Oh dear! What’s she done this time?”
“Nothing, … just been her usual self-centered self, I guess!”
“Lounging around, leaving all the work for you, I bet!”
“She’s working, I’ve got to grant her that. She’s up early every day, at around five, and gets breakfast for the children. But Elly helps a lot.”
“Uh huh,” David said, encouragingly, smiling in the dark.
“Then she gets them ready. Actually, she has them all help each other, even that crazy Carol.”
“She is a strange child! But she seems to be more relaxed, now. She was strung a bit tight.”
“Oh man, was she ever.”
There was a long silence. They had got to a more familiar part of town, and were headed towards the farm. The town was still decorated up for the holiday season, as if it was waiting for Helen to come and admire it. The whole world loved and hated Helen, and Amy was getting heartily sick of it. From a distance, in Ohio, Amy had been able to deal with it fairly philosophically. But being right in the middle of it had been a nightmare. It would have been fine if they were still a team, Amy realized.
Amy had been quiet, thinking. At last she said, “She takes good care of Ruth, though. They’re always playing, or talking.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen ’em.” David scratched his beard. “I’m surprised how domestic she is. Like a big old country girl. I guess you can take the girl out of the farm, huh?”
Amy chuckled. She wasn’t ready to feel good about Helen just yet.
“Why did you decide to come back early?” asked David quietly.
“I don’t know,” said Amy, honestly. “I’m all … at odds, in Philadelphia. I’m a fifth wheel.”
David sighed gustily.
The farm came into sight. The dogs were out, and six pairs of eyes looked at the car silently.
“Hey, aren’t they supposed to bark?”
David grinned in the dark. “I guess they know the Toyota’s sound,” he said. “It’s kind of distinctive.”
They drove in, and Amy saw that the snow had been driven over on the exact same places a number of times. It was nearly a foot deep. The dogs had worn down a clear patch near the little dog-door to their house.

Some minutes later, David was helping to put away the supplies he’d bought for Amy, while she cooked up some spaghetti for them both. They ate, and Amy invited him to stay to watch the movie that was showing on TV. When that was over, she asked him if he’d help her get her car started in the morning.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll be here at seven, that all right?”
“Perfect!”
“Thanks for everything, Amy. Good to have you back!”
Amy grinned and held out her arms for a hug. David hugged her. She felt good, and smelled nice. It didn’t seem quite so lonely any more. Amy was a lot of fun. A lot more fun without Helen around to annoy her.
“Miss that girl of yours, don’t you!” she said, letting him go.
His smile faded, and he nodded. That was that. There was no more to be said.
He made one last round outside the house, followed cautiously and silently by the dogs, gave the mother one last affectionate scratch on the shoulders, and drove home.
Amy watched him drive off through the front windows, and was surprised at the fact that she no longer felt lonely. In fact, she felt excited and happy, but exhausted. She took a long hot shower, and went to bed.

Towards the end of February, Amy wrote Helen a long letter, confessing that she and David were in the process of falling in love.

“Darling, thinking back, I have to admit that, without my conscious mind knowing it, I wanted to find David, and see how he felt about me. It happened slowly, but it was like a glacier, impossible to stop.
“He was very clear about this. He loves us both. Having known you for so long, I can believe that there are others who are like you, in love with a dozen people all at once, and that some of them must be men. If you had come back, instead of me, he would have fallen for you all over again. But he felt you pushing him away, and this is what happened.
“Still, it is lonesome, with just the two of us. Is there any way you can share the children with us? I miss Allie and James desperately, and David misses Ruth. He misses our little ones, too. I realize that you don’t owe me anything. But maybe you can find it in your heart to do it for old time’s sake. Any or all of them! Please think about it.
“Now, away from the frustration of watching you suffer, and the constant irritation of your affair with Maryssa, I know I will love you always. The possibility of not loving you any more was the worst fear that hung over me. Now I know that won’t happen. You have given me some of the happiest moments of my life. God didn’t mean us to be a couple; we were intended to be like this, a place to which the other could go when things go wrong.
“The dogs are waiting for you. Every time a Cherokee goes by, the big female pricks up her ears! They’re content with David and me, but she’s given her heart to you, and will pine until you get back.
“I just know that you will forgive me and David for what we have done. We’re happy now, but who knows about the future? Write or call, I want to hear from you. I love you,

Amy.”

Helen handed the letter to Betsy with a sad smile. But she felt a joy that made her want to sing. Amy’s unhappiness had been a burden, and so had David’s misery. This was far, far better than she could ever have hoped for. Amy had tactfully avoided mentioning the obvious: that she was now free to declare her love for Maryssa, and to move in with her.

Life went on for several weeks. Helen replied to Amy and David as warmly and as gently as she could. She expressed her pleasure in their happiness, and her hope that their love would last. She said she couldn’t bear to part with the children, any one of them.

Amy, you know how beautifully little Ruth has blended into the family; she’s adopted James, Allie and Carol, and has sort of forged us into her own little family. Perhaps it is our daily routine that makes it so. Come the summer, things could be different.
You could definitely look forward to having some or all of the children over the Summer, including Gena, Erin, and Krissy! I don’t know what will happen to me; I live one day at a time—or one week, when things are going really well—and I’m afraid to imagine what the future will bring.
Maryssa and I have found a good place for us. We’re in love, but for the moment it’s a kind of sexless thing. We spend a lot of time together, me watching her and being in seventh heaven, her puttering around, just happy to be near me, I guess. I haven’t had sex with anyone since the accident. But once that dam is broken, I don’t know what will happen. I’m afraid that sex may kill what I feel for Maryssa, and what she feels for me.
I know I should come visit the dogs, but I have to confess that I’m too embarrassed to face you both. I’m afraid that I’ll do or say something unbelievably stupid, and hurt your feelings! But I simply have to come, I know. I’ll work on it.
Everyone sends their love. (Anyway, I’ll make them, shortly!) Love to both of you,

Helen.

Elly gave up any pretense that her courses were a joke. She was working furiously, not merely to get an A, but to be the top of the class. There was a new pride in her, and Helen wrote a cautious note to Jan, telling her that things were looking good.
Suddenly, it was spring break time. And Gena decided to spend it with Krissy, the girl whom she had met over the Summer, and who had become her best friend over the Fall.  Meanwhile Tommy decided to spend Spring Break in Philadelphia.

[K]

Elly, Episode 4

Dave couldn’t bear it any more. “We must have a tree,” he said. Helen’s eyes lit up. It had seemed a thankless chore, until Dave showed up.

“I’ll arrange for one,” Betsy said with a smile.

Dave was adamantly opposed to that plan. He wanted to go get a tree that he, personally, had marked for cutting down. “I want to pick it out,” he said, in case someone hadn’t been listening.

They got into his new jeep, a second-hand Toyota, and headed out where Becky had directed them, to find a Christmas-tree farm, out north on the Turnpike. “Here’s the exit,” Dave said, while Elly still battled with the map.

“Wait, wait! Don’t turn off until you get to Exit 33!”

“This is Exit 33!” they yelled in chorus.

With some difficulty they did find a tree farm, and Dave triumphantly bore on his shoulder a modest seven-foot little tree that seemed to hate to leave his little spot. Dave cleverly cleaned up the lower limbs right at the farm, saying that they were less likely to put the debris in a landfill. “Landfills are the worst,” he revealed. “Just remember that.”

A short time later, the tree was up, well watered, and the tree lights Elly had found earlier were put to good use. Betsy turned out to be a genius at decorating trees. But sensing that Helen and Dave wanted to have their turn at it, she professed a fear of electrical things, and left the lights to the delighted pair. As Elly and Betsy watched from a safe distance, with much billing and cooing, Helen and Dave got the lights on.

“Not bad,” granted Betsy, with a critical eye.

“We just shouldn’t have watched,” said Elly, pretending to be sick.
“She’s very protective of them,” Betsy said softly. “Especially after the accident!”
“What accident?”
“Didn’t she tell you?”
“Well, I guess not!”
Betsy recounted what she knew of the incident, how Helen and Amy had gone out to check on little Ruth when the father and daughter had hit a big buck on their way home from the children's playground. “She came back, and was full of how terribly it was, and how she wanted to help clean up the place, and make sure Ruth was okay.”
Ruth, who was with them, looked up at them, wondering if indeed they were talking about her. She pointed at the tree and whispered that Mama was putting lights on the tree.
“Yeah, we know,” said Elly, not unkindly. “You’re gonna make one heck of a spy, you know that?
Betsy nearly exploded.
“Hey folks,” yelled Helen, “Lookie, the lights are up!”
Muttering something sarcastic, Elly brought up the rear, as Betsy and the baby hurried up to congratulate the electricians.

The next few days were taken up with helping Helen's cousin Marika finish off a Christmas Special of celebrations around the world. It was originally supposed to have been given free to PBS stations across the country, but since Helen's reputation had hit the skids, the Special was not wanted anymore. Only the faithful Galaxy studios were interested in publishing it as a DVD. Helen and crowd went into Helen's Philadelphia Office, run by Becky, the manager of Helen's various financial affairs, to send the special off to Seattle, the home of Galaxy Studios.

While they were talking, the Gigabyte or more of the special had been humming over the wires. After Becky and Helen had finished talking, they found Marika chatting with the bosses at Galaxy over the line.

“They want to know if you’ll give a Christmas message to the Galaxy fans!”
“Jesus, why don’t they simply call me?”
“Oh, oh, oh! Sorry, Aunt Helen, I guess I forgot to give you back the phone! Oops!”
“Elly, did you have it turned off, silly child?”
“Sorry! It was such a nuisance!”
Helen took the phone from her, and turned to Betsy. “Do you think Santa might be able to afford a phone for the wretched child?”
“Wretched child! Hey, at least I don’t go calling you names!” Elly did her best impression of indignation. Then she spoiled it by thanking Helen and giving her a little hug.
Helen looked up the calls she had missed, and dialed the Galaxy number.
“Hello, this is Helen!”
“Good heavens, we’ve been trying to reach you for the longest time!”
“Yes, well, my phone was kidnapped by a hostile power!”
“What about the message?”
“I’d love to! I was so sure no one wanted a message from me any more!”
“Oh, no; this is for the Galaxy fans. Just happy holidays, and a bright new year, should do it.”
Helen turned to Marika. “What do you think?”
“How about right here, with little Ruth? I can do it with my little camera…”
“We have your old camera here, Marika,” Becky said, with her permanently relaxed crooked smile.
“Oh, perfect! Come on, everybody, into the picture!”
They all protested, but Marika insisted. Dave tried to stand furthest from Helen, but got caught in the frame anyway.
“Hello,” Helen said, “this is Helen Nordstrom, with some of my friends and co-workers in our Philadelphia office, wishing all you Galaxy fans a happy holiday, and a wonderful new year!”

IN the days that followed, Helen welcomed her family, now greatly reduced, to the Philadelphia house. Everyone was introduced to Maryssa, who kept asking Helen to restrict the number of new people she was introduced to to one a day. The process would have taken a week, at that rate.
As Christmas Eve drew near, the little Christmas tree had to work hard to accommodate all the presents that found their way under it. Every night, elves would come down the stairs to put things under the tree, and when one elf met another, there would be excited squeaking. “Jesus,” one elf would say, “you scared the shit out of me!” And the other elf would say, “the same to you, and a good thing the lights were out!” And they would giggle, fight over who got to put his or her present furthest to the back, and chase each other back up the stairs.
Finally it was Christmas Eve, and after a day of excitement and anticipation the littlest ones —and Lisa— were in bed, and the other were watching TV. Unexpectedly, Helen was the unfortunate witness of one of the most vicious personal attacks on her to date. A TV personality showed a clip from Helen’s movie Helga. Helen had just been passing, and stopped out of curiosity when the clip was being shown—a rather innocuous one, at that. To her horror, the man proceeded to say: “Look at her! The Whore of the Galaxy!”
Dave leapt to his feet, his face red. Helen shrank away, her face white. She simply couldn’t deal with the hatred she saw on the man’s face.
“Turn it off,” David said. “Change the channel!”
“I want to see what he says!” cried Elly. “He’s so funny!”
“Turn it off, please!” David was beside himself. “Oh yes, that’s the funniest thing I ever heard,” said David, and his voice shook. He saw Helen, with a stricken look in her eyes, and Elly began to realize how hurt he was to see Helen insulted so. “You could sue them for slander,” he said, “and I’d help you! We’ll break them!” His voice was cracking in shame.
“David, you’re angry! Never make promises in anger!” Helen was calm now, beyond anger. She was focused on how her shame hurt David.
“Angry! He called you a … Jesus, Helen, this is going way beyond free speech!”
“Jesus, sis, he’s right! We’ve got to put a stop to his foul mouth. He’s the one who’s been fueling all this filth. My god, to say such a thing on Christmas Eve! Has he no decency?”
John, Helen's step-brother, only echoed all their sentiments. Grandma Elly and Janet were speechless, while the others murmured their disgust in a confused, sympathetic murmur. Little Elly was only beginning to feel the full sense of what had happened, while Tommy --Helen's step sister, and Little Elly's longtime love, was quietly and silently crying.
“I don’t care,” Helen said quietly, “I don’t care!”
That finished the night for them. When midnight came, and all the rejoicing, they could barely stand to watch. Tommy found Helen staring out into the street, and silently put her arm around her. Jan came round the other side, and stood, trying to think of some way to comfort her.
“I had no idea how vicious it was,” Jan said. “It’s the first time I’ve seen the poison first hand!”
“Poison!” Helen laughed. “Yes. Of course you wouldn’t. We’re out of the habit of watching these kinds of shows.”
Helen watched John and David arguing animatedly in low voices, presumably planning some kind of counter-attack. Marika and Elly were waiting for her near the stairs, the two she felt most comfortable facing. Elly looked pale, but Helen saw a hardness under the surface, the hardness Helen had felt inside her off and on for days, but which had largely left her now. It took too much energy to sustain it. Marika only looked concerned. Unlike Elly, she was too pragmatic to be vengeful.
“Don’t let it eat at you. Only a few eccentric people think like that, Helen. You can’t let imbeciles get under your skin. You’re a hero to me, you always have been, and always will be!” Helen leaned into Marika’s embrace and allowed herself a sigh of gratitude.
Seeing Elly look concerned, she felt pity on the youngster. In three years she had a feel for the idealism that a sophomore could feel, the intense frustration with the perversity of adults. She reached out an arm to this blend of genius and goof-ball who was in some ways the first child of her heart, and Elly came close.
“The guys are planning some action,” she said, with controlled fierceness. “I think we have a good idea,” she added, implying that she had helped.
“Let it go, Elly,” Helen said, managing a smile.
“No freaking way,” Elly said.

There were a million women out there, doing things that were far more repugnant to conservative Christians than Helen had ever done. But her great sin appeared to be that she had dared to sing the praises of the Lord. And in a strange way, Helen understood their fury. Anyone could understand a devil: devils, after all, were a part of creation. It was devils who were former angels that people hated and feared most. And this was what Helen had become: a symbol of the depth of depravity to which one of the chosen could sink.
Helen softly cried that night, all alone. She had sent David away, saying that she regretted involving him in her sinful life. No matter how much he begged her to forget the incident, she refused to sleep with him, even if all they ever did was sleep.

The following morning, which was Christmas, she said she was sorry, but the incident left its mark on both of them. The children tried their best to keep up the Christmas spirit, but it was heavy going. Helen tried to be cheerful, but the best she could do was to sit in the back, trying not to interfere. The gifts were handed out, and after a while, things seemed to get more cheerful. Little Ruth had lots of presents from everyone—clearly a lot of shopping had been going on the last couple of days.

After lunch, Elly talked the others into making a sortie into the Brookses home, to deliver presents to Maryssa. “Call her and ask if she minds us coming, now that she’s met everyone!”
Diane replied for Maryssa, and happily invited them all to tea.
They saw Maryssa, standing at the top of the steps, flinch at the sight of all of them getting out of three cars. It had been a bright, clear day, and the sun was just about to set. Helen, dressed in dark green, went up the steps first, and tenderly hugged Maryssa, and gave her a small package, just as Diane and Matt came out to greet the visitors.
“Please come inside!” called Diane, in her low contralto. She stood by the door, asking each one who he or she was. Each said she was Helen’s sister, or aunt, or an old friend, as the case was, and shook the old lady’s hand and filed inside.
Faithful Peggy and Bridget were there, beaming at everybody, serving hot spiced cider, and Christmas cookies. Helen and Maryssa were seated blushing on the piano stool, and by the looks on the faces of the family, everyone thought they were a lovely couple. Matt and David seemed to have come to terms with their secondary roles, and were talking quietly by themselves. John, Elly and Tom were together, being interrogated by Diane. Grandma Elly and Janet stood with Marika, commenting on the house and the furniture, and Betsy stood alone, watching them all.

Helen had managed to forget the nasty business of the previous night, until she saw a thoughtful look in Elly’s eyes. Suddenly it all came flooding back. She happened to glance at Maryssa, and realized the implications of having been called a whore. She suddenly felt what it meant for Maryssa to be associated with her.
“What’s the matter? You look green!”
Helen looked at Maryssa, and began to sniff.
A few minutes later, Helen was pouring out her heart to Maryssa, while the little gathering gradually broke up. Elly senior explained what had happened to Diane, who was completely shocked.
“Let her talk to Maryssa,” she said finally, “it’s something she can do for Helen.” She shook her head in disbelief. “It’s the price one must pay for that kind of fame,” she mused.
“We’ll squeeze into two cars, and leave one for her,” old Elly said, taking charge. “She should have all the time she needs.”
“Oh, don’t even bother. We can drop her off!”
Elly shook her head. “She’ll hate to impose. It really is no trouble, since we came in three cars, Diane.”

Maryssa’s eyes were filled with tears, and soon the two of them were crying together, bitter and angry.
“Don’t sue,” Maryssa said, fearfully. “Who knows how they’ll fight back? Can you imagine what they’ll say to someone who sues a religious organization?”
“But how can I be silent when they slander me? Today it’s me; whom will they turn on next? Every one who stays silent encourages them to intimidate someone else!”
“No, don’t do or say anything, please Helen! If you love me, just stay calm and be quiet!”
Helen stared at Maryssa, and made her shrink away at the intensity in Helen’s eyes. “You’re afraid they’ll learn about you, and say something mean about you, too!” she accused. The minute the words left her lips, she regretted them.
“Me?” Maryssa took a few seconds to absorb that thought, and Helen bit her tongue. She couldn’t have been more cruel if she had wanted to hurt Maryssa on purpose. “I don’t care, Helen. I’d gladly let them say anything about me, if they’ll leave you alone! It’s you I’m afraid for!”
Helen felt so small, she felt sick. “I’m sorry!” she cried. “What am I thinking? I deserve to be called anything, the way I just insulted you! I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She was sobbing now, and so was Maryssa.
“Oh, it’s all right, don’t cry!” said Maryssa, and they were weeping and sobbing, quietly, as if their hearts would break.
“Well,” said Helen, “I’d better go! “My goodness. What time is it? It’s almost four!” Her face was a disgusting sticky mess.
“You could stay,” Maryssa suggested, “Matt would drop you off tomorrow.”
Helen stood up and cleaned her face up as well as she could. It was impossible; her face was a disaster. “I better go talk to them!”
“Oh Helen! What a horrible thing to happen!” Diane saw Helen and hurried over on her cane to tell her that the family had left, leaving behind the Cherokee for Helen. “I sent them off, so you won’t be under pressure to leave quickly.”
“They’re gone?” Helen asked, stunned. Somehow she felt abandoned. If only one of them, just one of them, Tom, or Elly—David—anybody!— had waited, it would have been okay. But they’d gone, and left her behind. In the twisted mood she was in, it was one more thought-pattern that added to her rapidly growing insecurity.
“They’ve all gone, leaving a car for me,” Helen reported to Maryssa. “I’d better head out; it’s getting dark!”
“Stay here! Just stay tonight. Your room is ready, and everything!”
Helen shook her head. She was fixated on getting back. It was as though she feared they might go somewhere, and she’d never find them.

A long hour later, Helen was in hospital. The car had slid off the road into a gully, and hit a large rock. Helen had been thrown forward violently, crushing the baby she was carrying. There was just one big cut down her face, from her eyebrow to her chin; she lost two teeth, and had to have major reconstructive surgery. She was in hospital for ten days, and when she was smuggled past the Press out into the Brooks's car and driven out to their home, her face was marked with bruises. She had dental work to replace the lost teeth, but she would never be the same person again.

A week later, the dressings and bandages came off.
Amy came back from France as soon as she was informed. Helen had just been told that it would be inadvisable for her to get pregnant again.

One day in late January, Helen finally made her way to the office, at which she had announced she would give a Press Conference. She was restrained; she did not blame the Evangelical Network for her accident; there were errors in judgment on Helen’s part for which the Network could not be held accountable. After that event, Helen went home with her family, now all of them back from Paris, and spent the weekend catching up with Janet, Grandma Elly, Tommy and John.

The most precious moments were in Janet’s room, with Janet and Little Elly. Elly talked and talked, her brain going at a thousand miles an hour, and Janet patiently listened. Finally Elly demanded why she didn’t venture an opinion. Janet simply said that Elly needed to steer her own boat, and she would stand by Elly’s decisions.
“But Mom, I screwed up!”
“I know, darling, but so what?”
Elly took a long while to accept that there was no degree of screwing up she could do that would make Janet make her decisions for her.
“If you’re afraid of life, and you don’t want the responsibility of making decisions, well, that’s different. But that’s not you!”
“Okay, what must I decide first?”
“Where would you like to go to school?”
“I don’t care. I want to go here in Philly.”
“Why?”
“Because. I like this town. And I want to be near Helen.” Helen was so unreasonably happy she hugged Elly until they both hurt. Elly missed Tom, there was no doubt about it, and she didn’t care who knew, except Tommy herself, of course. And Helen was an acceptable substitute.
“I hadn’t really decided to move here,” Helen said quietly.
“Well, you should,” Elly said calmly. “Westfield isn’t going to work out for you.”

[The next installment: Episode 5]
[K]