Across from Tom’s room was Barbara’s room. Or room-to-be. If anything could win over the girl with the snapping black eyes and fourteen-year-old world-weary precociousness, surely it would be that room. That alcove was just made for a canopied bed; the perfect spot for a makeup table was just under the window. Barbara would need an extra bed for a girl friend to sleep in…or didn’t girl friends spend the night anymore at Barbara’s age? Surely, at fourteen, she wasn’t already dating…? Uncertainty flickered through Susan’s mind, and her instincts told her to tread carefully with Griff’s Barbara. The child hid her feelings very well beneath a torrent of teenage rhetoric, but the atmosphere between her and Susan wasn’t friendly yet. How could it be? Susan would be taking her mother’s place, a role she’d better step into very carefully…

“Susan!”

She rushed back to the hall, barely aware that she had wandered. Next to Barbara’s room was a huge bathroom with a monstrous claw-foot tub and the original pull-down chain for the john. The light came from a crazy little skylight in the ceiling; sun-drenched by day, that corner was, in Susan’s mind, already filled with lush ferns and other moisture-loving plants. She would find a small, fluffy rug that was colorful and soft, but not so big as to hide the patterned-tile floor.

The last room before theirs was to be Tiger’s, and Susan unconsciously paused again. At ten going on ninety, that little imp had to be the easiest to win over. On first meeting, he’d dunked her in the pool. Not much on formalities, Tiger. There were certain priorities in life: What are you doing in my dad’s life, strange lady? rated far below Can you swim? Throw a beach ball? They could cover one wall of his room with cork and fill it with color and brightness…