than the average housecat. And even Mother, Paulie suspected, was opposing thembecause whoever ended up in that mansion would be established for all time asthe leading branch of the family, and Mother couldn't stomach that, even thoughby marrying Mubbie she had removed herself from all possibility of occupyingthat position herself. At home she talked all the time about how her brothersand sisters put on airs as if they were all real Brides but the spunk was gonefrom the family after Mother and Father died when they went out sailing on theChesapeake and got caught in the fringes of a spent hurricane. "Nana is the onlyremnant left of the old vigor," she would say.

"Drooling and grunting like a baboon," Father would always answer, then laugh asMother ignored him.

"She still understands what's going on around her," Mother would say. "You cansee it in her eyes. She can't talk or eat because Parkinson's has her, but it'snot Alzheimer's, she's sharp as a tack and I have no doubt that if she couldwrite or speak, she'd wipe my brothers and sisters right out of the will. Andsince she can't do that, she does the only thing she can do. She refrains fromdying. I admire her for that."

"I refrain from dying every day," Mubbie would say, every time as if he hoped itwould be funny if he just got to the right number of repetitions. "But you neveradmire me for that." At which Mother always changed the subject.

The conversation in the hall went the rounds until finally Aunt Rosie said, "Oh,never mind. Weedie's never going to bend" -- Weedie was Mother, who preferredthe nickname to Winifred -- "and Nana can't live forever so we'll just go on."

They went away and Paulie wondered how Nana would feel if she could hear the waythey talked about her. Didn't it ever occur to any of them that maybe she wouldbe just as happy to be rid of them as they would be to be rid of her? Paulie