Mourning has broken.

What I told him was, 'You'd be a fool to go out on a night like this: never thinking he'd try to live up to the challenge. Sometimes that boy acts like he don't have a lick of sense."

Aunt Ida wiped spittle from the corner of her lips, and I tried not to watch. Her second husband snored on the slipcovered sofa, mouth half open, dentures stacked on the lamp table at his head.

My eyes moved to the fire in the brick wall on the wide end of the room. Family pictures flickered in the orange glow, my brother's face on the mantel alive again.

"So, he was driving?" It was hard for me to find words, hard to know what to say.

"Hell, yes." Aunt Ida stopped for a moment, her head turned up to the heavens. "Jesus, excuse me:' When she paused I thought of my in-laws, how they'd cross themselves, then wait a beat before speaking. "Driving like the fool he was." Aunt Ida exhaled noticeably, her chest sinking slow, a balloon losing air. "I thought you heard all about it. Thought everybody knew."

I never knew Aunt Ida to sound so much like surrender.

"Bobby Junior couldn't never wait for nothing:' Her words were carefully parsed for my ears, words more solemn than her normal sing-song lilt.

"Bobby Junior" I repeated, chewing at the rough cuticle on my thumbnail.

"Good enough boy" she said, straightening the crocheted collar on her Sunday dress. "Good enough." We sat on the edge of the whitewashed bench, hand-stitched pillows propped behind us.

"Good boy" I said in earnest, knowing too late how patronizing it sounded.

I had the best of intentions, returning to the familiar wood-smoke and home-cooked scents of my childhood to offer some consolation to my aunt, who I knew was hurting. For the past decade I'd been only an occasional interloper, pulled between loyalty to my mother and my only blood aunt.

"Good enough," Aunt Ida said firmly, "but he should have known better:' The words hung in the air, timed to Malcolm's snores, the room warm and dry. I pulled at the neck of my blouse, buttoned securely.

"You hot?" Aunt Ida asked, and as I shook my head in denial, the quick light in her deep eyes faded. "Your Uncle Malcolm likes a good fire;' she recited without intonation. "Me, I could do with a cool breeze, even in the dead of winter." She waved one hand before her face like a fan. "But I'm guessing it's just the change."

She tried to wink, moving her eyes to make some connection, but being barely 20, I wouldn't dare meet her glance.

"So where is he now?" It was all I knew to say, the only way I could finally ask.

"Jail" One word, one syllable, one single condemnation. Aunt Ida looked at me, and even the wandering eye stood still.

I think I winced. I know I sat silent. The fire roared, blazing, then rumbled like a train in the distance.

"And Cissy pregnant." I'd meant to phrase it more carefully, but I'd slipped, too comfortable to remember my manners, as the rhythm of the fire and the guileless snoring made the world feel manageable.

"Crazy girl." Aunt Ida said no more and didn't need to. There wasn't a soul who'd deny Cissy was wild. But even Aunt Ida knew that was no excuse.

"Boy was a fool to be driving. Sleet falling so fast, even the best roads were ice. A pane of glass, just like the papers said."

"Iced all night."

"Bobby Junior always had to be somewhere" Her attention seemed to wander with her voice. "'On his way,' Malcolm always says." She nodded toward the snoring, and I quickly acknowledged. Then her eyelids narrowed like a snake's. "Your Momma know?"

I stared at the wide pine boards stretched across the floor, shrugging nay narrow shoulders like an errant child.

"She heard," Aunt Ida said, nodding her head in a slow steady beat, like the preacher leaning back and forth to music.

"Momma's awfully sorry," I finally said without looking up.

"Your poor Momma," she said, patting the back of my freckled hand. Those were words I wouldn't repeat, words repeated too much already. There was no gracious way to remove my hand, no way to refuse comfort I didn't seek.

"Malcolm heard that your mother's been doing better."

Ten years of discussion and diagnosis, my mother's grief her only identifiable attribute. I forged ahead, eager to change the subject. "Have you talked to Cissy's folks?"

Aunt Ida let go of my hand, her head flitting for a moment like a pigeon's. It was the wandering eye, I told myself.

"You should eat something," she said, but I shook my head. "I'm fine."

"You talked to Ida?" Momma asked, pouring weak coffee into china cups Daddy brought home from Germany.

"I went to see her and Malcolm," I replied, spooning non-dairy creamer from the jar.

"Same as ever," she said, and I knew it wasn't a question. 1 sipped and stirred, busying myself with the mundane.

"Junior's just like his daddy." Momma scooted close to the table, the chair's wooden feet scraping dried-out linoleum, and I tried not to wince.

"They'd have been fine as cowboys. Can't do much damage with a horse. But put either one behind the wheel ..."

I stirred and sipped, passing time. There was no hope of changing the subject.

"They know anymore about Cissy?" Momma asked. "Last I heard, wasn't good."

"She didn't say."

Momma leaned back in her chair, heavy and tired. I heard the ladder back groan beneath her weight. "If Ida doesn't say, it's because she doesn't want to. Never could hush that one."

I looked up to find Momma's eyes squarely on mine and wondered why she doesn't have a weak one like Aunt Ida. Otherwise, those gray-green eyes are exactly the same. My thoughts returned to Aunt Ida, who'd leaned back just like Momma, gathering strength before answering the question I shouldn't have asked. I had gone there to listen, not to pry. If she hadn't brought up Momma's condition, I was sure I wouldn't have pressed on about Cissy.

"Her family won't even speak to us? Aunt Ida had looked to Malcolm for support and in a brief, hushed moment, I thought he'd heard. Then he shifted his body, and the snoring resumed.

"Girl's been in intensive care nearly forever," Momma said, interrupting my thoughts.

Twelve days. The math was easy enough, even for me, since the wreck was on New Year's Eve. Momma reached for the coffee pot, but I put a hand over my cup.

"Cutting back?"

I tried to laugh, but found nothing natural to summon. "I've done nothing but drink coffee since 5 this morning."

"Still having trouble sleeping?"

"I don't think of it as trouble, Momma. Some nights I'm tireder than others."

Momma leaned forward. I tried to plant a smile on my lips and in my eyes. "I feel so bad for Cissy's folks" she said, "her hooked up to machines like she is, still in a coma. With Tommy, it happened so fast, we didn't have a choice. Didn't have to make some terrible decision like they will. I think it was easier." She patted my hand, our hearts wrapped in memories of Thomas. Only 7 when he died, neither of us knew who he might have been.

"Uncle Bob was so careless;' Momma said with a sigh, her voice mimicking the surrender I'd heard in Aunt Ida's.

"He paid the price." I only said it because I'd heard it for so long.

"So they say." I saw the look in Momma's eyes, the distant, watching-nothing, seeing-everything look that raises goose bumps on my flesh. I was afraid we were going where we had no business, going where Momma can't stand to be, to the truths and fears and awful reality of a dead little boy that drives her to bed for days without hope of a moment's rest. I got up from my chair and walked around behind her. I wanted to put my arms around her I wanted to push her as far from the chasm as I could. Instead, I stood still, one hand on her shoulder.

"I know they say he paid the price, and I won't argue with that. But death was Bob's escape, too. Living with it every day, that's the highest price, If Ida doesn't know that already, I'm afraid she'll learn now."

I thought of Aunt Ida, sagging flesh beneath her eyes, the thin cheeks bleached white. "The doctors say she's brain dead" Aunt Ida had finally told me, and I noticed she didn't speak Cissy's name, just as she never speaks of Thomas. "Must be the worst decision a mother'd ever have to make. Guess I can't blame them for having nothing to do with us, Bobby Junior healthy as a horse, and their baby girl almost dead. Worse than being dead, when you think about it."

I had nodded, trying hard not to think about it.

"At least when my husband was killed, it happened quickly." When Aunt Ida had looked up, I recognized guilt in those most familiar eyes. "And your little brother," she'd added, glancing toward the school photo on the mantel. "Your Uncle Bob paid with his life. I reckon Bobby Junior will have to pay with many years of his" A tear had rolled from one corner of the normal eye, a tear she didn't bother to wipe. "I think we should get the boy a lawyer, but Malcolm won't hear of it," she had whispered, the snoring low and steady. "'Course it's not his boy, and you know that makes a difference."

Momma looked up, her hand on mine. "I'm sorry, Katie. All this talks not good for you, after what you've been through."

"I'm fine, Momma."

She nodded.

"I'm fine and David's fine, and there'll be more babies. You'll be a grandma before you know it."

"You know, Katie, you don't always have to say what people want to hear. Sometimes you need time to grieve."

I walked across the kitchen and leaned against Momma's spotless countertop, relieved to see that color had returned to her face and her eyes had lost their distance.

"How was your mother?" David's bent over his workbench, choosing a chisel from his grandfather's collection.

"Doing all right."

"Sounded like hell." He levels the tool with his finger and makes short, smooth strokes. "Heard they're taking Cissy off life support."

I put my hand on a basement post and wait.

"They said there was nothing they could do for her. Couldn't save the baby."

Blood flushes my face and dogs my ears with bitter pulsing. I don't move, afraid any motion, any action, will shatter the scene to ground glass.

Life is too fragile, cracks already forming that can split apart, rendering shards and pieces of what was once real and whole. David lays down the chisel and picks up a folded scrap of sandpaper. "Did I tell you Dad called? He wants us to come down for Mass on Sunday and stay for dinner. Jeanette and the boys are flying in for the weekend."

David glances up and I nod. It is how I acquiesce, my mute assent a sign of love's concessions. I do not keep a list, a running total, because I don't care to remember. David watches me for an instant, then returns his attention to his work. "Hard as a rock, this maple. A bear to work with."

"I told you I didn't care what you used:' He laughs, a working man's grunt and chortle. "My grandfather said if you're going to build a thing, you have to build it right."

"And how did your grandfather know what right was?" I am tired of standing, and the basement, despite the gas heater chugging in the corner, is uncomfortably cold for me, already in my housecoat.

David tilts his head toward me, his neck angled from his body. His brown-black hair is too long, I notice, well past the collar of his faded flannel shirt. I feel his eyes wash over me, and I smile gently, a smile he quickly returns. "Grandpa Davidson knew nearly all there was to know about carpentry, Katie. And right is something a man learns and a man feels.

"It's not a mystery, not like you make it sound."

"I envy the Davidsons."

"Well, hell, you don't have to envy us anymore. You're one of us now."

"I doubt the conversion is complete yet, doubt if it ever will be," I say as the smile trickles from my face. "My family, we seem to have a harder time figuring things out. I don't even know what right is supposed to feel like."

David lays down his chisel and walks to me, arms open. I fall against him, my face on his shoulder, nestled in the scent of worn cotton and sawdust. I do not want to cry, I tell myself sternly, fully incapable of preventing it.

CATHERINE L. DOWD is an author living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.