I focused on the circular frame in Miss Marva's hands. She was making a seat cushion that, when finished, would resemble a giant tomato slice. Noticing my interest, Miss Marva asked, "Do you know how to needlepoint, Liberty?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, you should. Nothing settles your nerves like working on needlepoint."

"I don't have nerves," I told her, and she said I would when I was older. She put the canvas in my lap, and showed me the way to push the needle through the little squares. Her vein-corrugated hands were warm on mine, and she smelled like cookies and tobacco.

"A good needlepointer," Miss Marva said, "makes the back side look as good as the front side." Together we bent over the big tomato slice, and I managed to put in a few bright red stitches. "Good work," she praised. "Look how nice you pulled the thread—not too tight, not too loose."

I continued to work on the needlepoint. Miss Marva watched patiently and didn't fuss even when I got a few stitches wrong. I tried to pull the strand of pale green wool through all the little squares that had been dyed a matching color. As I stared closely at the needlepoint, it appeared as if the dots and splashes of color had been strewn randomly across the surface. But when I pulled back and looked at it as a whole, the pattern suddenly made sense and formed a complete picture.

"Miss Marva?" I asked, scooting back in the corner of the springy sofa and hooking my arms around my knees.

"Take your shoes off if you're going to put your feet up."

"Yes, ma'am. Miss Marva.. .what happened when my mother came to visit you today?"

One of the things I liked about Miss Marva was that she always answered my questions frankly. "Your mama came here breathing fire, all riled about that dress I made you. So I told her I meant no offense and I'd take it back. Then I poured some iced tea and we got to talking, and I figured out right quick she wasn't really mad about the dress."

"She wasn't?" I asked dubiously.

"No. Liberty. She just needed someone to talk to. Someone to sympathize about the load she's carrying."

That was the first time I'd ever discussed my mother with another adult. "What load?"

"She's a single working mother. That's about the hardest thing there is."

"She's not single. She's got Flip."

Amused, Miss Marva gave a little cackle. "Tell me, how much help does he give your mama?"

I pondered Flip's responsibilities, which centered primarily around the procurement of beer and the disposal of the cans. Flip also spent a lot of time cleaning his guns, in between the occasions he went to the flamingo range with other men from the trailer park. Basically Flip's function in our house was ornamental.

"Not very much," I admitted. "But why are we keeping Flip if he's so useless?"

"For the same reason I keep Bobby Ray. Sometimes a woman needs a man for company, no matter how useless he is."

From what I knew of Bobby Ray, I liked him pretty well. He was an amiable old man. smelling of druestore cologne and WD-40. Although Bobby Ray didn't officially reside in

Miss Marva's trailer, he could be found there most of the time. They seemed so much like an old married couple that I had assumed they were in love.

"Do you love Bobby Ray, Miss Marva?"

The question made her smile. "Sometimes I do. When he takes me to the cafeteria, or rubs my feet while we watch our Sunday-night programs. I guess I love him at least ten minutes a day."

"That's all?"

"Well, it's a good ten minutes, child."

Not long after that, Mama kicked Flip out of our trailer. It was a surprise to no one. Although there was a high tolerance for shiftless males at the trailer park, Flip had distinguished himself as a major league underachiever. and everyone knew a woman like Mama could do better. It was just a question of what the last straw would be.

I don't think anyone could have predicted the emu.

Emus aren't native Texas birds, although from the number of them to be found, both wild and domestic, you'd have been excused for thinking otherwise. In fact, Texas is still known as the emu capital of the world. It started around '87 when some fanners brought some of the big flightless birds to the state with the ambition to replace beef as a cash crop. They must have been slick talkers, because they convinced just about everybody that the public would soon be clamoring for emu oil, leather, and meat. So emu producers raised birds to sell to other people to raise birds, and at one point a breeding pair cost about thirty-five thousand dollars.

Later on when a contrary public didn't take to the idea of replacing a Big Mac with a Big Bird, the bottom dropped out of the market and dozens of emu ranchers turned their worthless birds loose. At the height of the emu craze, there were plenty of birds to be found in fenced pastures, and like any animal in a restricted area, they occasionally found a way to get past the fence.

As best I could make out, Flip's emu encounter happened on one of those narrow country roads in the middle of nowhere, while he was driving back from a dove lease someone had let him in on. Dove season lasts from the beginning of September to the end of October. If you don't have your own acreage, you can pay someone else for the privilege of hunting their land. The best leases are covered with sunflowers or corn and feature a water tank, which brings the doves in fast and low, wings flashing.

Flip's share of the lease had been seventy-five dollars, which Mama had paid just to get him out of the trailer for a few days. We hoped Flip might be lucky enough to hit some doves we could grill with some bacon and jalapenos. Unfortunately, while Flip's aim was dead-on when an object was holding still, he couldn't get the knack of hitting a target in motion.