Mr. Ferguson took a long time to answer, and when he did, his voice was very quiet. "Sixty-five hundred. Miss Jones."

I could afford maybe a tenth of that.

Poor people have few choices in life, and most of the time you don't think much about it. You get the best you can, and do without when necessary, and hope to God you won't be wiped out by something you can't control. But there are moments it hurts, where there is something you want in the very marrow of your bones and you know there's no way you can have it. I felt like that about Mama's casket. And I realized this was an augury of things to come. A house, braces and clothes for Carrington, education, things that would help us climb across the deep trench between white trash and middle class...these things would require more money than my ability to earn. I didn't know why I had never grasped the urgency of my situation before, even when Mama was alive. Why had I been so careless and unthinking? I felt sick to my stomach.

Stiffly I followed Mr. Ferguson to the side of the room featuring the econocaskets, and found a lacquered pine model lined with white taffeta for six hundred dollars. We went out back to a row of headstones and markers, and chose a bronze rectangular plate to lay over Mama's grave. Someday, I vowed silently, I would replace it with a big marble headstone.

As soon as news of the accident got out, ovens all over town were turned on. Even people we didn't know, or were only casually acquainted with, brought a casserole, pie. or cake to the trailer. Foil-wrapped parcels were piled on every available surface; the counters, tables, the fridge and stove. Bereavement in Texas is a time to pull out your best recipes. Many people taped them to the plastic wrap or foil that covered their offerings, which

wasn't usually done, but I guess there was a general agreement that I needed all the help I could get. None of the recipes had more than four or five ingredients, and they were the kind of food you'd often find at bake sales or potlucks. Tamale pie, ugly cake, King Ranch casserole, Coca-Cola brisket, Jell-0 salad.

I was truly sorry so much food was given to us at a time when I couldn't have felt less like eating. I pulled off the recipe cards and tucked them in a manila envelope for safekeeping, and took most of the food to the Cateses. For once I was grateful for Miss Judie's reserve—I knew that no matter how sympathetic she was, she wasn't going to discuss anything emotional.

It was difficult to see Hardy's family, when I wanted him so badly. I needed Hardy to come back and rescue me, and take care of me. I wanted him to hold me tight, and let me cry in his amis. But when I asked if Miss Judie had heard from him. she said not yet. he'd be too busy to write or call for a while.

The relief of tears came the second night after Mama had died, when I had crawled into bed next to Carrington's robust little body. She snuggled against me in her sleep, and let out a baby sigh, and that sound cracked the seal around my heart.

At two, Carrington had no understanding of death. The finality of it escaped her. She kept asking when Mama was coming back, and when I had tried to explain about heaven, she had listened without comprehension and interrupted me by asking for a Popsicle. I lay there holding her. worrying about what would happen to us. if some social worker would show up to take her away, or what I would do if Carrington became seriously ill and how to prepare her for life when I knew so damn little.

I had never paid a bill before. I didn't know where either of our Social Security cards were. And I worried if Carrington would remember Mama at all. Realizing there was no one for me to share my memories of my mother with, I felt tears begin to leak out of my eyes in a continuous stream. That went on for a while until I began to cry so hard that I finally went to the bathroom and filled the tub and sat upright like a child, crying into my bathwater until a great dull calmness had settled over me.

Do you need money?" my friend Lucy asked bluntly as she watched me dress for the funeral. She was going to look after Carrington until I came back from the service. "My family can loan you some. And Daddy says there's a part-time job available at the shop."

I couldn't have made it without Lucy in the days following Mama's accident. She had asked if there was anything she could do for me. and when I said no, she went ahead and did things anyway. She insisted on taking Carrington to her house for an afternoon so I could have some quiet time to make calls and clean the trailer.

Another day Lucy brought her mother, and the two of them packed away Mama's belongings in cardboard boxes. I couldn't have done it by myself. Mama's favorite jacket, her white wrap dress with the daisies, the blue blouse, the gauzy pink scarf she had tied around her hair, these and other things were littered with memories in every fold and pleat.

At night I had taken to wearing a T-shirt that hadn't been washed yet. It still held the smells of Mama's skin and Estee Lauder Youth Dew. I didn't know how to make the scent last. One day long after it was gone, I would wish for one more breath of mother-smell, and it would exist only in my memory.

Lucy and her mother carried the clothes off to a storage place, and gave me the key. The pawnshop would take care of the monthly fee. Mrs. Reyes said, and I could leave everything there indefinitely.

"You could work whenever you wanted," Lucy pressed.

I shook my head in answer to Lucy's mention of the part-time job. I was pretty certain they didn't need any help at the pawnshop, and they had made the offer out of sympathy. And although I appreciated their kindness more than they would ever know, it's a fact that friends last longer the less you use them.