"Momma's fine. Some days are better than others, but that's the way of her illness. She gets things all confused at times," I said.

"Well, when she's having a good day, you tell her that I asked about her, and I'll get on out there one of these days," Daisy said.

"Momma always likes company."

They brought out her milkshake. She and her daughter drove away.

"She was one of Uncle Lonnie's women, one of the first ones. What gives her the right to give me advice?" I asked.

"Age"

I looked at him quizzically.

He shrugged. "Old folks have seen more than we have. They know more."

"Are you telling me to go back to Drew?"

His eyebrows shot up. "I am not! You should have made this decision years ago"

"I might have if someone had stepped up to the plate and told me what was going on. Why didn't you?"

"Would you have believed me?"

I had to think about that. By the time I had an answer, our food had arrived, and he was driving down Main Street. "No, I wouldn't have believed you, Billy Lee."

"Who did you finally believe?"

I got the giggles and told him about the ladies' room, and we were both laughing when he parked the truck beside a picnic table under a shade tree. He got out and hurried around the truck to open the door for me.

"World is a strange place we live in," Billy Lee said as we laid our food out on the table.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You knew, didn't you? You knew that Uncle Lonnie cheated on Gert back in their younger days too"

He cleared his throat. "Some things don't have to be written in a book down at the courthouse for everyone to know."

"Such as how Lonnie and Drew were just alike?"

"I ain't goin' there with you. I'll just say that what's past is past. Let it go, and get on with your life. You always were too good for Drew Williams" He changed the subject abruptly. "I'm glad to see you eatin'. I was afraid that episode this morning would ruin your appetite. Never did like a woman who didn't appreciate a good meal."

Now, wasn't that a hoot? Drew thought I had a fat rear end, and Billy Lee wanted me to eat. I polished off every crumb of the hot dog, didn't leave a single Tater Tot in the paper bag, and kept at the Coke until the straw made slurping noises at the bottom of the cup.

I saw the Disney movie Bambi when I was seven years old. It was the day before deer season opened in Oklahoma. When my dad began to clean his gun in preparation for the big hunt, I set up a howl. My father wiped away my tears and explained that the state game commission had a big refuge for deer and other animals. On that refuge those animals could never be shot, and we had such a place right there in Tishomingo. He promised to take me for a drive through it so I could see all the wild creatures. But outside that place, he said, if hunters didn't kill deer sometimes, there would be too many of them, and that made a problem with nature's balance.

I wanted to believe him, but a little part of me always wondered which story was true. Bambi's tale of the evil man who killed his mother, or my father's? Thirty-three years later, the idea of deer hunting came to mind as I read through the divorce papers the sheriff had delivered to my house that morning. It was really quite simple. Drew got everything "in his possession," and I got everything in mine.

I picked up the pen and signed my name at the bottom with a flourish.

In his mind, he'd just bagged a trophy divorce.

I laughed until my sides hurt. If he'd known what I was worth, he'd have been fighting me for half of my possessions!

My mind went back to Bambi. If there were too many deer, then hunters were given the opportunity to shoot them. Cheating husbands were also a problem in the balance of nature, and there were far too many of them. Why couldn't there be open season on cheating husbands? Deceived wives could purchase a gun, take lessons, and receive a cheating-husband hunting license complete with a big red A label to tie to the man's zipper after the kill. Open season could be scheduled months in advance to give the husbands a fighting chance. They could hide in refuges or stay home and take their chances at being shot through the living room window as they watched Monday Night Football.

The licenses would bring in tax revenue, and resorts could hire employees to cater to cheating husbands during the open season. The staff could put up a razor-wire-topped chain-link fence, guard it with attack dogs and ex-Navy SEALS, feed the husbands home-cooked food like their wives made, iron their clothing, charge them a fortune, and send them home when the season was over.

As I carried the divorce papers out to the car to take back to Drew's office, I wondered how many women I could get to march with me in Washington, D.C., to lobby for just one day a year of open cheating-husband season.

I spotted Aunt Gert's old adult tricycle in the garage. How much trouble could it be to ride four blocks to Main Street, three back east to his office, and then up to the nursing home to visit Momma?

I was so happy, I forgot that every muscle in my body ached. Billy Lee and I had filled two galvanized buckets with soapy water and set about removing ten layers of wallpaper once we cleaned all the dirt from the floors. We'd thought it best to start at the top and work our way down, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I had stretched as high as I could, then I'd sat Indian style and bent every which way. No gym could have ever given my muscles such a workout.

Someone had said that fat cells were like globs of bacon grease and had no feeling. Whoever said it had lied. Every fat cell seemed to have a sensory fiber attached to my eyelids, which sent out screaming signals when I opened them that morning.

Standing up was agony. They should send criminals into Aunt Gert's house and make them strip wallpaper from daylight to dark. That would sure enough reform them.

I figured a short cycle trip to Drew's office would work out the kinks and embarrass him even further. By the time I'd gone a block, though, my thighs were quivering, and the muddy water in the puddles left by a late-night rain began to look good. But I was on a mission, and, by golly, I would get it done, and I would not die! Because if I did, Drew would get all my money to spend on his teenage queens. I'd taught the alarm clock a lesson; the bike was next.

Heat waves rose from the road, and the humidity was at least ninety percent. I felt like a turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. Three blocks later, sweat poured down my neck and hit the dam made by the elastic of my bra. There it lay in salty glory, eating away at the fabric. Next week I'd have to make another trip to Durant to buy more bras.

I parked the bike in front of his office in full view of Drew's secretary, Georgia. She was the only woman I was sure he'd never had a fling with. She wore her gray hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck and always came to work in a no-nonsense suit, either navy blue or black, with a paler blue or a gray silk blouse to match.

I stepped inside the cool office and almost swooned at the wonderful central air-conditioning. "Good morning, Georgia."

She eyed me from the toes of my ratty sneakers up to the top of my sweaty, kinky hair. "What are you doing out in public looking like that?"

I dropped the divorce papers onto her desk. There were a few smudges of sweat on the front page, but I'd signed all the lines that had had the little markers. "Bringing you this."