Her eyes bugged out, and she gasped. "You signed that farce?"

"Yep, I did. He keeps what is his, and I keep what is mine, and I take my maiden name back. Right?"

She nodded. "But you are entitled to-"

"I don't want his money. I took what I wanted out of our joint accounts last Friday. It doesn't compensate me for twenty years of infidelity, but it embarrassed him. Not as much as I was when I learned what he'd been up to for most of our married life, but it made me feel better. So here it is, signed and delivered. When is he sending you to file it?"

"This afternoon"

"The sooner the better. I am now officially a Matthews again. Off with the old, on with the new. Good-bye, Georgia."

"Trudy, should you be riding that old tricycle on Main Street, dressing like..

I finished the sentence for her. "Dressing like a woman who intends to go back home and apply stripper to baseboards all day or finish removing the last of the wallpaper from a bedroom wall? One who has a house to remodel? I don't reckon I need a Liz Claiborne or a Versace suit to do those jobs, do I?"

"Is it true that you are already keeping company with Billy Lee Tucker?"

I shot her one of Marty's patented "drop dead" looks. "I'll answer that when you supply me with the long list of names of the women you've sent flowers and expensive gifts to with Drew's name attached, the way you did for me on anniversaries and my birthdays."

She was still sputtering when I walked out the door. Getting back onto that bike was no picnic, but a whole cheesecake waited at the Sooner Food's grocery store on the way back home as a reward. Thinking of the first bite helped, but I still groaned when I pushed the pedals to get started toward the nursing home.

Mother was sitting in the lobby when I arrived. Lessie shook her head when I walked in the door. It wasn't a good day, and I'd so hoped it would be. I wanted to tell my mother about the divorce. I pulled up a folding chair, sat down, and patted Momma's hands. "Hi, Momma. How are you today?"

She jerked her hands back and blinked several times as if trying to put my face in focus. "Who are you? I'm not your mother. You stink. You should have taken a bath before you came to my home"

"Miz Clarice, this is Trudy, your daughter," Lessie said.

She eyed me seriously. "My daughter doesn't stink, and she has long hair. She married a man named Lonnie-no, that's not right. Gert married Lonnie."

I reached out and touched her shoulder. "I cut my hair, Momma"

She shrugged me away. "I've only got one daughter. Her name is Crystal. She's going to college."

"I see. Well, maybe I'll come back tomorrow."

"You take a bath before you come back to my house. I'm going to my bedroom now to take a little nap. '

She stood up and disappeared down the hallway toward her bedroom. Lessie laid a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. Tomorrow might be a good day. She's about due for one" She shook her head sympathetically. "You know, I used to clean your Aunt Gert's house. After Lonnie died, she hired me to work for her on Wednesdays. She never went into that room of his again. She'd hand me the key and tell me to lock up after I'd dusted it. Last year I had to give up my home and check into this place because of my ailments, but I remember Gert right well. She loved your momma"

"What else do you remember about Aunt Gert?"

Lessie smiled sweetly. "She was a fine woman in her day. Looked like a million dollars walking around town. Held her head up high and was always a lady. Then that fool of a man talked her into marrying up with him. A sad day that was. About twenty years ago she come down with the pneumonia and spent three weeks in the hospital. Next month after she went home, he died. She shut the door to his room and hired me to dust and vacuum every week while she was ailing. I just kept going even after she got well. We were pretty good friends. I wish I could've gone to her funeral, but I can't sit that long anymore in a hard pew with these old bones"

I touched her arm. "I know she'd understand."

Lessie shook her head. "I don't know about that. Gert was outspoken"

"Well, I was there, and the church was full to the limit. Every good recipe she ever used was at the dinner, and. . " I paused.

"And most folks was just glad she was gone, right?"

I nodded honestly.

"Billy Lee Tucker was sad," I whispered.

"Oh, that boy would miss her, all right. He was the child she never had. They was a good pair. I like Billy Lee. Most folks, they don't understand him. He's not strange. He just ..." It was her turn to pause.

"He just doesn't care what other people think," I said.

"You got that right, girl. We'd all be better off if we had a bit of Billy Lee in us. You go on now, and I'll see to it your momma is in the right room. It makes me feel useful to have someone to take care of. Body needs to feel useful. If they don't, they soon wither up and die."

I hugged her and went back out into the heat. I stopped at the grocery store on the corner of Main and Byrd Streets and purchased a Sara Lee cheesecake, a pound of bologna, a gallon of milk, and a loaf of bread. It all fit very well in the basket of the bike from hell. Then I pushed off toward the middle school, a block off Main and half a block from the grocery store. ---- -- - - -- - - - - - -

When Momma was in school back in the sixties, the middle school was the high school. I stopped pedaling and walked the tricycle over to a big tree in front of the building. I sat down beneath the tree and tried to imagine my parents when they were young and in high school. Instead of seeing them laughing and talking during lunch, though, I had a vision of Billy Lee come to mind.

It was graduation night, and he wore a red robe. For the first time he looked like all the rest of his classmates, until I looked down and saw the legs of his striped overalls. He'd delivered the valedictorian speech that night, but we'd been too excited about getting out of school to listen to him. If I could go back, I think I would have paid attention to what he had to say.

It was either get back on the bike or walk, so I hefted myself up and set off toward home. It would have been so much easier to go back down to Drew's office, snatch that divorce decree out of Georgia's little paws, and rip it to shreds than to ride that stupid tricycle home, but I couldn't do it. I wouldn't live with a man I couldn't trust.

Someone should have been waiting with a brass band, a medal on a ribbon, or at least a round of applause when I parked the three-wheeled monster in the front yard. I had conquered it. I'd lived. I would never get on it again. I'd learned my lesson, and I still might take the hammer to it before nightfall.

All I got was Billy Lee leaning against a porch post with a silly grin on his face.

"You a glutton for punishment? I figured you'd be moaning about sore muscles this morning," he said.

"I didn't know how far it would feel to bike to town or to the nursing home, or I would have taken the car," I huffed.

"Had a little fit and decided to humiliate Drew, did you?"

He knew me too well after only a few days. How had that happened?

"The divorce papers have been signed and delivered. It's up to the court to put the seal on it. I brought bologna and cheesecake, so we won't have to go out for lunch. Thought I'd throw a roast into the Crock-Pot for supper tonight. Are the window people on the way?" I changed the subject.