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bed blared out the Elvis music he’d heard earlier.
     
    When he noticed Clay in the doorway, the boy set his school books aside and turned down the volume. “You’re up. Finally.”
     
    “Where’s the bathroom?”
     
    “Gotta take a leak, huh?” the boy inquired crudely. “My name’s Johnny,” he informed him cheerily. “You’re Clay, right? Annie says you’re gonna stay with us for a while. Cool. Do you like Elvis?” The boy never waited for answers to his questions, just chattered away as he led the way to the end of the hall.
     
    By the time they got there, Clay was practically crossing his legs  . . . not an easy feat when walking with a sprained ankle. Was there only one bathroom to serve more than a half dozen people? There were eight bathrooms in his home, and he was the sole inhabitant these days, except for the cook and gardener, Doris and George, and they lived over the old carriage house.
     
    Clay soon found himself in the small bathroom with an old-fashioned claw-footed tub and pedestal porcelain sink. No shower stall here, just a showerhead and plastic curtain that hung from an oval aluminum rod, suspended from the ceiling and surrounding the tub on all sides. At least there was a toilet, Clay thought, releasing a long sigh of near ecstasy after relieving himself. He’d barely zipped up his pants and washed his hands when there was a knock on the door. “You decent?” a male voice called out.
     
    Define decent. Hobbling around barefooted, decent? Wearing nothing but a knot on my head the size of a fist and a pair of wrinkled slacks, decent? Caught practically mid-leak, decent? Under the influence of drugs, decent? “Yeah, I’m decent.”
     
    The door creaked open and the oldest brother, the father of the baby, stuck his head inside. He apparently hadn’t showered yet because he still had the Elvis hair-do, though the St. Joseph outfit was gone in favor of jeans and a sweatshirt. “Hi. My name’s Chet. Annie told me to give you these.” He shoved a pair of jeans, white undershirt, blue plaid flannel shirt, socks and raggedy sneakers at him. “You look about the same size as me.”
     
    Clay took the items hesitantly. He was about to tell him that he wouldn’t need them since he intended to go back to the hotel, asap, and call his lawyer. Before he could speak, though, the man  . . . about twenty-five years old  . . . asked with genuine concern, “How ya feelin’? Your body must feel like a bulldozer ran over it.”
     
    “Do you mean your sister?”
     
    Chet threw his head back and laughed. “Annie does have that effect sometimes, doesn’t she? No, I meant the boink to your head and your twisted ankle.”
     
    Clay shrugged. “I’ll be all right.”
     
    Just then Clay noticed the black satin bra hanging on the doorknob. The cups were full and enticingly feminine. He was pretty sure the wispy undergarment didn’t belong to Aunt Liza. Hmmm. It would seem the scarecrow Madonna was hiding something under her virgin robes.
     
    “Hey, that’s my sister you’re having indecent thoughts about,” Chet protested, interrupting his reverie.
     
    “I was not,” Clay lied, hoping his flushed face didn’t betray him.
     
    “Yeah, right. Anyhow, dinner’s almost ready. Do you want me to bring a tray upstairs? Or can you make it downstairs?”
     
    Clay debated briefly whether to eat here or wait till he got back to the hotel. The embarrassing rumble in his gut decided for him. Clay told him he’d be down shortly and went back to the bedroom to change clothes while Chet made use of the shower.
     
    A short time later, he sat at the huge oak trestle table in the kitchen waiting for Annie to come in from the barn with two of her brothers, Roy, a twenty-two-year-old vet student, and Hank, a high school senior. They were completing the second milking of the day for the dairy herd. All this information was relayed by Aunt Liza. That’s what the woman had demanded that he