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janitor he happened to encounter in
the presence of his wife and mother-in-law. His favorite name for Aunt
Judith was "Miss Judy-pooty," but he also called her "Cud'n Pud'n." Her
mother he named "Miz Gotrocks" in mockery of her love of elaborate
costume jewelry and big hats, and her little pair of pinch-nose glasses on
a silver chain. But he also called her, as occasion required, "Cud'n
Mothah" and "Momma-pie." The latter name, because we children
picked it up from him, was what everybody in our family came to call her.

    Aunt Judith, as I judge from a set of photographs that used to hang in
Momma-pie's bedroom, had been a pretty girl. She was an only child,
raised by her divorced mother, who had been an only daughter. Aunt
Judith and Momma-pie were a better matched pair than Aunt Judith and
Uncle Andrew AuntJudith had grown up in the protective enclosure prescribed by Momma-pie's status and character; Uncle Andrew had grown
up in no enclosure that he could get out of. That the two of them married young and in error is plain fact. Why they got married-or, rather,
why Uncle Andrew married Aunt Judith-is a question my father puzzled over in considerable exasperation for the rest of his life. He always
reverted to the same theory: that Momma-pie had insidiously contrived
it. A mantrap had been cunningly set and baited with the perhaps tempting virginity of Aunt Judith - and Uncle Andrew, his mind diverted to
other territory, had obliged by inserting his foot. Maybe so.
    Maybe so. If the theory was ever provable - and my father had no
proof- the chance is long gone by now. But a story that Mary Penn told
me, after I had grown up, suggests at least that Uncle Andrew was not
an ecstatic bridegroom. One of Mary's cousins, a schoolmate of Uncle
Andrew's, told her that on the night before his wedding Uncle Andrew
got drunk and fell into a road ditch. His friends gathered around, trying
to help him up.
    'Aw, boys," he said, "just leave me be. When I think of what I've got
to lay with tomorrow night, I'd just as soon lay here in this ditch."
    He had seen his fate, and named it, and yet accepted it. Why?
    However their marriage began, whatever its explanation, their
unlikenesses were profound. The second mystery of their union was set
forth as follows by my mother: "Did your Aunt Judith have so many
health problems because your Uncle Andrew drank and ran around with
other women, or did your Uncle Andrew drink and run around with other women because your Aunt Judith had so many health problems?"
The answer to that question too, assuming that anybody ever knew it,
has been long in the grave.

    The question, anyhow, states their condition accurately enough. Aunt
Judith did have a lot of health problems, some of which were very painful. Since no doctor ever found a cause or a remedy for most of them,
it seems that the cause must have been in her mind, which is to say in
her marriage. And perhaps also in her relationship to Momma-pie. My
mother remembers that Aunt Judith never said anything without looking at Momma-pie to see if it was all right. But if Aunt Judith lived in
some fear of Momma-pie, I am sure that she lived also in surprise, bewilderment, and dismay at Uncle Andrew, whom she nevertheless adored.
    Sometimes Uncle Andrew could be sympathetic and tender with Aunt
Judith, sorry for her sufferings, worried about her, anxious to help her
solve her problems. Sometimes, unable to meet her demands for attention or sympathy with the required response, he met them instead with
derision. Sometimes, I imagine, he was contrite about his offenses against
her and wished to do better. But as they both surely had learned beyond
unlearning or pretense, the time would invariably come when, under the
spell of an impulse, he would fling her away. He would fling her away as
a flying swallow flings away its shadow.
    Aunt Judith always asked you for affection before you could give it.
For that reason she always