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right?”
    As she left the room, I muttered, “Yeah, well, Tillie better behave for me .”
    When Tillie returned a few minutes later, she first tied one of Mom’s silk scarves around my neck. “To keep the draughts off,” she said. Then she marched me into the bathroom and handed me the cup of hot water laced with vinegar and cayenne pepper.
    “I’ll throw up,” I threatened.
    “Nonsense,” she said. “Now gargle.”
    I glared at her before resigning myself and giving in. Holding my nose, I took a mouthful and gargled loudly. After spitting it out in the sink, I looked at Tillie and grimaced.
    “See,” she said a bit smugly, “you’re still alive and in one piece. So keep going.”
    When the gargling was done, she tucked me back in to bed and spent the rest of the morning hovering over me like a mother hen. She fed me bowls of hot chicken broth and cold strawberry Jell-O and vanilla ice cream. From time to time she laid her heavy hand across my brow or poked the thermometer under my tongue to see whether the fever had broken. In between waiting on me, she fed and bathed Valerie and entertained her by making rag dolls out of dish towels.
    In the early afternoon she came back to my room and announced, “There’s nothing like warm sunshine to burn the cold germs out of a person.” She told me to grab my pillow and follow her out to the porch. I was to lie on the porch swing while she and Valerie sat together on the folding chair.
    “At least let me get dressed,” I muttered as I tumbled out of bed.
    “Don’t bother. No one will see you.”
    “But – ”
    “Come on, Roz, while the sun’s at her peak. Don’t dillydally.”
    I snatched my pillow and reluctantly followed Tillie downstairs, wishing Wally were home to throw himself between me and this tyrant. How could she make me sit on the front porch in my baby doll pajamas, a silk kerchief tied around my neck like I was some sort of vaudeville dancer? As we passed by the living room, I grabbed a blanket from the couch to use both as a cushion and a cover to hide under.
    I spread the blanket over the slats of the porch swing and settled myself on it, my head on the pillow, my knees drawn up to my chest so I fit on the two-seater bench. The sun was hot, but I used a corner of the blanket to cover myself anyway, just in case. Tillie was right, though; the lilac bushes blocked my view of the street and hid me from any passersby on the sidewalk.
    Tillie sat on the folding chair and pulled Valerie into her lap. Valerie looked small but content; she leaned easily into the cradle of Tillie’s shoulder and drank grape Kool-Aid drowsily from a small plastic cup.
    “You know,” Tillie said wistfully, “I always wanted a girl, but the good Lord didn’t see fit to bless me with one. He gave me three boys instead. But that’s all right. I’m not complaining. Johnny, Paul, and Lyle – they’re three fine boys.”
    “Not Johnny,” I reminded her. “He’s awful. He put you in the old folks home.”
    Tillie laughed quietly. “No, even Johnny is a good man in his own way. I do get frustrated with him, I admit, but no, I’m proud of and thankful for all my sons. These walls . . .” She nodded her head toward the house behind us. “These walls know. They saw it all. All the years I spent raising my boys – it’s all in there.”
    I was just about to ask her what she meant when she raised a hand and waved toward the street. “Hello, Leonard! About time you showed up. Where have you been the last week or more?”
    Footsteps hurried up the walkway, and I gasped when a man leapt up to the porch, his shiny black shoes landing hard on the wooden boards. He lifted his mailman’s cap off his balding head and nodded. “Afternoon, Mrs. Monroe. I’ve been gone on a little vacation. Took the family to Niagara Falls and on up into Canada. Just got back yesterday.”
    “Well that explains the young fool who’s been delivering our mail. He’s been leaving half the