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wooden spoon until all the granules had been absorbed, then put it into the refrigerator to chill.
    Gram was watching him. “You look to be growing again.”
    At her tone of voice, James laughed inside himself. Baseball was over for the day and his stomach wasn’t empty, and Gram said he was growing as if she’d discovered mealworms in her flour. Gram thought he was smart and easy to handle, he knew that; she liked him, and she knew him too. He didn’t worry about what she thought of him, because he knew. “I sure hope so,” he said and let his laughter leak out.
    â€œI hope you’re properly grateful to your sister,” Gram reminded him, because Maybeth would be the one to let down the hems on his khakis and jeans, and make whatever adjustments were possible in his shirts. “You don’t laugh enough,” Gram said, unexpectedly.
    â€œThere’s not much funny,” James told her.
    â€œSometimes, I know what you mean. Are you going to start on your homework before supper?”
    â€œAre you going to make gravy?” James answered, as if he was negotiating a deal.
    â€œGo away,” was all she answered. She didn’t need to say more. He always started his homework before supper. She always made gravy with pot roast.
    James took his books into the living room, where the big desk was set out in front of tall bookcases. Maybeth was practicing piano. James moved quietly behind her into the room, even though he knew how hard she was to disturb when she was playing. He set out the algebra book and his papers. This was one of the times he liked best: Maybeth playing the piano (Mozart, he thought; the quick melodic symmetry of the music was probably Mozart) while he did homework, math for preference. The music constructed its design in the air and the equations marched out onto his paper, the music and the math, matched up together somehow.
    Maybeth sat straight-backed at the piano, wearing an old brown sweater Gram had knitted for James years ago. Her head, curls the color of yellow corn ripened in the sunlight, bent forward a little, and her hands moved over the piano keys. The music tumbled out, filling the room, generous. Her hands were what made the music, her hands and Mozart and the piano. James sometimes wondered how it was that Maybeth, who was so slow at everything else, even the cooking and sewing she had a natural ability for, could be so quick and sure with music. He never wondered why everybody liked Maybeth so much. One look at her face, with the mouth that turned up a little at the ends, ready to be happy, and you knew Maybeth would never hurt anyone. He reminded himself to set aside a couple of hours after the dishes for studying science with her, and went back to the algebra problems, graphing parabolas.
    *   *   *
    By the time the first week of waiting for an answer from Provincetown was behind James, March had turned cold again. Dark winds and dark rains rattled at the windows all night long. On days when it wasn’t actually raining, a thick mist rose up, shrouding the landscape, as if the clouds had sunk down out of the sky and settled onto the flat land. Shapes came up at you out of the mist, spiny fingers of trees, squat thick squares of buildings. Even when it was daylight, it felt like night. At the end of the second week of waiting, James figured that his letter was going to be ignored, because it came from a kid. He should have had an answer by now, he thought. He began to calculate how long he should wait before he sent a second letter. He began to wonder how to write a letter that sounded like he was a grown-up, so they’d have to answer it. Maybe he’d write in Gram’s name. It wouldn’t be a crime to forge her signature on a letter, would it?
    When the sun finally came out, Sammy could get out of the house again, which made life easier for all of them. It was the first of spring and, if you looked, you