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think old meant fifty. Now I'm almost fifty and old is eighty. When I was twenty, I thought the word love meant a sexy woman and a good marriage. Now the only love I feel is for my work, Chuck, and this tree. Yet that's sufficient."

    I shoved the spade into the ground and heaved. "Aren't you just saying things are relative?"
    "No, something completely different. Over a lifetime our definitions of things change radically, but because it's so gradual we're blind to them. As the years pass, our names for things no longer fit but we still keep using them."

    "Because it's convenient and we're lazy." Up with another shovelful.

    "Did you know the Farsi language has over fifty different terms for the word love?"

    "Why are we having this conversation, George? Uh-oh! Here we go again."

    "What?"

    "There's something in here. In this hole too. Just like last time with the bone."

    "What is it?"

    I bent over and picked up the brightly colored object the shovel had just uncovered. _"Oh my God!"_

    "What Frannie? What?"

    "It's--it's--"

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    _"What?" _George was frantic.

    "It's Mickey Mouse!" I tossed up the rubber figure I'd dug up. "It must have been in the ground ten thousand years."

    Even he laughed while he jiggled the child's squeeze toy in his hand.
    "At least. Twenty years ago some kid was heartbroken a whole afternoon after losing this thing."

    When I finished digging and hadn't unearthed any other archaeological treasures, I laid Old Vertue in his new berth and shoveled dirt over him.
    Chuck christened the new grave by pissing on it as soon as I was done, which was only appropriate. Ashes to ashes, dog to dog. George and I stood there a few moments looking at the spot.

    "What do I do now?"

    "Nothing. Wait."

    "Maybe he's already in the trunk of my car."

    "I doubt it, Frannie."

    "But you do think he'll be back? That it wasn't just some lunkhead's prank?"

    "Nope. And I think it's exciting."

    "I knew this guy whose wife got pregnant when they were in their forties. I asked how he felt about it and he said, Ìt's okay, but to tell you the truth, I'm too old for Little League.' It's sort of the same thing for me here--I
    think I'm too old for wonder."
    "Pauline got tattooed." Magda's voice hit like a flamethrower the minute I walked in the door that evening. But her news was sensational. The thought of Fade making such a confident and uncharacteristic gesture made me want to clap. But if I let her mother know that she'd hit me.

    I tried to sound... thoughtful. "Well, it is her body--"

    She glared at me. "It is not her body when she does something as stupid as this. What'11 it be next--piercing? I hear branding is very in these days.
    She's a teenager who suddenly wants to be trendy. I'll be your cliche tonight.
    Don't you dare take her side in this, Frannie, or I'll tattoo your head."

    "Is it big or small?"

    "Is what?"

    "The tattoo."

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    "I don't know. She won't show me! She just announced she'd done it and left me standing there with my jaw on top of my foot. My daughter has a tattoo. I'm so ashamed."

    "I thought you two were together today."

    "We were! We went to the Amerling mall. After lunch we split up for a couple of hours. When we met up later, she told me what she'd done.
    She's such a quiet kid, Frannie. Why on earth would she do something so loony?"

    "Maybe she doesn't want to be quiet anymore."

    Magda crossed her arms and tapped her foot. "Well?"

    "Well what?"

    "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

    "I think we have to see what it is first, honey. If it's a little*
    *thing like a bug or something--"

    "A _bug? _Who gets bugs tattooed on their body?"

    "You'd be surprised. Down at the county jailhouse you'll see tattoos--"

    "Don't change the subject. You're her stepfather and a policeman--"

    "Should I arrest her?"

    She stepped up close and surprisingly wrapped her thin arms around me.
    With her mouth an inch from my ear she growled in her deadliest voice, "/
    _want you to talk to