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day.”
    Yes, Hilde recalled as more veils lifted, she had heard about the reward. She had actually seen Barbaraannette, her own flesh and blood, smiling on the TV screen, wearing lipstick for once. A million dollars to get that man back, that Bobby Quinn. That certainly had set the old biddies buzzing around their silly Peace Quilt!
    “It’s a fine day,” Hilde said. She shook her finger at Barbaraannette. “Shame on you, Barbaraannette! Making a public spectacle that way. Why, with a million dollars, you could wear anything you want. You could have that mole removed.”
    Barbaraannette hunched down in her chair, assuming the same stubborn defensive posture she had invented at the age of three. Mary Beth put on a grim smile and sat back.
    Hilde said, “Mary Beth, dear, would you excuse us for a few moments? I need to have a talk with your sister.”
    The moment Mary Beth left the room, Hilde’s demeanor changed. Her shoulders relaxed and her mouth widened and opened to show a set of bright white dentures. She winked at Barbaraannette.
    “That girl is a trial, I swear. Has she been giving you a hard time, Babba?”
    “She’s just worried about me,” said Barbaraannette.
    “She worries about me, too, dear. Frankly, it’s a pain in the bejeezuz.”
    “She thinks I’m making a big mistake, trying to get Bobby back.”
    “Is that what you think?” Hilde’s eyes crackled with alert intelligence.
    Barbaraannette had seen these changes in her mother before. The sudden transitions from apathetic vacuity to steely alertness was not typical in Alzheimer’s patients, but neither was it unheard of. Her doctor said Hilde might swing in and out of the world for months or years, with each visit becoming more brief. It was sad and disconcerting, but Barbaraannette had resigned herself to her mother’s fate.
    The other change—from finger-shaking authority figure while in Mary Beth’s presence to relaxed co-conspirator the moment Mary Beth left the scene—had been going on ever since Barbaraannette could remember. Hilde Grabo became a different mother for each of her daughters.
    “I don’t know what I think, Mama. I just did it. Didn’t plan it. You know how it was when Bobby left me. I hired that private detective to find him, but that just cost me money I didn’t have. I mean, I know there was no way we could have spent the rest of our lives together, but I thought, you know, another year or two. I just wasn’t ready. He left without a word and I felt like I’d failed. Like it wasn’t finished.”
    “You always did like to finish things. From when you were three. I never had to tell you to clean your plate.”
    Barbaraannette nodded. “As soon as I realized they were going to put me on the news…I just thought that would be the way to get him back. I didn’t think about what I’d do after. I mean, if somebody finds him.”
    “You didn’t?” Hilde was smiling.
    Barbaraannette blushed. “Well, I thought about a few things. You want to know something, Hilde? I’ve been faithful to that man, not that he deserved it.”
    Hilde’s smile broadened. She sat back in her chair. “You, Barbaraannette, you are a case. Twenty years now I’ve been laying awake nights worrying about your sister Antonia and all the time it was you should have been keeping me up nights.”
    “You think I’m an idiot.”
    Hilde said, “Idiot? Sweetheart, I understand completely. You don’t have to be an idiot to be stupid over a man. You know, your father was a lot like Bobby.”
    “Like how, Mama?”
    “You don’t remember him, do you, honey? See, Sammy, he came between poor Edward, God rest his soul, and Anthony Alan, Antonia’s father. You understand, there were nine long years there with only Mary Beth for company. I know you understand, dear.”
    Barbaraannette nodded. This was no surprise. Her mother made no secret of Barbaraannette’s origins. Her father, according to Hilde’s most oft-repeated version, had been a