the grownups until they had calmed down. Sweaty and panting, choking back giggles, itchy from the grass blades that stuck to their skin, they dropped to the ground beside their parents and looked up at the stars while low measured voices murmured all around them. The oldest cousin, Uncle Mark's daughter Esther, held her little brother Richard on her lap and tickled him secretly with a dandelion clock. Nearby, Esther's twin sisters, Alice and Sally, were curled together like puppies with Justine in the middle because she was new and special. And Uncle Two's boys, Claude and Duncan, wrestled without a sound and without a perceptible movement so they wouldn't be caught and sent to bed. Not that the grownups really cared.
They were piecing together some memory now, each contributing his own little patch and then sitting back to see how it would turn out. Long after the children had grown calm and loose and dropped off to sleep, one by one, the grownups were still weaving family history in the darkness.
In the winter of 1942, when Justine was nine, her father left for the war. The apartment was dismantled, a moving van came, and Justine and her mother took the train to Baltimore. Her mother cried all the way down.
When they arrived she spilled out of the train and into her sisters' arms, still weeping, with her curls plastered to her face and her nose as pink as a rabbit's. Her sisters looked flustered and kept searching their purses for fresh hankies. The situation was new to them; no Peck had ever gone to war. It was believed that old Justin had mysteriously avoided the Civil War altogether, while every member of the family after him had possessed a heart murmur of such obviousness that they had been excused from even the mildest sports, the women cautioned against childbirth and the men saved from combat and long marches and the violence of travel by the unique, hollow stutter in their chests. Which did not prevent them from standing in a semicircle, bright-eyed and healthy and embarrassed, around their baby sister in the railroad station. It was their father who finally took charge. "Come, come," he said, and he herded them out of the station and into the line of Fords at the curb. Justine and her mother rode in his car, at the head of the procession. Justine's mother kept sniffing. Nothing irritated Grandfather Peck more than the sound of someone sniffing. "Look here, Caroline. We people don't cry. Get a hold of yourself," he said.
"I can't help it, Father. I just can't help it. I keep thinking of ways I could have been nicer to him. I mean I was never exactly-and I'm just certain he's going to be killed."
"He won't be killed," said Justine.
But nobody was listening.
They settled in Great-Grandma's house, since it had the most room.
Justine was entered in the girls' school that Esther and the twins attended. Bit by bit she forgot almost completely the dark, bearded world of Philadelphia, and her mother grew carefree and girlish. Her mother seldom mentioned Sam Mayhew any more but she wrote him dutifully once a week, saying everyone was fine and sent him best regards. Only Justine, looking up sometimes from The Five Little Peppers or a game of backgammon, had a sudden picture of Sam Mayhew's sad, kind face and wondered if she had not missed out on something, choosing to be her mother's child alone.
Yet there were her cousins, always embarked on some new project. Esther wrote plays and her twin sisters shared a single role, speaking in unison. Justine played the princess in Aunt Laura May's blood-red lipstick. Little (Richard would take any part you gave him, he was so happy to be included. And Uncle Two's son Claude was fat and studious; he was fine for rainy days, when he told horror stories in a hair-raising whisper in the gloom of the pantry stairwell.
But Duncan Peck was an evil, evil boy, and all his cousins worshipped him.
Duncan was prankish and
They were piecing together some memory now, each contributing his own little patch and then sitting back to see how it would turn out. Long after the children had grown calm and loose and dropped off to sleep, one by one, the grownups were still weaving family history in the darkness.
In the winter of 1942, when Justine was nine, her father left for the war. The apartment was dismantled, a moving van came, and Justine and her mother took the train to Baltimore. Her mother cried all the way down.
When they arrived she spilled out of the train and into her sisters' arms, still weeping, with her curls plastered to her face and her nose as pink as a rabbit's. Her sisters looked flustered and kept searching their purses for fresh hankies. The situation was new to them; no Peck had ever gone to war. It was believed that old Justin had mysteriously avoided the Civil War altogether, while every member of the family after him had possessed a heart murmur of such obviousness that they had been excused from even the mildest sports, the women cautioned against childbirth and the men saved from combat and long marches and the violence of travel by the unique, hollow stutter in their chests. Which did not prevent them from standing in a semicircle, bright-eyed and healthy and embarrassed, around their baby sister in the railroad station. It was their father who finally took charge. "Come, come," he said, and he herded them out of the station and into the line of Fords at the curb. Justine and her mother rode in his car, at the head of the procession. Justine's mother kept sniffing. Nothing irritated Grandfather Peck more than the sound of someone sniffing. "Look here, Caroline. We people don't cry. Get a hold of yourself," he said.
"I can't help it, Father. I just can't help it. I keep thinking of ways I could have been nicer to him. I mean I was never exactly-and I'm just certain he's going to be killed."
"He won't be killed," said Justine.
But nobody was listening.
They settled in Great-Grandma's house, since it had the most room.
Justine was entered in the girls' school that Esther and the twins attended. Bit by bit she forgot almost completely the dark, bearded world of Philadelphia, and her mother grew carefree and girlish. Her mother seldom mentioned Sam Mayhew any more but she wrote him dutifully once a week, saying everyone was fine and sent him best regards. Only Justine, looking up sometimes from The Five Little Peppers or a game of backgammon, had a sudden picture of Sam Mayhew's sad, kind face and wondered if she had not missed out on something, choosing to be her mother's child alone.
Yet there were her cousins, always embarked on some new project. Esther wrote plays and her twin sisters shared a single role, speaking in unison. Justine played the princess in Aunt Laura May's blood-red lipstick. Little (Richard would take any part you gave him, he was so happy to be included. And Uncle Two's son Claude was fat and studious; he was fine for rainy days, when he told horror stories in a hair-raising whisper in the gloom of the pantry stairwell.
But Duncan Peck was an evil, evil boy, and all his cousins worshipped him.
Duncan was prankish and
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