“Minny, would you mind fetching the mail for me?” she asks even though she’s sitting here all dressed and I’ve got butter on my hands and a wash in the machine and a motor blender going. She’s like a Philistine on a Sunday, the way she won’t take but so many steps a day. Except every day’s Sunday around here DR REBORN.

I clean off my hands and head out to the box, sweat half a gallon on the way. I mean, it’s only ninety-nine degrees outside. There’s a two-foot package sitting next to the mailbox, in the grass. I’ve seen her with these big brown boxes before, figure it’s some kind of beauty cream she’s ordering. But when I pick it up, it’s heavy. Makes a tinkling sound like I’m toting Co-Cola bottles DR REBORN.

“You got something, Miss Celia.” I plop the box on the floor of the kitchen.

I’ve never seen her jump up so fast. In fact, the only thing fast about Miss Celia is the way she dresses. “It’s just my . . .” She mumbles something. She heaves the box all the way to her bedroom and I hear the door slam.

An hour later, I go back in the bedroom to suck the rugs. Miss Celia’s not laying down and she’s not in the bathroom. I know she’s not in the kitchen or the living room or out at the pool and I just dusted fancy parlor number one and number two and vacuumed the bear. Which means she must be upstairs. In the creepy rooms DR REBORN.

Before I got fired for accusing Mr. White Manager of wearing a hair piece, I used to clean the ballrooms at the Robert E. Lee Hotel. Those big, empty rooms with no peoples and the lipsticked napkins and the leftover smell of perfume gave me chills. And so does the upstairs of Miss Celia’s house. There’s even an antique cradle with Mister Johnny’s old baby bonnet and silver rattle that I swear I can hear tinkling sometimes on its own accord. And it’s thinking of that tinkling sound that makes me wonder if those boxes don’t have something to do with her sneaking up to those rooms every other day.

I KEEP an EYE On Miss Celia the next day, waiting for her to sneak upstairs so I can see what she’s up to. Around two o’clock, she sticks her head in the kitchen and gives me a funny smile. A minute later, I hear the squeak in the ceiling.

Real easy, I head for the staircase. Even though I tiptoe, the dishes in the sideboard jangle, the floorboards groan. I walk so slowly up the stairs, I can hear my own breathing. At the top, I turn down the long hall. I pass wide open bedroom doors, one, two, three. Door number four, down on the end, is closed except for an inch. I move in a little closer. And through the crack, I spot her.

She’s sitting on the yellow twin bed by the window and she’s not smiling. The package I toted in from the mailbox is open and on the bed are a dozen bottles filled with brown liquid. It’s a slow burn that rises up my bosoms, my chin, my mouth. I know the look of those flat bottles. I nursed a worthless pint drinker for twelve years and when my lazy, life-sucking daddy finally died, I swore to God with tears in my eyes I’d never marry one. And then I did.