From the Corner of His Eye

into the vehicles the previous evening.
        Easter still lay a few weeks away, but already Celestina had begun decorating more than a hundred baskets, so that nothing would need to be done at the last minute except add the candy. Her living room was a warren of baskets, ribbons, bows, beads, bangles, shredded cellophane in green and purple and yellow and pink, and decorative little plush-toy bunnies and baby chicks.
        She devoted half her work time to the neighbors-in-need route that Agnes had established and steadily expanded, the other half to her painting. She was in no rush to mount a new show; anyway, she didn't dare renew contact with the Greenbaum Gallery or with anyone at all from her past life, until the police found Enoch Cain.
        Truly, the time spent helping Agnes had given her uncountable new subjects for paintings and had begun to bring to her work a new depth that excited her. "When you pour out your pockets into the pockets of others," Agnes had once said, "you just wind up richer in the morning than you were the night before."
        As Celestina and her mother loaded the last of the pies into the ice chests in the Suburban, Paul and Agnes came back from her station wagon at the head of the caravan.
        "Ready to roll?" Agnes asked.
        Paul checked the back of the Suburban, since he fancied himself the wagonmaster. He wanted to be sure that the goods were loaded in such a way that they were unlikely to slide or be damaged. "Packed tight. Looks just fine," he declared, and closed the tailgate door.
        From her Volkswagen bus in the middle of the line, Maria joined them. "In case we get separated, Agnes, I don't have an itinerary."
        Wagonmaster Damascus at once produced one.
        "Where's Wally?" Maria asked.
        In answer, Wally came running with his heavy medical bag, as he was vow doctor to some people on the pie route. "The weather's a lot better than I expected, so I went back to change into lighter clothes."
        Even a cool day on the pie route could produce a good sweat by journey's end, because with the addition of the men to this ambitious project, they now not only made deliveries but also performed some chores that were a problem for the elderly or disabled.
        "Let's roll 'em. out," Paul said, and he returned to the station wagon to ride shotgun beside Agnes.
        In the Suburban with Wally and Grace, as they waited to hit the trail, Celestina said, "He took her to a movie again, Tuesday night."
        Wally said, "Who, Paul?"
        "Who else? I think there's romance in the air. The cow-eyed way he looks at her, she could knock his knees out from under him just by giving him a wink."
        "Don't gossip," Grace admonished from the backseat.
        "You're one to talk," Celestina said. "Who was it told us they were sitting hand in hand on the front-porch swing."
        "That wasn't gossip," Grace insisted. "I was just telling you that Paul got the swing repaired and rehung."
        "And when you were shopping with her and she bought him that sport shirt just for no reason at all, because she thought he'd look nice in it?"
        "I only told you about that," said Grace, "because it was a very handsome shirt, and I thought you might want to get one for Wally."
        "Oh, Wally, I am worried. I'm deeply worried. My mama is going to buy herself a first-class ticket to the fiery pit if she doesn't stop this prevaricatin'."
        "I give it three months," Grace said, "before he proposes."
        Turning in her seat, grinning at her mother, Celestina said, "One month."
        "If he and Agnes were your age, I'd agree. But she's got ten years on you, and he's got twenty, and no previous generations were as wild as yours."
        Marrying white men and everything," Wally teased.
        "Exactly," Grace replied.
        "Five weeks, maximum," Celestina said, revising her prediction upward.
        "Ten weeks," her mother countered.
        "What could I win?" Celestina asked.
        "I'll do your share of the housework for a month. If I'm closer to the date, you clean up all my pie-baking and other kitchen messes for a month-the bowls and pans and mixers, everything."
        "Deal."
        At the head of the line, Paul waved a red handkerchief out of the window of the station wagon.
        Shifting the Suburban out of park, Wally said, "I didn't know Baptists indulged in