Programmed for Peril

neglect her own wedding. “You’ve arranged things backward as usual, Patricia,” Marylou said. “The correct order is supposed to be marriage then children, not vice versa.”
    “Very funny. I don’t hear you broadcasting those words of wisdom at your card parties, Mother. In the engagement announcement you had them say “It will be the bride’s second marriage”.
    “Well, of course! We needn’t make fools of ourselves, need we?” Marylou’s right brow rose. Over the years a skeptical crease had formed there. Other, thinner creases had etched their way into her upper lip. The rest of her face remain undisturbed, appealingly youthful. Her gray eyes were still sharp and clear, as was her wit—which she turned too often on her daughter. In her mid-sixties she still possessed the southern charm of her youth to which age had added northern assurance. Trish wondered why she hadn’t found a more lively companion than Stoneman Gore. Stoneman followed her around like a leashed pug. In fact, he looked a little like one, with his thick chest and rectangular face. She guessed her mother preferred Stoneman’s company because he was rich. The only work he did was to clip bond coupons. A well-heeled cipher, maybe he was the perfect match for reflexively social climbing Marylou. This bright June Saturday morning he sat in his favorite chair in the comer facing the object of his affections, whom he devoured with wide, adoring eyes. He spoke seldom and briefly.
    “I’ve taken the liberty of making up a wedding checklist for you, Patricia.” Her mother waved sheets as chockablock as those recording Don Giovanni’s conquests (“In Spain already one thousand three”). “The very few things you’ve already done I’ve checked off.” She threw up a free hand. “Heavens, you haven’t even found out if your matron of honor has put the weekend aside!”
    “We’re talking just one person here,” Trish said acidly.
    “So?”
    “There’s no need to hurry big time. In fact, there’s no real need for a wedding at all. I’d use a J.P., mother, if that didn’t mean I’d have to chain you to that couch to restrain your indignation.”
    “Something else unpleasant you brought back from California: a disrespectful mouth.” Her mother’s glance carried the hard glint of glower. “You’d have done better to bring back divorce papers.”
    Marylou just wouldn’t let it go, Trish thought. Of course, she wouldn’t breathe a word in public. There was no way Trish could explain to her mother just what had happened on her way to motherhood. No way she could explain Carson... and other things. In fact, she had explained to no one. That meant she hadn’t yet dared present the precise details of Melody’s paternity to Foster either—and she regretted it. He labored under some expected misunderstandings that she had meant all along to clear up.
    Dimly she understood that her return home in a posture much like that of defeat had been not only a victory for her mother, but a personal crisis in values for herself. She had rushed to California to forge a life based on her own beliefs, ones far removed from those of tradition-minded Marylou. That she had come home broke, toddler in hand, and with no husband in hailing distance her mother saw as justification for her position. Trish’s attraction to Foster and his life meant she had, though she resented it, come to share some of her mother’s values. Her enthusiastic acceptance of his proposal (made in a rowboat during a stunning sunset, with a secret bottle of champagne dangling submerged on a string to toast “your good judgment and my good fortune,” Foster said) was a solid signpost along her life’s new road. She had sown her wild oats and eagerly awaited the stability and permanence of the married state. If only she could be more enthusiastic about the wedding!
    The maximum time she was able to spend with mother was about three hours. Any longer and the woman provoked her to screams or tears—sometimes both. She fled with Melody and Foster to the first strawberry picking of the year. Down the rows of early berries they duckwalked, he on one side, she on the other. Melody gamboled under the high blue sky—eat six, box one—fingers, lips, and cheeks smeared sweet red.
    “Lift the leaves and stems to find the best berries,” Foster said. “I learned this during my boyhood growing up on the farm.”
    “The farm! What farm?” Trish giggled.
    “They sent me to