Saving Elijah

contradictions. Why then was she bringing an enormous suitcase stuffed with Hanukkah presents? Why then had she been complaining for weeks that we were going to have to sit around their Christmas tree like we weren't even Jewish, those hypocrites? Why was she going in the first place, to see someone called the Bull?
    Now, with this discussion about Uncle Lee, I saw there were grown-up secrets here in Atlanta that I didn't know anything about.
    Grandpa Eli held out the cigar, toward my father. "Cohiba," he said. "Finest there is. Like one?"
    "Maybe a little later," my father said.
    "How about you, my boy?" This to my brother Dan, who shook his head as his eyes widened. Grandpa Eli laughed and patted his head.
    A bunch of grown-ups appeared, along with a toddler and an infant. I didn't even try to keep the names straight as we were introduced all around; then a tiny, pale girl about my own age and a boy about my brother's age came bounding down the stairs.
    "You must be Dinah," the girl said. Her face reminded me of a ferret. "I'm your first cousin Mebane Ruth. Uncle Bernard's daughter." She pointed to the grown-up who looked like a younger, thinner version of Grandpa, then to the boy. "And that's Cook."
    "Mebane?"
    "Mama and Daddy named me Mebane because that's my mother's last name. Martha Mebane. I mean it was Martha Mebane before she married Uncle Bernard; now she's Martha Mebane Blake." She seemed to have jumping beans in her pants.
    "Well," Grandpa Eli said, grandly, "what're we all standin' round here for? Let's all go into the living room."
    "Grandpa Eli," Mebane Ruth said, "can't we show our cousins the house?"
    "Why, sure, Mebane," he said. Then, walking with my father, he led the adults toward an adjoining room. I could hear him asking my father about his law practice.
    "I've decided I've had it," Dad said. "I'm going in with Charlotte."
    "So, then. Your stores are doing well, Charlotte. How many now? Five?"
    "I didn't know you kept count, Daddy."
    All very interesting—my parents had been poring over papers every night at the dining room table for weeks—but we were off, tearing through a palatial house filled with carved, dark wood furniture. After exploring an immense hall called the game room, which had a pool table, two pinball machines, and a real soda fountain behind the bar, we went outside to a field in back of the house. In the crook of a huge oak tree was a tree house, with windows and a real door. The door opened and a head came out. "Halt! What's the password?"
    "They don't know the password, stupid," Cook said. "They just got here."
    He climbed up the ladder, and Mebane, Dan, and I followed. When I got to the top and peered over the edge of the platform, Mebane, already sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Cook, introduced us to Ashlin, Richard Andrew, Ross, and Reynolds.
    Reynolds? Everybody I'd met had a name I'd never heard before, or two first names, or a first name that sounded like a last name. But after hearing the explanation of "Mebane Ruth," I wasn't about to ask Reynolds why her parents gave her a boy's name. I settled myself down next to my brother. Though there was a slight chill in the air, and we were all wearing jackets, it was beautiful in the heart of that tree in the middle of winter.
    "What is the password, anyway?" Dan asked.
    "It's a secret, can't tell you," Ross said.
    "We should tell them," Cook said. "They are our cousins."
    "Oh, all right." Richard Andrew leaned toward me. "It's 'pig breath.'"
    It struck me as a stupid password, but I didn't say so. My brother did.
    "Oh yeah?" Richard Andrew said. "What would your password be?"
    Dan whispered something into Cook's ear. Cook laughed, too loudly and long.
    "Tell us!" Richard Andrew demanded.
    "Can't," Dan said. "You're too young. Right, Cook?"
    I groaned. My brother was being a jerk, as usual. But then so was Cook, who said "Right." Maybe being a jerk was a twelve-year-old boy thing.
    "Come on, let's show them everything." Mebane Ruth was already on her feet, scrambling back down the ladder, followed by the boys, and Reynolds and me. We saw the weeping willow tree that got rot last year but was saved. And the bubbling brook, and Grandpa's putting green, and a vast rectangular garden filled with roselike white flowers, one of the most awesome sights I'd ever laid eyes on. And blooming in the winter!
    "They're camellias," Mebane whispered. "That's where the pool used to be."
    "Grandma went bonkers, and had it filled