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met the son, she could bet his mother was proud.
    “She just went back to her people and had the baby. At first she took jobs, went from one thing to another, but there were always men and not the best kind...pretty soon they gave her things. She had a child to support and she took what she could get.”
    Helene looked away. It was all too easy to imagine.
    “By the time Mr. Murdock divorced the second wife Chris was ten and his mother was well on her way down the wrong road. She took to the bottle and it killed her slowly. Can you imagine what it was like for the boy? This is a small town. Everybody knew his mother went with the migrants on payday, the traveling salesmen, the soldiers from the fort up north, anybody who had the price of a good time or a bauble to leave behind with her.”
    Helene was silent. She remembered Chris’ remark about the empty chair on Father’s Day at school. Apparently that had been far from the worst of it.
    “And Chris stayed with her all those years?” she asked.
    “He was only fifteen when she died,” Maria replied.
    “And then he found out who his father was.”
    “Yes. She never told Mr. Murdock because she was afraid he’d take Chris away from her. I guess she felt there was no reason to keep it quiet once she was gone and she wanted Chris to have his inheritance.”
    “How do you know all of this?”
    “My older sister was a friend of the Quintanas, Chris’ mother’s family.”
    “I really wish I had known all of this earlier,” Helene said thoughtfully.
    “You can understand why Martin didn’t tell you.”
    “Of course, but Chris can be so impossible...a little background would have helped to explain him.”
    “I thought so.”
    “And that’s why you’re telling me now?”
    Maria thought for a moment. “I want you to be patient with him,” she finally said. “He has feelings for you.”
    “Violently negative ones,” Helene said morosely. “He absolutely despises me.”
    “Not so,” Maria said, shaking her head. “That’s what he wants you to think.”
    “You’re wrong, Maria.”
    Maria folded her arms resolutely. “You listen to me—I know him better than anybody. I have been working here since he first came to this house. He’s trying to drive you away to protect himself.”
    “From what?”
    “From you, his feelings for you. I saw what he felt, even back when Mr. Martin was alive.”
    Helene was incredulous.
    Maria nodded. “Believe me on this. When you were here last June he was like a trapped animal. And now he is the same. He paced at night like a caged lion when you were sick.”
    At Helene’s look of astonishment Maria added, “I was here, I heard it.” She folded Helene’s blue nightgown and handed it to her. “Don’t you have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon?”
    “Yes, why?”
    “I’ll go with you and show you where Chris lived. Would you like to see it?”
    “Very much,” Helene said quietly.
    Dr. Stern refilled Helene’s prescription for mega-vitamins and told her to get plenty of rest. Maria was reading a magazine in the waiting room when Helene emerged from the office.
    “What did he say?” Maria asked.
    Helene told her.
    “Chris will demand a report when I get back,” Maria said, as they walked out to the parking lot.
    “How do you know?”
    “He always asks me about you. When he comes in from the ranch at night it’s the first thing he does.”
    “Maybe he thinks I’m stealing the silverware.”
    “He’s concerned about you.”
    “Then why doesn’t he ask me himself?” Helene inquired despairingly. “He acts like I’m invisible and then checks on me behind my back. It’s insane.”
    They got into Maria’s car and Maria drove south from the office complex, past the strip mall and onto Main Street, which led to the old section of town. Once they crossed the tracks bisecting the industrial area they entered a part of town Helene had never seen. Dingy factories, some of them abandoned, and shabby