 
Helen and Lalitha — The Lost Years

Kay Hemlock Brown

Copyright © 2014 by Kay Hemlock Brown

Published at _Smashwords_ , June 2014

## The story thus far

Helen is a fabulously gifted young woman who is recognized as a musical phenomenon in her sophomore year at college: she is a violinist, a wonderful soprano, an artist, a dancer, and a maker of fine copies of period musical instruments, which was how she first becomes known. During the summer break between freshman and sophomore years, she had somehow organized an Early Music festival at her school, which had been televised, and Helen had been seen on TV screens across the country.

Following the festival, Helen found herself involved in so many things, including a little orchestra she helped to found, that she began to suffer with anxiety. She was making commercial recordings of the Bach violin concertos, which were being sold by a private label, and getting a lot of attention. But she was still a college student, and the classical music establishment was yet not threatened by her gathering popularity.

Junior year is academically fine, but emotionally a disaster. (Some of the events of this year are recounted in _Helen BackStory: Lisa, Cindy, and the Violin._ ) Being not only one of the youngest in her class year at College, but remarkably immature for her age, at the end of her traumatic Junior year, Helen decides to drop out of College and run away to be with beautiful Leila in Florida. While Helen is waiting at the bus station, a strange woman, who calls herself Sandy, approaches her with an unusual proposition: to help with a very special tennis camp for girls in Canada. Helen agrees, and instead of returning to her classes in the fall, remains with the camp nurse, a very charismatic woman. Unfortunately, Helen discovers that she is pregnant with twins, and Sandy comes to visit, and Helen learns that Sandy is actually the popular movie actress, Marsha Moore. Marsha takes Helen to her California home to look after her, but the twin fetuses are spontaneously aborted, and Helen goes into depression.

Marsha talks Helen into taking a job as a ballet instructor in Europe ( _Helen at Ballet Camp_ ), after which Helen rejoins Marsha in California, and they are briefly happy. But it seems obvious to everyone that Helen needs to go back and finish her degree, because it looks very much as though Helen's destiny is to be a teacher.

As the school year is about to begin, Helen finds herself going into the College campus, anxious about what sort of reception she would get, having been away for a year.

## Admissions

Helen went in to Admissions, which was usually a friendlier place than the Registrar's Office, and was received with open arms. They said that they were delighted to have Helen back, despite all her misadventures. "Go in, he's in his office," the receptionist said, speaking of the Director of Admissions, who had always been a great fan of Helen's.

The director of admissions was all smiles, and greeted Helen with pleasure. He became serious, saying that nobody expected Helen's transition back to school would be easy. But, he said, it would probably be easier here, at the College, than at almost any other institution. [ _College_ stands for Helen's particular school, a nationally recognized four-year school in rural Ohio.]

"We know the kind of trouble you tend to get into, but we also know that you always finish what you start," he said. (Even while Helen was juggling several passionate love affairs at the same time, she had managed to finish all her courses with at least a passing grade, and do well in some of them.) "We've built up a lot of scar tissue, you know?" Helen blushed. "We can take most of what you can dish out!"

"I'm a changed woman," Helen assured him.

"We'll see," he said, nodding wisely.

Helen learned that she had already been admitted, her fees had been paid (courtesy of Marsha Moore, Helen had no doubt), and Helen had been given a part-time job as a campus guide, which was to show prospective students and new students around the campus. While Helen had been away there had been a few minor changes around the campus, but otherwise, Helen knew more about the school and its environs than almost any other student. All Helen's classmates would have graduated, of course. Former President Henry Wallace had died, and there was a new President. Pat Wallace lived in a small home a few miles away, with Lisa. Helen's own little house, which Janet had given her when she had departed, was vacant. Helen had to report to the Music Department, to straighten out her schedule for the semester, and come right back to Admissions, who were expecting several foreign students who would have to be given a tour of the campus.

## Norma Major

Helen's advisor was Norma Major, a middle-aged British lady who had been Helen's voice coach.

"Helen," she said, "I have glanced over your transcript, and there isn't a lot you need to do in Music, at any rate. You have a minor ..."

"Yeah, in Math."

"In mathematics, as you say, which is all completed, and another one in Art."

"Oh." Helen was taken aback. She had forgotten the Art minor completely. "I don't really want to have to work on that, if it's in the way," she said.

"Apart from that, then, you only need credits. All your distribution is practically complete!"

They talked some more, and Helen was registered for a couple of remaining required courses in History and English, which left two spaces in her schedule, which, Norma said, they could add later in the week. Helen thanked her, and was given a brief embrace by the staid old lady, who evidently loved Helen dearly. She told Helen to come by later in the evening, saying she wanted Helen to sing some scales for her; Helen's music coursework might be finished, but every music major was expected to keep up with their performance every semester, and present a recital at the end of the semester. Helen dreaded this part; she hadn't sung in a long time, and was nervous about her voice.

Having put through the paper registration —at this time, registration was still carried out on paper— Helen headed back to Admissions, as she had been asked.

She went up the steps and into the little lounge. There was a young woman seated there dressed in an Indian saree. She had been reading a magazine, and she turned round to look at Helen. Helen saw a small oval face, very fair complexioned, with large brown eyes decorated with impossibly long lashes. Helen felt strangely odd; she had been wearing her signature ultra-brief denim skirt, and a thin blouse with puffed sleeves, and she knew that when she sat, she exposed vast quantities of leg.

The Indian girl had risen to her feet, and stood gazing at Helen, looking a little startled, a little amazed, a little dazzled. They stared at each other, and Helen felt that sinking feeling she always felt when she recognized an emotional entanglement heading for her at high speed.

"Hello," said the girl, "I am Lalitha!"

## Lalitha

"Hi, I'm Helen! Are you a new student?"

"Yes, I am! And you?"

Helen laughed, feeling slightly embarrassed. "Oh, no, I, er ... I'm a senior this year. I work here, part-time!"

"Oh!" she laughed at herself. She dropped her eyes, still smiling, and shook her head. She looked up again, blushing. "I ... I thought I recognized you! But, of course, I don't know anybody here."

"Please, take a seat! I think someone will come out and talk to you shortly."

Helen wait until she had taken her seat, and hurried into the offices, feeling her face heat up. The Indian girl had been lovely: tiny, hardly more than five feet and a couple of inches tall, with impossibly long, straight brown hair, in a long braid, finished off in some ornamental clasp. Her saree had been a white, yellow, blue and green print, with a lovely blue border. She was thin, delicate-looking, and very doll-like.

"Ah, Helen, you're back. There's a young lady out there, an Indian student, full scholarship. Take her around the campus, and take her out to her advisor, in the ... oh, Music Department! Perfect!"

"She's a music major?" Helen could hardly believe her ears.

"That's what it says right here. Take her to Dr. Adams; she's a harpsichord and piano specialist."

Helen filled out a form at blazing speed, and went out to the new student. As before, she rose to her feet when Helen came out to her, and Helen took her proffered hand, and they formally shook hands. Her hands were small, as could be expected, but not tiny. Helen explained that she worked as a tour guide, and then remembered that this was a music major.

"I'm a music major too, and I've specialized in early and Baroque music! What a coincidence!"

The girl smiled, but shook her head. "It is not a coincidence," she said, and Helen's eyes widened. There was something uncanny with this girl.

Helen walked her all around the campus, observing the tiny footsteps she took—unavoidable, because of the robe she wore. It seemed to Helen that she had never seen anyone so precious, so perfect, so little, so demure, so defenseless in all her life; none of the various types of people she had met had truly prepared her for the experience of meeting this girl.

She spoke good, grammatical English, though with a noticeable accent. Once she had gotten accustomed to Helen, she volunteered some information about her music background, how she had learned Western music, what her particular skills were, and how it was that she had found herself at this particular college in Ohio. Apparently Lalitha had been befriended by a missionary couple who just happened to have been alumni of this same College, and she had worked for them for a number of years while she was yet in her early teens, and learned music from the lady, and obtained an education at the local missionary school.

By the time Helen had learned this much, they had gone round one side of the campus, and arrived at the Music Department, with Helen all a-dither. Helen conducted her to her advisor, who just happened to be the Chair of the department, and having promised to return for Lalitha, went to the Residence Office, to find out what the arrangements for Lalitha's lodgings were.

Helen had decided to live on campus for this last year. Living in her own little house was too conducive to being distracted by outside interests; it had seemed to her that living in the dorms might help her to stay focused. As a senior, Helen was entitled to a single room, and she had already moved into the room. The Residence Office at that time had a policy of assigning single rooms for foreign freshmen as well, just to give them an opportunity to get accustomed to living in the US before being thrown into communal life. Helen found out which room Lalitha had been assigned, and hurried back to the Music Department.

By the end of the day, Lalitha had been established in her room, properly registered, and having changed into leisure clothes and folded and put away her fabulous saree, had joined Helen in a tour of the rest of the little town in which the College was situated. Helen, too, had put on a more sedate skirt; somehow being with Lalitha seemed to make Helen want to dress and act more 'respectable,' or at least more sedate.

"And where is _your_ room?"

"Oh, right in Crutchfield," Helen had said, giving her the name of the dorm. "Would you like to see?"

"Yes, if you don't mind!" she had said, as if she really had no right to make the request. Helen conducted her to her dorm, and showed her Helen's room, and the foreign girl marveled at Helen's collection of instruments, and the artwork that adorned one wall, and the numerous photographs of family and friends that graced another wall.

At first, Lalitha was tongue-tied and embarrassed, but Helen finally discovered that when Lalitha had first seen Helen at Admissions, she had seen a vision. Lalitha, though nominally a convert to Christianity, still believed in her own gods, and her personal goddess was Sarasvati. Sarasvati, Lalitha explained gravely, often inhabited human beings, invariably women, and when this happened, suffused them with a certain divine glow.

"You are now the vehicle for the goddess," declared Lalitha, gazing at Helen in awe.

Helen, meanwhile, was in awe of Lalitha, but of course was too much aware of her own worth to act too awestruck of anybody. But it had been a struggle, all day, to behave with the decorum that being a Tour Guide required, and balance that with Helen's natural graciousness, while she felt this almost irresistible attraction to her new friend. Lalitha's statement about Helen being inhabited by a goddess stunned Helen.

Helen, though she had never thought of herself as particularly religious, still had strong spiritual convictions which stopped short of being conventional or mainstream. But this belief of Lalitha's struck her as being superstitious in the extreme. She took a deep breath to set Lalitha straight right away, but something held her back. The girl believed in this completely, and her eyes gazed on Helen with such adoration that Helen felt utterly unworthy.

Once again, the two girls stared at each other, at a loss as to how to proceed. Then a sort of dam broke inside Helen.

"If you knew the details of my life," Helen said quietly, "you wouldn't make this mistake!"

"What mistake?" Lalitha was genuinely puzzled.

"I couldn't possibly ... have your goddess in me. It couldn't happen."

"Tell me your story!" she urged.

But Helen shook her head, filled with conflicting feelings of unworthiness and defiance. The things that she had done that popped into her head at first were her nude dancing in Florida: she and Leila had frequently danced ballroom dances dressed only in feathers, or ribbons, or sometimes only paint. They had been filmed, and the movies had made a lot of money for both girls. But despite the nudity, the dances had been essentially chaste, intended to titillate by the nudity itself, but more as a vehicle for the creativity of the two girls, and the dance team. Later on, Helen had become a glamour photographer for a well-known men's adult magazine, and taken hundreds of photographs of naked women, posing suggestively, or in pairs, in intimate embraces. Under the professional name of Freya, she had published two collections of photographs that had raised quite a stir a mere two years ago, but no one still knew who Freya was. Still, Helen believed that erotic photography was not essentially sinful.

What lay on Helen's conscience was that she had caused so much grief to her various lovers by being unfaithful and promiscuous. Even at that moment, she was betraying Marsha Moore, to whom she had promised to be completely faithful, with lustful thoughts of the lovely Indian girl.

Lalitha was persistent, but Helen was stubborn, and Helen revealed just enough to Lalitha for the latter to understand why Helen was so certain that she could not possibly be the vehicle of the goddess. But Lalitha was just as certain that she was. She explained that, while the goddess was moderately selective about whom she chose as a vessel, she manifested herself for a purpose, and the purpose could only be to look after Lalitha while at school.

School began, and Helen found herself enrolled in an Art course in computer animation. It was traditional animation; at that time, the computer merely facilitated the tweening process, and the artwork still had to be done by hand. Helen was a fabulous illustrator, and with the aid of the computer, was able to animate scenes with incredible effectiveness, and the artwork was amazingly true to life.

Lalitha had a good enough musical background that her playing was effortless. As a pianist of music of the 18th century and earlier, she was beyond perfect. She had no interest in more modern music, but would play it on demand, and do a workmanlike job of it. But there were gaps in her theory and musicology background, and she set about remedying this with great determination.

Helen now had responsibilities as a Resident Assistant, which meant that she had to keep an eye on freshmen and sophomores, and make sure that their antics did not get to the point where the campus security forces had to intervene. Keeping alcohol out of the rooms of underage students, preventing high-spirits leading to vandalism, keeping noise down after 11:00 PM, these things kept Helen busy in the evenings.

She tried hard not to crowd the beautiful Indian girl, and kept track of how often Lalitha came to look Helen up, and tried to keep her own visits to Lalitha's room down to the same number. But by Thanksgiving, Helen had to come to terms with the fact that she was head over heels in love with Lalitha.

## Thanksgiving

Marsha Moore called once a week, and Helen and she spoke sweet nothings to each other, but Marsha was keeping company with Sylvia, that is, Nurse, the Canadian woman with whom Helen had had a year-long affair. It was a tremendous effort, but Helen managed to hide from Marsha the fact that Helen was utterly infatuated with a certain foreign student. But Marsha was going to visit for Thanksgiving, and before she arrived, Helen had to make Lalitha understand that she had a special relationship with the famous movie star. It was going to be tough, because of course Lalitha could not go home for the holiday, and would naturally expect Helen to help keep her entertained during the Thanksgiving break.

The dormitories closed on Tuesday, and Lalitha, unaware of the difficulties she was creating, volunteered to move in with Helen.

"There's something I have to tell you," said Helen, once all the students who were going home had gone, and all was quiet, and Lalitha had brought her suitcase of clothes and put them away.

"It sounds serious!"

Helen took a deep breath.

"I'm a lesbian," she said.

Lalitha put her head on one side, and a puzzled frown creased her forehead.

"What does that mean?"

Helen turned red. "I ... I fall in love with women, not men!"

Lalitha studied Helen's face, and presently smiled. It was an amused smile, calm and unconcerned. "After three months of watching you, Helen, anyone with eyes would know that! I have seen how your eyes go to the girls all the time!"

Helen was stunned.

"You mean, you knew?"

Lalitha laughed. "It happens to so many girls, Helen! Sometimes they bring flowers, they follow them around ... it is a common thing!"

Helen shook her head in frustration. This was not going to be easy.

"It's not _quite_ the same thing," she explained. "Last year, I ... this woman and I became ... a couple. We're sort of married, actually."

Lalitha's eyes opened wide. "Who is this woman?"

"Her name is Marsha Moore, and she lives in California. She is a movie actress; you might have heard of her?"

"I know Marsha Moore ... you ... you and she ... ?"

"Yeah," said Helen, feeling miserable. It had all gone wrong. She had wanted to say that, well, since Lalitha had appeared, she did not feel as _married_ to Marsha Moore as she ought to have.

"For a while, there," said Lalitha, "I had actually thought that you were falling in love with _me!_ What a silly imagination I have!"

This just could not be happening. This conversation could not be real. Helen pinched herself.

"I wouldn't have far to go," Helen said, choking on the words.

"Don't be silly, Helen; you can't be in love with multiple people."

"Oh yes, I can. Haven't you heard a word I said all semester long?"

"But you were younger then, Helen. You can't go on doing that sort of thing."

Marsha flew in on her private jet, and Helen picked her up in her ancient Cherokee. She brought Marsha to the little house, which she had opened up and aired out. The heat had been turned on, but it was turning out to be quite a warm Thanksgiving. After Marsha had settled in, Helen and she walked into campus, where they met Lalitha.

Lalitha had known Marsha's name, but had never actually seen a movie starring her, or even a photograph. They were duly introduced, and the threesome set out to see what was to be seen in the little town. It was not just a university town, and so there were many attractions for the good residents of the place: shops, restaurants, cinemas and so on. Marsha and Lalitha were still a little awkward with each other, but by the time they settled down to dinner, the ice had been thawed sufficiently for them to have a good time.

This first night, Helen and Marsha had discussed already, Marsha would spend alone at the little house, while Helen and Lalitha slept in Helen's dorm room.

Helen usually slept in the nude, but in honor of Lalitha, she put on a pair of shorts and a T shirt, and Lalitha had worn a cotton skirt and soft knitted top, and just before they turned out the lights, Helen decided to show Lalitha the project she had been working on.

It was an animated version of the Wagner opera _Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg_ , Wagner's last, and according to some, his best, and certainly the longest, opera. Helen had sung the role of Eva in Germany, and had obtained the rights to the sound recording of the entire performance.

Helen had completed the backgrounds all the way up to the Riot Scene (where drunken fighting breaks out on the street outside Hans Sachs's shoe shop), and Lalitha regarded the artwork with her mouth hanging open.

"This is all _your_ work?"

"Sure! Where did you think I got it from?"

"I thought ... some photographs, perhaps?"

"Oh sure; they're copied from photographs of sixteenth-century rooms and churches and stuff."

Lalitha shook her head in amazement. Helen knew her artwork was good, but it was gratifying to have it recognized. While her subconscious was turning over the prospect of spending a night with Lalitha, however chastely, her conscious mind was back working on the animation project. Here was an opportunity to complete a huge piece of the work while the students were away, and the only distractions were Lalitha and Marsha!

The phone rang, and the girls looked at each other, puzzled.

"Hello?"

"Hey. I can't sleep. I want to come over and see your room!"

"Oh." Helen told Lalitha that it was Marsha. _What does she want? She wants to come over. Ask her to come!_ "You want me to come get you?"

"Why don't you meet me near the entrance to the building with all the pinball machines?" Marsha had one of the early cell-phones, and used it all the time. Helen guessed that she was already on her way.

"Yeah, the Student Union. Okay! Give me a minute; I have to get decent."

Lalitha was already putting on a sweat shirt and pulling on a pair of panties. Helen's eye was inevitably drawn to the slim legs of the Indian girl, but she firmly looked away, and quickly pulled on her denim skirt and her own light pullover, and slipping into sneakers, set out to meet Marsha, with Lalitha, who had carefully picked up the room keys, following close behind.

A few minutes later, all three of them were looking at Helen's computer screen. It was an amazing computer for its time, with twin monitors, and a very powerful CPU with advanced graphics capability, as well as specialized extensible software to which Helen had added numerous segments of code that could do in an automated way, everything she knew how to do manually, but more efficiently and faster.

"Wow," said Marsha, her jaw hanging open. "This is commercial quality."

"I was thinking the same thing," said Lalitha, her eyes wide.

The next hour or so was spent with Marsha looking very thoughtfully at what Helen was doing, while Lalitha watched them both in turn.

When Helen turned around after a particularly long procedure —that was the problem with this software; once you started something complicated, you just could not take a break from it— Marsha was watching intently, while Lalitha was curled up on her own bed, fast asleep.

Helen walked Marsha to the little house, and walked back in the dark. She was totally unafraid; Leila and she had faced an entire gang of thugs one time on the beach, and the two of them had beaten off the boys, fighting like furies. Another time, in the Canadian woods with Sylvia, she had defended Nurse and herself with just a bow and arrows against several half-starved wolves. That was the most desperate moment of Helen's life, but it had given her confidence in her fighting ability that few men have, let alone women. They had been on a circuit some 25 miles from home, carrying only the bows and arrows, because Sylvia had asserted that that was all they needed. But Sylvia had been so shaken by the encounter that they had headed back home to pick up a low-powered rifle, which was all Sylvia owned for defense.

Lalitha was fast asleep, but woke hearing Helen coming in. "Sleep sweetheart," Helen said, before she could stop herself, "it's just me!" Lalitha smiled dreamily, and turning over, went back to sleep.

Helen stared at the sleeping girl for a long while, before she sat down and tried to put in a little more work on the animation. She was too sleepy to do anything creative, so she put in some time doing routine archiving, and got into bed. But she never got a wink of sleep that night, listening to the soft breathing of the girl in the next bed, and fantasizing being in love with her.

By the time Marsha was headed up the runway at the end of the Thanksgiving break, she was certain that Helen was about to become emotionally involved with the Indian girl, if she wasn't so already. She sighed. She had known all along that she only had Helen's heart for a while; Helen was far too immature to commit to any one lover for more than a few months. Marsha herself was too much in love with Helen to be able to let go so easily; she would have to simply suffer.

Lalitha had been curious about the physical aspects of Helen and Marsha's relationship. Helen had spent one night with Marsha in the little house, and the following evening, after they had cooked a meal together and had a wonderful time, and they had set out to return to the dorm, Lalitha had asked Helen what that sort of lifestyle entailed.

Helen was amused, but she took the question seriously, after having kidded Lalitha just a little bit. "We kiss," she said, and paused, trying to find words to explain. "We ... embrace, you know?"

Lalitha gazed at her, dreamy-eyed. Some weeks ago, Lalitha had confided that the goddess seemed to have departed, leaving just Helen behind. Helen had heaved a sigh of relief, much to Lalitha's amusement. Lalitha had a lovely sense of humor, which Helen had only begun to appreciate when they had become very close. Lalitha had needled Helen unmercifully about all the humor that had gone past Helen earlier, when Helen had been taking literally everything Lalitha had said.

Now, here was an opportunity to have some fun at Lalitha's expense, Helen recognized with part of her mind, but she didn't have the heart for it. As far as Lalitha was concerned, Helen just could not bring herself to be mean.

"Then, after that?"

Helen smiled. "How can I explain, when I know you've never had sex, Lalitha? It's a lot easier to demonstrate than to describe!"

"Try, somehow."

Helen was furious, but her sense of humor came to the rescue. She had to try; it was a challenge.

"You ... take off your clothes." Lalitha blushed, and nodded. "Then you lie together, skin to skin." Another nod. Now Lalitha was simply glowing with bashfulness. "Then you embrace ... and your love finds its way out through your hands, and you ask ... does this feel good? ..."

"Okay, stop. I can't stand it anymore!"

"Okay."

Lalitha looked into Helen's eyes. "You are so full of love ... maybe it was never the goddess, but just you!"

By Sunday night, the dorms were full again, with hundreds of grumbling students who resented having to leave their homes behind. Helen had called home and spoken to her father, and her stepmother, Annie, who was a woman much younger than her father, and had been in fact, Helen's classmate in high school. Helen had put so much work into the animated _Meistersingers_ that it was well on its way. The opening sequence, which was quite complicated, but set all inside a church, was almost finished.

Helen's courses were going well, and when Helen took her animation in to her instructor, he was thoroughly pleased. Helen did not reveal that Marsha Moore had offered to help with any additional costs it needed to be distributed by a major movie company. "You have a talent for this, Helen! You could make a lot more money with animation than you could with your music!" Helen had heard this countless times, and let it wash over her like water off a duck's back. She wasn't into music for the money, but they would never understand that.

Lalitha was a phenomenal student. She could commit absolutely anything to memory, but she preferred to understand it thoroughly. US history which was dull and boring to the typical student was new and fascinating to Lalitha. She could never bring herself to ask questions in class, but in the evenings, she pestered Helen for additional insights into why things had taken place the way they had. As the end of the semester rolled round, Lalitha was on pins about what her grades might be.

"Has he given you any feedback about your grade?"

"I don't know; I got this paper back, and this one ... they all say A, A, or A-minus, but isn't there some big exam at the end, and I have to answer that equally well?"

Helen tried to explain as well as she could, and after much argument, Lalitha calmed down enough to study for her finals with some tranquility. Then the exams were upon them, and Lalitha had done brilliantly, and Helen had done just about as well as she had expected. Lalitha had made a lute for her instrument-making class, and it had been declared beyond perfect long before the end of the semester.

Helen had sung only in the main choir, and not in the special choirs, which took a great deal of time. Helen had had an easy semester, even factoring in the time she spent on her special animation project, and the time she spent being preoccupied with Lalitha and her affairs.

## The Holidays

When all the students had left for the holidays, Helen moved out into the little house, and Lalitha decided to stay in her room, though it looked very much as though the two friends would spend most of their time together in Helen's little cottage.

The first full day of the Winter Break, Lalitha and Helen decided to cook together, a festive meal. Lalitha preferred never to eat any sort of flesh, though she would occasionally eat fish, but this would be a completely vegetarian meal. As Lalitha took charge, Helen, who had wide experience in all sorts of cooking, filed away all the unfamiliar herbs and ingredients in her head, thinking ahead about what sorts of other food she could prepare using the same herbs and spices. Some of the procedures were entirely new, and Helen observed with interest.

They sat down to eat, and somehow, during the meal, their feelings for each other grew, and the air seemed to thicken about them, as if some external power was urging them together.

"Are you going back, or shall I make up a bed for you?"

"Let's wait and see," said Lalitha, picking up the plates.

"Oh, just leave those; I'll take care of them!"

"That's not the Indian way, Helen. Everybody cooks, everybody eats, and everybody helps to clean up." She meant: all the women; men rarely cooked, Helen had learned.

"Well, that's how it's done in America, too!"

"Good. You can put away the leftovers."

Helen was annoyed, but it had been a long time since anyone had annoyed Helen beyond her limits. Lalitha just annoyed her simply because Helen was so finely attuned to every little change in her moods. They washed up together, and put everything away, and Lalitha even mopped the floor, which had gotten a few drops of food on it.

After that was done, they faced each other, and Lalitha asked Helen to sing. "I will play, and you must sing!"

Helen smiled and said, yes, certainly. Lalitha had worn a lovely full skirt she had sewn herself on a weekend, with fabric Helen had bought for her, and a thin blouse, and a lovely blue cardigan, which brought out the graceful lines of her arms. Helen could see her bra-straps outlined, emphasizing her delicate shoulders, and felt a lump in her throat.

Helen was surprised when Lalitha looked through her collection of music, and selected an aria that Helen loved dearly. "Here, sing this one! It's Bach; I think I will like it!"

Helen nodded and smiled, and Lalitha began to play. She had a lovely, light touch, smooth and legato, which she managed with hardly any pedaling. Helen began to sing. It was difficult at first, because she was feeling so emotional. But she made herself forget that she was falling in love with the sweet accompanist, and concentrated on the music, and let her heart go flying. Somehow, it all came together, and Helen felt an almost physical pleasure in interweaving her voice with the texture that the piano was creating. The piece wound to a close with a beautiful instrumental coda, and Lalitha turned to Helen with a pleased smile.

"Another one!"

"Okay!"

They played and sang through two more arias, and then sat down side by side and played a duet. It was impossible to play a four-hands piece without touching each other. Helen tried her best, but it was too hard. Helen's lungs were full of Lalitha's scent, and Helen was almost senseless with longing to hold Lalitha, and make love to her.

Lalitha turned to Helen, and studied her face, and finally looked into her eyes.

"I didn't bring any ..."

"Oh ... I could lend you a nightie ... and some socks ..."

"And a towel, please; I smell like runner beans!"

Helen smiled. "Oh, sure. I've got plenty of towels somewhere!"

Lalitha took the towel, and disappeared into the bathroom with a grin. When she came out, wearing the towel, Helen went in for a shower. By now her hair was grown to more than waist length, and because of how thick and tightly curled it was, it tended to gather cooking odors very quickly. Helen had an ultra-mild hair-rinse that she could use as often as she liked, and she proceeded to take a shower, and wash her hair.

Presently they were in Helen's room, and Lalitha was studying Helen's bed. Only Helen's bedside lamp was lit, the house had been closed down for the night.

"Would you like me to sleep with you?" asked Lalitha, with an arch smile.

"Would you like to sleep with me?" asked Helen, not believing that she had asked that counter-question, rather than simply saying yes!

"Yes," whispered Lalitha.

They were now in bed, with the lights out. It was a narrow bed: twin sized.

Without a word, Lalitha reached out a hand to caress Helen's face. It was the first time she had made any such gesture. "You're trembling!" she whispered, and she was trembling too, and so was her voice.

"I'm afraid!" Helen said. "This moment means too much to me!"

"Let's not do anything ... too ... you know?"

"Okay," said Helen, "I won't!"

They didn't have to. They began to kiss, and presently Lalitha began to sob with the intensity of her feelings, and Helen wanted to weep too, but that would have been too messy.

"I love you!" cried Lalitha, and they strained together, frustrated in their inability to express their feelings physically. Suddenly Lalitha sat up in bed, and pulled off the nightie, and was completely naked in the near dark. She began to tug at Helen's nightie, and Helen got out of bed and whipped off her own garment, far less gracefully. Helen lay down, and Lalitha came into her arms, and they pulled themselves fiercely together, and began to kiss again, but this time Helen's passion was unleashed, and she forgot her decision to be gentle.

"Helen, you're hurting me!" gasped Lalitha, and Helen rolled away, shocked.

After several false starts, they found a level of intimacy that worked, but those first several minutes were engraved in Helen's memory, as Helen observed with fascination how Lalitha learned what passion actually was. Tenderness and gentleness she knew perfectly, already. Oh, how painfully sweet her first few touches were! There was passion sleeping in that tiny frame, but she was afraid when Helen crushed her under her big, strong body.

When Helen had first met Janet and they had fallen in love, Helen had been a mere stick of a girl, barely a hundred pounds, tiny in every way, a few delicate bones, and masses of golden hair. But now Helen was a big-boned girl, rangy in her build, but with the sweet features of her Finnish ancestors. Physically, the two girls were an unlikely pair, though their faces were remarkably similar in shape and expression.

Helen moved Lalitha on top of her, and let her explore, to arrive at a level of intimacy with which she could be comfortable. Already, at not quite twenty-one, Helen had made love to a dozen girls of all different sorts, and even a couple of men, and it was a miracle that sex was still something that had so much meaning for her. When Helen made love, it was a total thing: a complete physical and emotional opening up, a willingness to be utterly devoured by the other. As Lalitha's passion cooled, and she began to realize the possibilities in reaching out to touch the other girl in ways that she had never considered before, she set aside her inhibitions. She was amazed that the body of a woman, which should have been no mystery to her in the slightest, was indeed a mystery.

All night long, Lalitha alternately touched Helen, and begged Helen for caresses, and they were continually coming back to kiss: passionate kisses, and then soft, gentle kisses. They did not have sex in the way Helen had learned to make love with her other lovers, and to seek release. There was no release; there was only the satisfaction of limited intimacy. Helen knew there was more, but it would have to wait. Lalitha could only guess, and wonder whether the incredible intimacies that she could imagine inside her head were ever actually indulged in. She trusted Helen almost completely; at least, in her own mind she believed that she trusted Helen completely, because she had not yet realized the limits to which trust could go.

Helen finally fell asleep, out of sheer exhaustion. She woke up to find Lalitha gazing into her face, looking stunned, but not actually unhappy.

"I have been changed utterly," she said.

"I'm sorry!" Helen whispered. "I can still remember ... my first time; the loss of innocence ... it was terrible!"

"Yes, exactly! Can you read my mind?"

Helen felt such tenderness that her eyes filled with tears. Infinitely gently, she caressed Lalitha's face. "In some ways, we're not too different, you and I," she said. "I'm big and strong, but ... I feel small ... and weak, with you!"

The sun was beginning to light up the room, and Lalitha was suddenly aware of her nakedness. With an utterly graceful motion, she covered them both up with the light sheet she had pushed to a side. Helen had kept the house warm for her sake. "I'm naked," she whispered, shuddering.

"It's okay ... it's only me," Helen whispered back.

"Helen ..."

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm going to love you forever!"

Helen felt sobs rising inside her, and soon her face was awash with tears, as Lalitha looked on her with rising alarm. It wasn't that Lalitha's declaration made her sad, but that she wondered whether she had it in her to give herself so utterly to Lalitha. Helen had been the first love of so many ... this sort of thing made Helen always feel unworthy.

But she always got over it pretty quick. But with Lalitha ... Oh, I wish the goddess would get here soon, and fix me up, Helen thought. Soon, they were kissing again. It seemed the only way they could forget about the harshness of reality. They kissed all morning.

Helen wondered whether Lalitha's fierce passion for her could transform her somehow, to become a more mature, a more faithful lover. Lalitha seemed helpless, unable to function without Helen close by. The Goddess was back, with a vengeance, but this must have been a different goddess, because Lalitha wanted to make love to her whenever there was a free moment. The demure, Indian Lalitha was gone, and the new Lalitha seemed disturbingly American. But no, there was a certain charm that was unique to her; she was coy, she was coquettish, she was flirtatious, she left Helen completely befuddled by her onslaught of femininity. It took about a week for things to settle down to the point where they could enjoy themselves without being conscious of their changed relationship, and they could actually sleep almost half the night. That first week, they went about in a haze of sleep deprivation.

Lalitha opened up to Helen, with her increased feeling of trust towards her. Soon they knew everything about each other, and forgave each other everything. All the mistakes Helen had made in her first years of college Lalitha put down to extreme youth, and the vigor of Helen's emerging sexuality. She wormed out of Helen how she had made love with her other sex partners, but insisted that their own relationship was too new for them to get into that sort of invasive intimacy. Lalitha tended to go into flights of fancy about how spiritual their love was, and how unnecessary all this carnal knowledge was.

"Why don't you wear your sarees? It's been such a long time since you dressed up! We should dress up nicely, and go out! It's Christmas; there's music and celebration going on out in the town."

"I don't have a lot of money to spend, Helen. I don't have _any_ money, actually."

"Well ..." Helen had enough funds for them to splurge a little over the holidays, but she instinctively felt that it would be a little crass to focus on spending at this time. She had been deeply affected by the feeling of _holiness_ that surrounded their interaction for the last several days; it had almost been a dream world of sweetness and light. "You know, I have a couple of sarees of my own!"

Lalitha's eyes widened. "How come you never told me? Let me see!"

They were up in the attic, with all Helen's toys from the last several years. Even in Freshman Year, Helen had been pretty much a kid, and had surrounded herself with toys of all sorts, until she had turned her attention to toys of quite a different kind.

"This one is really fine," declared Lalitha, her head bent over a blue, green, silver and gold saree Helen had obtained that crazy first year when she and Janet had first come to live in the little house. "It's Kanchipuram silk. You know?"

Helen nodded, smiling. She was aware that it was a particularly valuable item. They explored Helen's collection of about five sarees, and brought it downstairs to look at more closely later in the day. Lalitha had brought a dozen sarees with her from India, which were easy to store and travel with, and many of her sarees were cotton or polyester, to wear to class or to work.

Soon Helen felt the urge to leave the sarees aside, and to make love to Lalitha. It seemed never enough to confine lovemaking to the nights. But Lalitha turned her head aside, though Helen knew she wanted to fool around just as much as Helen did. "If we do it all the time, it won't mean anything anymore," she whined. Even as she gently pushed Helen away, she combined it with a loving caress, so that Helen could not feel hurt by the repulse.

She suddenly whirled around, her eyes wide.

"You know what? We could give each other oil baths!"

Now, Helen knew exactly what this was; it had been Janet's mother, Eleanor —whom everybody called Elly— who had first described to Helen what it was, and Helen had promptly insisted on giving Janet one, once they were back in the privacy of the little house. But Helen pretended ignorance, just to have the pleasure of hearing an explanation from Lalitha.

"Okay, you get into an old saree, or towel, and you apply oil all over your body, and scrub and scrub, and all the old, dried skin particles come off, you know? And then you take a shower, and wash all the oil away, and you look lovely! You want to try it?"

"Just any old oil, like cooking oil?"

"Well, there are special oils, like sandalwood oil is the best, but oh, so expensive. But I think olive oil would be fine."

"Or we could go out and get bath oil!"

There was an old general store at the corner, and Lalitha wanted to look inside. It just so happened that they had bath oil, but Lalitha was too bashful to bring it to the clerk. I'll wait outside, she said; you buy it, and bring it out! Helen smiled at her quizzically, but she blushed and slipped out of the store. Helen picked it up, and set it on the counter, and the little old lady smiled, and wrapped it up, as she must have done for forty years.

Back in the little house, Helen stripped naked, but Lalitha insisted that she would wear an old length of cotton, which she had always used for this very purpose. The oil was applied on Helen first, as she remained standing. If Helen lay down, Lalitha said, it would be too much like giving a massage, which evidently had indecent associations in her mind. The application of oil stopped well short of being intimate, except that it was rubbed thoroughly over Helen's breasts, which, since the pregnancy, were no longer as tiny as they had been for most of her life. On Helen's back, Lalitha was more aggressive, rubbing the oil in as if she were defoliating Helen's skin, something that was catching on in the popular media at that time.

Presently, Lalitha was satisfied by how well she had oiled Helen's skin. Helen took the oil, and began to apply it on the shy Indian girl. Even after the intimacies they had shared for nearly a week, she was still embarrassed to show herself naked to Helen. With great patience, and being especially gentle, because Helen's hands and wrists had now become big and strong, and the skin of her hands had become coarse and rough with the year spent almost entirely outdoors. Nurse and she had lived off the land, and they had grown what they could, and hunted for the rest.

"Let me look at you," Helen pleaded, and Lalitha reluctantly took away the cloth, and stood revealed. Just standing there, she gave the impression of great delicacy and awkwardness; her face was lovely, and the expression on it was beautiful, but her body was very ordinary. It was her clothes, and the grace of her movements that were the greatest part of her loveliness. But Helen was in love again, and Lalitha looked perfect in her eyes. Helen asked for a kiss with her eyes, and she gave Helen a gentle, chaste kiss on the lips, which seemed to distill into one touch all that she was: restrained, and shy, and gentle, and loving.

The bath was a little more vigorous, and involved a tiny bit of splashing, and a great deal of giggling, but at last they were done. They rubbed each other dry, and hurried to the bedroom.

Lalitha's plan was to dress Helen as a Hindu bride. She hunted among Helen's clothes for a petticoat, and first having put on a decent skirt and blouse, she proceeded to dress Helen in the blue and green saree. They had also discovered an ivory-colored silk blouse which was far too small for Helen; when she had first worn it, she had been a 22AA, but now she was a solid size 36A. But they found something that could be altered quickly, and put it on Helen. Helen was no slouch at sewing, but Lalitha could sew rings around her with only needle and thread. "I had a sewing machine at home," she said, while her needle flew, "but obviously, I couldn't bring it with me."

Lalitha had a sewing box in her baggage, which contained hundreds of safety-pins, which were the biggest tools in the process of wearing a saree, Helen knew. The inner-end of the saree—which was merely a rectangle of silk, with borders on both the long sides, and one short side—was pinned firmly to the waistband of the petticoat, which had been reinforced with a length of fabric, because the waistband held the entire thing together. Then the cloth was draped around Helen's waist, with pleats at the front and the back, to enable the wearer to walk comfortably, and finally draped over Helen's left shoulder, and pinned in place.

Lalitha could not get over how wonderful Helen looked. Helen had been blessed with a face that was beautiful by any standards, but when she was happy she just glowed, and she was glowing now.

"Now your turn! I actually know how," Helen said, and proceeded to put on the saree Lalitha had chosen. It took a lot less time, though the pleating took longer. Ironically, the thinner the girl, the longer the pleating took, since that was how the saree—designed to fit any body size— was adjusted. Finally, they looked at each other, overwhelmed by their feelings, and the grandeur of their clothes.

Lalitha came to stand facing Helen, and took her hands in her own.

"Do you really love me?" she asked, softly. Helen nodded, struck dumb. "Would you still love me if I was ugly?"

Helen nodded, not realizing the irony of the question. Standing on tiptoe, Lalitha placed a kiss on Helen's lips, and simply radiated pleasure. Helen reached out to put her arms around her in a gentle embrace, and in their hearts they had entered into a new world that they wanted more than anything to face together.

They had to agree that it did not make a lot of sense to go out on the town dressed like a couple of Indian brides close to the middle of winter. They did put on more sensible clothes, of which Lalitha did not yet own a suitably warm number, and set out. Helen had bullied Lalitha into allowing her to buy her a few items of warm clothing. "If you like, I'll give you the money, and you can buy the clothes yourself," Helen offered, worrying that if Lalitha spent the money on Helen instead, that she would have to buy some clothes for Lalitha anyway. But Lalitha asked Helen to keep the money.

Helen had worn warm tights and a short, tight, heavy skirt, as she always did, with a leotard and a warm sweater. Lalitha had put on hose and one of her skirts, a blouse and cardigan, and leg-warmers, which Helen had bought her around Thanksgiving. She had her hair braided tidily, and wore a knitted cap, and declared that she was quite warm. Helen was more worried about her comfort than she was herself.

They had a good time shopping for clothes, and being admired by the numerous high-school-aged boys being dragged around by their womenfolk. Helen was not very recognizable, because the teenager who had become famous nationwide on television looked so different from the tall young woman who was out shopping with her Indian friend, except, of course for the glorious gold braid that came down to almost hip level. The woman at the hair salon recognized Helen at once; that was a constant of Helen's life in Ohio: the girl at the hair salon who knew Helen every time. Helen decided to have her braid trimmed professionally, just for an excuse to spend a few minutes with the woman who so loved to play with Helen's hair. Lalitha was alarmed when Helen said she was going to get her hair trimmed, but later agreed that it was good to do it every once in a while.

They also shopped for shoes for Lalitha, and finally for groceries at a little international supermarket that also stocked Indian foodstuffs, which Lalitha regarded with deep suspicion, but then decided was all right.

Back in the Little House, they had a wonderful time cooking, making dishes Lalitha had not been able to have for months. They had found a few of her favorite vegetables in cans at the International store, and Helen tried the unfamiliar flavors, and found that she liked them.

Helen had to call her enormous extended family, especially because she was not planning to visit them this year. These weeks, all alone with Lalitha, were too precious to share with her rambunctious family, consisting of her father John, and Helen's dear friend Annie, who was now her step-mother; Helen's own half-siblings, Tommy and Little John, and Janet's family, which had adopted Helen very early: Old Elly, Janet herself, her little daughter, Little Elly, Janet's brother and sister, David and Rachael, and their families. They begged her to visit, but she said she had other plans, and reluctantly hung up.

There were friends in that very town, who would descend on her if they knew she was staying for the holidays. Helen decided that she would hold off contacting them until Lalitha and she were really bored. Every evening, they found a score of things they could do together; it seemed as if they had been born with a single soul divided between them, and had finally found each other. But Helen had felt this way many times, and was suspicious of the feeling. But when they were in each other's arms, there was no confusion: they belonged together.

On Christmas Eve, there was a heavy snowfall, the first of the year. Lalitha marveled at the stillness of the air, and Helen realized that there had been snow overnight. They hurried to look outside, and Lalitha gasped at the sight.

The whole morning was spent playing in the snow. Helen dressed Lalitha warmly, and headed out to the residential neighborhoods with young children, to show her friend what little kids would do, and they saw snow forts and igloos and snowmen, and made snow angels, and participated in snow fights, with Lalitha giggling hysterically. They ate out at a little Italian diner, where they couldn't believe that Lalitha wanted only veggies, and walked through little strip malls and listened to popular Christmas music playing in the stores, and finally stumbled back inside the Little House, unable to believe that they could be so happy.

## Consummation

That night, Lalitha said that she was ready for something more. "I know there is more; I just wanted to take it slow," she said, looking into Helen's eyes, as they sat at supper.

Helen felt a great fear. This could easily mean the end of their happiness. She had become accustomed to the limited intimacy that they enjoyed so much, and to relieving herself in the privacy of the bath each morning. The softness and tenderness that marked their relationship could easily disappear once they started down the road to invasive sex.

"Maybe we shouldn't," Helen said quietly.

"I don't know, Helen; it is hanging over me ... I felt like you do, that it would spoil everything. But today, my fear went away. I feel like I know you well enough ... I'm not afraid of you anymore."

They went to bed, and Helen told Lalitha that perhaps they should begin with just watching each other get themselves off. But Lalitha was unfamiliar with the concept, and Helen told her to just watch.

Slowly Helen began, with the room only dimly lit, and she explained what she was doing. She kept the motions slow and deliberate, knowing that vigorous masturbation might put her companion off. She kept up a running commentary as she caressed herself, trying to be as graceful as possible under the awkward circumstances. She imagined that it was a sort of dance, and she closed her eyes, and imagined herself giving Lalitha oral sex, and she found herself approaching a climax.

"I'm imagining ... touching you ... and ... it's building up ... it's too fast; the important thing is to slow it down, slow it down ... to enjoy it ... to stretch it out ... Oh Lalitha, I love you so much ... my love for you makes me feel as if I'm floating in air ... I'm flying ... I love you so much ... my whole body is full of love for you ... I'm dying with love ... oh, it's too fast ... too fast ... oh no ... I came!"

It was a wail of triumph mixed with disappointment, and Helen's lips were reaching for Lalitha, she needed to have her mouth on something at that moment of climax, and with unerring instinct, Lalitha bent her head to kiss the hungry lips of her lover.

Helen opened her eyes, her pupils fully dilated, and gazed into the wondering eyes of Lalitha.

Lalitha decided she wanted to practice on Helen first, and Helen lay back, and Lalitha learned how to make love to her. Some nights earlier, she had sucked Helen's nipple and nearly died of the intensity of the feelings it gave her. That was now a firm part of what Lalitha was comfortable with doing to Helen. Helen's breasts were especially sensitive, and Lalitha quickly learned what to do, just from having seen Helen do it. She was gifted with skillful hands, and she soon learned where to rub, where to press, where to stroke, how fast, how soon, and presently Helen was laughing and crying, and writhing in ecstasy.

It was finally Lalitha's turn. Helen was an adept, and in twenty minutes, Lalitha was firmly her sex slave forever. She was insatiable. After her first climax, which was slow in coming, she wanted Helen to do it over and over. Her climaxes were intense, and she jerked about helplessly in the throes of them, gasping, crying, clutching Helen's hand, refusing to let go.

"What do you call this?" she asked, once she was calm enough to engage in conversation.

"I don't know ... fucking, I guess," said Helen, seriously.

"Fucking?"

"Yeah!"

She whispered the word to herself repeatedly, savoring it. "It has an appropriate sound to it," she conceded, and said it again. "So now we have fucked, have we?"

"Yes!"

"You've fucked me, and I have fucked you!"

"Yeah, kind of!"

"Helen, life has nothing more to offer!"

Helen nodded, her face twisted in amusement. She did not agree, but she knew the feeling. She listened while Lalitha elaborated and expounded on her theories about sex and fulfilment, after which they made love in this new way, and in the old way, and in every way they knew how, at least to the extent that Helen judged that Lalitha would enjoy. When Lalitha sat on Helen's hips and gazed into her eyes, and caressed her face, smoothing the tendrils of Helen's hair down her temples, it was heaven.

## The Fast

Christmas came and went, and the New Year came and went, and they invented little traditions that they swore to observe every year henceforth.

In January, Lalitha said, there was a traditional fast. She would not eat for a whole day, she would only drink water, and pray. And she wanted Helen to join her in her fast. She put on a white saree, which was the color of holiness, she said, and she wanted Helen to wear white as well. By noon, Helen was weak, but Lalitha kept encouraging her, bringing her water, urging her to read, or sing, or otherwise distract herself from her hunger. Helen got into a bad mood, but refused to give up the fast.

"Come on," Lalitha said, "let's get dressed and go out!"

"I'm too weak. I can't think of anything but food," complained Helen.

"Helen, you're big and strong, you have more physical resources. You should be able to starve for a long time without any bad consequences! Just put on some clothes, and come with me!"

"Where are we going?"

"I thought we would get up on the Chapel steps, and sit there, and look out over the campus, and just enjoy the view, and try to forget that we're fasting!"

"Get up on the chapel steps? What a stupid idea! What if I feel weak, and fall?"

"Haven't you ever not eaten for a day? I can't believe you've never done it."

And then Helen recalled that Sylvia and she had not eaten for a day that summer. They, too, had climbed up on a hill, and had decided to see if they could last a day without food.

"You know, now that you mention it, I _have_ done it."

"Get dressed, and tell me all about it when we get up there."

Presently, they were seated on the big ornamental stone head of the front steps of the lovely old chapel. The stone was cold, but not painfully so. Lalitha had worn her white skirt, and heavy white hose and heavy shoes, and her white knitted gloves, and a white scarf; when she decided to wear white, she went all out. Helen was dressed similarly, except that she wore a heavy denim skirt. Helen had worn denim skirts from the time she had been a kid, and her mother had died in this horrible accident. Helen had decided to give up fussy, lacy dresses, and only wore denim skirts. She rarely wore jeans, but denim skirts and T shirts or blouses were what she wore all the time.

Helen told her about the time she had fasted with Sylvia. It was high summer, and they lived naked in the woods, she explained. It had been a strange existence, but they had been healthy most of the time. It had been hard, dragging themselves home at the end of the fast, but Helen looked back on the experience with fondness, she said.

Lalitha leaned against Helen, and a feeling of soft pleasure briefly washed over Helen. "At least once a year, you should do it. It is good training," Lalitha declared.

"What time is it?"

"Nearly three. Just at sunset, we will go and eat something."

"We'll have to cook, then!"

"No, I got a vegetable soup ready yesterday. We only have to warm it up."

"I don't know why you dream up these new and inventive ways to torture me!"

Lalitha giggled. Then she grew serious, and took Helen's hand in hers. "Don't you think that love ... and sex ... are a sort of torture?"

"Why? Don't you like it?"

Lalitha was quiet for a long while. Then she explained that the constant craving for sex was a kind of torture. She still struggled to reconcile her sexuality with the tranquility that she felt had thus far characterized her life, until Helen and sex had entered it. The Goddess knew that Lalitha would have to learn about sex eventually, and had chosen Helen to be the instrument of that knowledge. Then something made Helen turn and look at Lalitha, and the setting sun must have been reflected off some surface to light Lalitha's face with a golden glow, and for a long minute, as Helen gazed on that utterly still countenance, she almost believed in the Goddess.

"I think I know what you're seeing," Lalitha whispered.

"Sometimes I wonder whether you're real," Helen said to her, in awe.

"For months, I have wondered the same thing about you," said Lalitha, her eyes wide. "You don't realize how ... superhuman you seem to be, almost all the time! Now, having known you for so long, I know how human you are, Helen. But your kindness, and your gentleness ... you're so ... I don't have words for it!"

Helen looked down at her hands. "Kindness and gentleness come easy to me," she confessed. "I think it comes from a childhood that was filled with not being sure whether I was good enough, to being surrounded by grown-ups who were generous and unselfish. But I'm a very selfish person, deep down inside."

Lalitha was silent. Helen was the opposite of selfish; she would give away everything she had. But she was greedy for love; it wasn't that Helen craved love, and walked around begging for it, but that if you loved Helen, she simply glowed, drunk with it. Helen had an infinite capacity to broadcast love and acceptance, but it was fueled by the love she received from Lalitha, from the time they had first met. And Lalitha knew instinctively, that it had been the same way with Marsha Moore, and the various women Helen had been in love with.

The sun finally set, and Lalitha rose to her feet, while Helen struggled to rise. Lalitha tugged at her hand, helping her to her feet, and Helen looked up and smiled her seraphic smile, and Lalitha felt instantly warmed. They slowly made their way back to the Little House, their arms warm about each other, and as soon as they were inside, Lalitha hurried to the kitchen, and put the soup on the stove, and turned to Helen, bright-eyed. "You have to be patient for just a little while," she said. She bustled about, thoroughly at home in the big kitchen, slicing bread, and putting it to toast, putting water to boil for tea, which both of them enjoyed over coffee, and digging out a spicy relish that she had bought at the international grocery. Helen sat at the piano, and quietly played something, just to calm herself down. The calmer she felt, the less hungry she was.

Presently the soup was ready, the toaster had popped, the tea was steeping, and Helen drew Lalitha into a long, hungry hug. The diminutive Indian girl just made Helen's world into a garden of pure delight. Even being ravenously hungry at sunset seemed a sort of pleasure.

## Winter Semester

For Helen's last semester, Norma had insisted on an undemanding schedule. The instructor who taught the course on animation approved the _Meistersinger_ project for a grade, and as a special project for a second semester. In addition to some easy music and music education courses, Helen took a mathematics course, and also signed on to tutor Calculus 3 as she had done several times before. Lalitha had taken her place as an assistant to Mr. Knowlden who taught instrument making, and as one of the accompanists to the choir. The semester flew by, with Helen's classes practically looking after themselves. Lalitha and Helen had decided that they would not have sex during the semester. On one hand, it detracted from Helen's ability to keep discipline in her freshman dorm, and on the other hand, it detracted from the energy they could focus on their work. Lalitha firmly believed that the reason she had become so uncreative over the break (except in the area of cooking, of course) was that they were having regular sex. Helen had to agree; the work she had put in on the animation project had been quite uninspired, but fortunately it had needed more sheer labor than inspiration.

A trickle of invitations came in for Helen to give concerts. The travel to the concerts had to be confined to weekends, if they were to be out of town, but the Chamber Orchestra that Helen had helped to found performed an occasional concert right in that town, in a small recital hall in the older part of town. Late in February, Helen was featured in a TV special that was broadcast nationally, and which brought a degree of visibility to the school, and introduced Helen to a new generation, and re-introduced her to the older fans whose image of her was still the slim teenager who had made that wonderful Christmas Special in her Sophomore Year.

Marsha flew in one weekend, and to Lalitha's great distress, took Helen away to California, for a round of parties associated with various awards. The entire school saw Helen graciously playing the companion to the beautiful movie star who usually shunned social occasions, unless Helen could be there to lean upon. Marsha Moore's fans loved Helen, and were constantly clamoring for more sights of the couple together. But when Helen was being flown back, she was acutely aware of how distressful it must be for Lalitha, to see Helen being accompanied by the famous actress on National TV.

Marsha sighed.

"I know what's going on, and I know the little gal must hate all this," said Marsha, apropos of nothing.

Helen shrugged. She still loved Marsha. At one time, she had been certain that she and Marsha could be happy forever, but Marsha had never been someone Helen loved like crazy, as Janet, and Leila, and Sylvia had been. Even Sylvia had fascinated Helen because of her great charisma, and her utter fearlessness, and her lifestyle. And now Lalitha was the one who gave so much shape to Helen's waking hours, and who haunted her dreams.

"I love her, Marsha," Helen said, feeling like a worm.

"I understand, Helen," Marsha said softly.

Marsha Moore had been resigned to the possibility that there might never be anyone for her, no soul-mate in the world. She had set her standards impossibly high, and kept out of the public eye completely except for her movies. She was the toast of Hollywood, as far as her movies were concerned, but she refused to play along with the social and publicity demands of Tinsel town. The uncompromising attitude had soured her reputation in certain quarters, but the Industry knew that she had box-office appeal, the lack of media attention notwithstanding.

But when Marsha had decided to facilitate Helen's escape from reality for a lark, and bring her to the nude tennis camp run by Sylvia, she had been startled by how deeply she had been attracted to Helen. So while Marsha had been escape, and safety and comfort to Helen, she had never been to Helen what Helen had been to Marsha, the love of her life. But Marsha had also recognized that, perhaps, when Helen had said yes, it had been too good to be true. Helen was a kid, and would be a kid for several decades. Marsha adored her, and always would. But a kid could not deal with the problems Marsh faced.

## Lent

It was difficult, but Helen managed to make peace with Lalitha. Soon it was Lent, and Lalitha questioned Helen closely about what the season meant. Helen was impatient with all the numerous significant dates of the Church Year, and at first simply brushed off Lalitha's eager inquiries. But gradually Lalitha wormed out of Helen the fact that it was the major fasting season for observing Christians. Overjoyed, she insisted that Helen should fast, and she would fast with her.

"It's not the same thing at all! We just give up something, like, er, bacon, or whatever, for the duration, that's all."

But Lalitha gave up on Helen as a source of information, and decided to find out in the library. She quickly discovered the variety of styles of observances for Lent, and told Helen that she would observe as much of Lent as remained, even if Helen did not.

She wore a white saree to classes (except for the instrument-making workshop, to which she wore a sensible skirt and top), and sat cross-legged on the top of the chapel steps meditating for an hour each day in the early afternoon. Whenever Helen happened to look out at the Chapel, there she was, with the end of her saree pulled around her shoulders like a shawl, her head bent as if in deep thought. She only drank water all through the day, and only ate soup at night.

After a couple of weeks of this, Helen joined her. She couldn't manage without a hearty breakfast, but she ate it early, before sunrise, and only a modest selection of foods, and joined Lalitha towards the end of her hour on the steps, because their free times happened not to coincide.

[Author's note:

I remember that in the original manuscript, Lalitha had undertaken a fast to make Helen give up some behavior that she disliked. It might have been that Helen had taken to drawing pornographic pictures to amuse herself, and Lalitha had been dismayed and aggrieved, and gone on a hunger-strike. Helen had relented, and taken her food and water, and agreed to give up her activity, whatever it was, until the semester was over. In fact, it might be in association with another animation project Helen had begun, namely a rather explicit lesbian interpretation of _Sleeping Beauty_ , in which Helen actually depicted sexual acts. Much later in a subsequent story, Helen actually completes such an animated movie, and it is released in theatres, but it is a far more sterilized version, suitable for a rating of R.]

## Messages from Home

The semester wound towards its close, and a couple of weeks before the end, the annual Honors Banquet was held. It was customary on this occasion for the student awards to be announced. Helen was awarded honors from the Music Department and the Mathematics Department, the former for academic excellence, and the latter for service as a tutor.

Unexpectedly, a message came for Lalitha from home, saying that her father wanted her back.

At first, Lalitha was angry. She said it had not been her father who had facilitated her education, but rather the missionary family for whom Lalitha had worked as a maid and housekeeper. Helen was annoyed, but not knowing the details of the matter, simply ignored it.

They studied for their finals, and one glorious day, Lalitha was finished for the semester, and was confident that she had done well. It was eight straight grades of A, unless she was very much mistaken. For the first time, Helen, too had made all A's for both semesters. Her grades had always been excellent, but Helen had taken risky courses, such as Mathematics and Physics, where earning an A was not a foregone conclusion.

Helen was nominated to give the student vote of thanks at graduation, which was a brief speech given by a student elected for the purpose, to greet the students and the faculty and visitors on behalf of the graduating class.

Helen worked hard on the speech, thinking about it long and hard, and then writing it down in as musical, lucid language as possible.

"I have to go home, Helen," Lalitha said, the evening of the last day of Finals Week.

"In that case, I'm coming with you," Helen said, firmly.

Lalitha laughed bitterly. "It will not do any good."

"In that case, I'm just going to bring you back!"

"That would be lovely," said Lalitha her head hanging low.

Graduation Day was upon them, and Helen found herself in the Platform Party, just ahead of the President and the Chief Guest, and the Dean of the College. Once everyone had taken their seats, and the Chaplain had given his invocation, the President spoke briefly, welcoming the guests, and congratulating all those who were to be graduated. Then he introduced the Chief Guest, who was an alumna who spoke so persuasively that Helen was proud to be graduating from the same school. It was one of the best schools in the nation, but Helen had never given a thought to those who had gone before, assuming that they were dull adults now, grinding away at their boring jobs, their best days behind them. But this woman seemed to radiate light, and Helen knew her face was aglow with admiration. Suddenly it was Helen's turn at the podium.

One of the expectations from the Vote of Thanks speech was that the student would improvise a response to the address of the Chief Guest, and blend it, if possible, into his or her own remarks. The Chief Guest had focused on preparedness, and service.

Helen began with a heartfelt appreciation of the words of the Chief Guest, and said that her own years at the College had prepared her for anything the world could dish out. She said she had studied not only music, but mathematics, science, and Art as well, and had also danced, and played tennis for the school. Our school embodies beautifully the ideal of the institution that prepares the new Renaissance Person, she said, and she declared that she was proud to have attended it. Finally, she said, she was grateful for the instinct for service and compassion that the school had encouraged in her. Without compassion, Helen asserted, preparedness had no direction. This is the time, she said, for each of us to commit to service. Personal success is wonderful, but what is sorely needed is for the entire planet to survive, and for every human being to have a chance at a decent life.

Helen was cheered for several long minutes, after which the awarding of the diplomas got underway. Helen herself received her diploma with a smile from ear to ear, and was congratulated by the Chief Guest, and representatives of various sectors of the administration, and finally walked off the stage, with her friends in the choir and the band calling out to her.

Half an hour later, all was confusion, as students milled around, trying to find their parents, and faculty milled around, trying to find their students. Helen found her father and Old Elly, and Little John, who was now three, and Tommy and Elly, who were now four, and Janet, who looked so lovely, and such a lady! Janet would look lovely forever, Helen was certain, as she kissed her on both cheeks.

There were numerous friends come to see Helen's moment of triumph, and here were her professors, telling her how much they had liked her Vote of Thanks.

## Letter

It was almost a miserable month later that a letter arrived for Helen at the Little House from Lalitha. She was still a minor, and by Indian Law her father had control over her. "By the time you get this, I will be married. I don't know the man, but he is one of my father's drinking buddies. The Goddess gave me eight months of joy, and now comes a lifetime of sorrow. Be happy, my dearest, my only love, and know that only the memory of you will keep life bearable for me. You do not know how much joy you gave me. Yours sincerely, your beloved Lalitha."

Helen was all alone in the Little House, packing her clothes away, preparing for this very news. She sat down and wept until she had no more tears left. Shen she packed a few things, including a cotton saree, not entirely sure why, the little autoharp that Janet had given her, and headed out by bus to Florida.

In a large estate in Florida, there was a woman of great wealth. It was she who had first offered Helen employment as a companion and a tennis coach during Helen's breaks from school, and who had taken Helen out to the Nightclub hidden away in the boondocks, where Helen had first seen Leila dance, and begun their amazing and tragic romance. The woman, called Juliana Hoffmann, owned a horse ranch, and was out riding when Helen arrived.

"I need to go to India," Helen told her.

"Helen, I can help you with the passport and the passage. But did you know that Janet has been sending me all your money?"

Helen was puzzled. "Why?"

"I invested it. Helen, surely you know about stocks and shares and bonds, and things like that?"

"Yes, but ..."

"It's up to, I don't know, about five hundred thousand! You can have it anytime you want."

Helen was shocked. A trip to India would be a mere nothing, with that sort of money. She didn't understand the details of what Juliana was telling her, but she could believe that the money she had earned had been considerable. She had intended Janet to have it all, but she doubted that it could have added up to such an unbelievable sum.

A concert usually paid around a thousand dollars plus expenses, and sometimes a lot more. In her sophomore year alone, she had played about twenty concerts. Then, Leila's mother had paid her for dancing at her nightclub, and that money had been left with Juliana and Helen had instructed her to set up a fund for health insurance for the dancers, for which Leia's mother had not had the resources. She had paid her dancers moderately well, but did not have the know-how to obtain an insurance plan for them. Evidently Juliana had established the fund without using Helen's money. Then there had been the photography she had done for a magazine, and the two volumes of photographs she had published, and she had no idea how much it had been worth.

"I'll take it when I get back," Helen said.

It took less than a week for the passport to be ready, and then she was flying to London, and on to India.

## India

All Helen had to go on was the address Lalitha had given her. She had converted the several hundred dollars she had into Indian rupees, and took a train out to the biggest town in the district of Lalitha's home. Travel in India was slow, and it took a week to get to Lalitha's little town, to the Church at which the missionaries who had befriended Lalitha had worked. The present minister was British, and, as luck would have it, it was Lalitha's kid sister, Sita, who worked for them!

Sita was a lovely little kid of about twelve, with a wonderful grin, and told Helen and the wife of the missionary, how to get to where Lalitha lived. If Helen had not been preoccupied with finding Lalitha, she would have paid more attention to the sister, but Helen thanked the lady, and hurried off to find the place little Sita had described.

Helen arrived in the evening, and knocked on the door. A man came to the door.

He harangued Helen in his native speech, and Helen asked to see Lalitha. To Helen's delight, Lalitha appeared behind him, and for a long moment, the two girls stared at each other hungrily.

"Helen! Why are you here?"

The man demanded to know what the woman (that is, Helen,) wanted. Lalitha explained who Helen was, a friend from her school. He snarled back at Lalitha, glaring at Helen all the while.

"He wants to know whether you are the one ... with whom I supposedly shamed the family." Lalitha was both embarrassed and angry, but Helen admired how cool she was.

"Tell him, I'm just a friend, and would like to talk to you!"

"He knows, Helen. Somehow he knows everything!" The man still glared, but at least was letting them talk past him.

"He can't know _everything!_ They can only guess!"

"He knows that you're the reason I am fighting this marriage!"

"You're not married yet! Oh god, I've come in time!"

There was a long pause, and then the man yelled at Lalitha again, but Lalitha refused to translate, and looked venomously at her father, because it was certainly he.

"It's no use, Helen. Everything is against me. Everything is against us. There is nothing we can do. The wedding is tomorrow."

Helen covered her face, and let out a cry of hopelessness. The man's face softened for a moment with a wash of sympathy, and he said something, which Lalitha translated. "He said that it is foolishness, and American games will not work here. Helen, please go. You are making it difficult for me!"

Helen stumbled down the steps, and wandered aimlessly awhile. Then she headed back to the town, and found the Church, and was directed to the orphanage that adjoined it, where, she was told, she could be given a place to sleep.

There was a room at the orphanage, but they had all eaten, and they pointed out a little shack in the town that served as a sort of café for working men, which was open late. Helen was able to buy something that she recognized, and ate it. It was good, but Helen was doubtful about how sanitary the cooking facilities were, and so the food sat heavy in her stomach.

She slept in her clothes, too miserable to wash up and change. She tried to sleep most of the next day, but felt an urge to go back, and witness her final humiliation, the actual wedding ceremony at which her love would be forever taken away from her.

As she alighted from the bus, she could hear a commotion from the direction of Lalitha's humble home. Loudspeakers blared, and there was a festive atmosphere, and there were crowds in the street outside Lalitha's home, which was decorated in unbelievably fanciful style, with gas lamps lit all along the front of the house, and there, on the broad front verandah of the home, surrounded by a crowd of spectators, Lalitha sat with a guy, a big fellow, both tall and fat, and some sort of elaborate ceremony was in progress, reminiscent of Easter European weddings. Lalitha looked lovely, but there was a frown on her face.

Some instinct made Helen remain hidden, as she watched in fascination, unable to turn away. The ceremony went on and on, and the music was lovely, Helen could tell, but was distorted by the overloaded speakers. The colors were wrong, the design was wrong, it was a cacophony of desperate wrongness, and finally unable to bear it any longer, Helen turned away, and began to walk.

## Walking

Helen walked away, and kept walking. All she had brought with her was in her backpack. She was dusty and dirty and uncomfortable, and miles away from Lalitha's house. She had not been paying attention, but she knew she had stopped and eaten somewhere, and she had been treated respectfully, and been given good value for her money. She had slept the night under a tree, because it was warm, but the mosquitoes had been unbearable. Fortunately, she had worn a calf-length skirt, or she would have aroused the ire of the citizenry, especially the women.

After several days of walking, and sleeping under trees or in bus shelters, where she was never molested, Helen found herself in a largish town, and walked around, exploring the place. Some distance from the center of town, she came upon what was clearly a school. Over the half-walls, Helen got a glimpse of the kids in their seats, and a teacher at the blackboard. From another classroom some distance away, she heard a chorus of young voices, reciting with their teacher.

The idea began to take shape in her head that she must make herself useful, or lose her mind. She went away, so as not to alarm the children, and came back as school was letting out. A few hundred neatly-dressed kids filed out sedately until they were out of the gates, and then hurried to their homes, talking at the tops of their voices. Helen waited until they were all gone, and went in through the gate. She knew she must look a sight, so she tried to look as sane as possible, and caught the eye of someone with a sympathetic face. It was a tall man with a rather ascetic expression, and Helen approached him fearfully, and introduced herself.

"Hello, I'm Helen Nordstrom, you might have heard of me?"

"Helen Nordstrom, pleased to meet you, madam. No, I regret, I have not heard the name."

"Do you have a few minutes? I want to explain why I'm here ..."

"Certainly. Please come this way ... Please take a seat, I will make you some tea."

Tea! Helen's heart leaped up. This was a civilized place, despite the unmistakable signs of abject poverty.

The tea was brought, and Helen drank gladly, washing down the dust in her throat. As she drank, she began to realize that she simply could not tell her story to this man, however understanding he was. She had to tell him a version of the facts that was not too far from the truth, but which did not give the impression that Helen Nordstrom was a dangerous monomaniac.

"I came looking for a friend, but ... they seem to have moved, and I'm all at a loose end."

"Do you need help getting back? A ticket for the train, or something like that?"

"No, no; I think I still have most of my money," Helen assured him, and then took the time to verify that it was so. She had several thousand rupees, and he assured her that would her back to civilization easily. "I'm reluctant to leave the area, I want to stay until ... I find some clues as to where they're gone," Helen said.

"Are they Americans, or British, or are they Indian?"

"Oh ... Indian," said Helen.

She could tell that the man knew he wasn't being told the whole story, but Helen kept quiet. He had to make up his mind to help her, or she had to move on.

"How can I help?" he asked gently.

"I would like to ... help at the school, until I'm ready to try to find them," Helen said.

"Are you trained as a teacher?"

"I have a B.A.," Helen said, and the man's eyes lit up. "I don't have a teaching certificate," Helen admitted, "but I could ... grade papers, ... clean the rooms ..."

"But where would you stay?"

Helen shrugged, feeling utterly hopeless.

But her offer to grade papers had been a good one, and for whatever reason, he felt kindly towards the filthy American girl, and after he had gathered his colleagues together, they said they could probably arrange for Helen to stay at, of all places, the local Sarasvati temple, which had a hostel for devotees.

The hostel was a clean, bare room with a camp cot, supervised by a sort of nun, who took a liking to Helen. She talked at Helen in the local dialect, and Helen simply smiled ruefully. The woman laughed politely at Helen, and somehow they understood each other. The woman said she did not have the wherewithal to provide meals, but Helen was welcome to share her meal for that night.

Helen had brought a pile of papers, and after a simple meal Helen had obtained from the town restaurant, she proceeded to correct the papers, which were incredibly neatly written, but which had a huge variety of grammatical correctness. Helen had been given a red-ink pen, and general guidelines as to what to do. If you finish before sunset, bring them to me, the English teacher had said with a smile, or bring it out in the morning.

It was still light, so Helen hurried out to where she was to meet the English teacher, and handed over the papers. The woman was very pleased at how Helen had done, and gave her another bundle.

Helen worked at the little school for three months. She learned to bathe at the well, wrapped in a bathing-cloth, and in the evenings sat under a tree, with her autoharp in her lap, and sang softly. The daily work at the school was keeping her sane, which meant that she was acutely aware of her sorry situation. At least, she thought to herself, I'm being useful. She had taken over the task of cleaning the classrooms at the school, in addition to correcting the English papers, and the arithmetic papers. The teachers usually chatted with her for a few minutes before they hurried home at the end of the day, and they assured her that she was eminently qualified to teach English there, but that the certification process for teachers was very rigid, and there was no leeway for hiring teachers casually, unless there was an emergency, such as a teacher falling ill.

Sleeping under the gaze of the Goddess was a strange feeling. Helen sometimes visited with the beautiful sculpture of the goddess around which the temple was build. Saraswati was the most reasonable deity in the Hindu pantheon, ruling wisdom, music, order, and the Arts. To Helen's mind, perhaps influenced by Lalitha, it seemed that her own talents and interests were precisely in those areas, and by rights the Goddess should favor and protect Helen for that reason. Then, at other times, Helen rejected all this as superstition, and was disgusted at herself. But then again, resentment rose in her breast, that the Goddess had turned her back on Helen and Lalitha. Helen would glare at Sarasvati, and she would smile serenely back, with no sign of censure, or mockery, but certainly something that seemed to Helen as unmistakably, acknowledgement.

By now, Helen's friends at the school knew that Helen was laboring under some great emotional burden, but didn't have the courage to inquire closely. They were not too surprised when one day Helen said, clearly disguising great distress, that she was moving on. The women, in particular, had grown to love Helen, or it may have been that it was inappropriate for the guys to indicate more than comradely approval. Helen took a fond farewell from the little nun at the Sarasvati temple, and headed back. It took a week to get back to Lalitha's house, and quite a bit of effort to discover where Lalitha and her new husband lived. It was quite a distance by foot, and there was no other way to get there.

The tall, dissolute-looking man answered the door, and Helen asked for Lalitha. She could speak the language fairly well, now. Luckily the man was sober, and called for Lalitha, and soon the two friends were embracing tearfully.

Helen stared at Lalitha, who came out to the stoop, while her husband went into the depths of the house, leaving them alone. Lalitha looked very pregnant, in fact, unhealthily so.

"You are still here! What have you been doing?"

Helen shook her head, struck dumb. What was she to say? "I just wanted to ... see you ... one more time," Helen mumbled, still staring at Lalitha's belly resentfully. She did not resent Lalitha having gotten pregnant; Lalitha deserved to be a mother, and obviously no woman lover could accomplish that for her. But the girl was barely seventeen, and tiny; just about five feet tall. But around them, Indian women of even shorter stature were having perfectly normal babies.

Lalitha heaved herself onto an armchair and indicated that Helen should sit.

"But it's been, what, two months, no ... three months!"

"I came to spy on the wedding, and then ..."

"You were watching?"

Helen made a vague gesture. "Just for a few minutes. I couldn't bear to keep watching!"

"Then where did you go?"

Helen told her, with lots of prodding, that she had been a janitor and a teaching assistant at a little village school somewhere. Where? Helen realized that she didn't know. Helen put her head in her hands. She could not even find her way back, if she wanted to. She could never find that particular Sarasvati temple without a great deal of time and effort.

"Darling," said Lalitha softly, "you should go back. If you keep visiting here, you will be considered inauspicious. You know? Bad luck! You can't achieve anything here. And if you got Malaria, or something, I would never forgive myself!"

Helen embraced Lalitha one last time, and walked away, feeling utterly empty. She had fallen into this pattern of simply walking, in no particular direction, and she did it now.

She walked all night, and in the morning, she stumbled on a compound that contained an Ashram. An Ashram was essentially a religious retreat, for those who preferred the monastic life to ordinary life. You brought all your belongings to the Ashram, and they took you in, and in exchange for your labor in cultivating a variety of food crops, they fed you and sheltered you. The Ashram idea was a Hindu invention, but this particular one was a Roman Catholic Ashram. Helen walked in, and threw herself on their mercy.

The very next day, Helen began a bad cough, and soon she had all the symptoms of pneumonia. The women of the Ashram faithfully nursed her through the pneumonia, and then Helen took up the life of the Ashram, digging, weeding, watering, meditating, and singing quietly by herself. She took no part in the religious observances, but occasionally, at the insistence of the girls, attended mass, and gazed sadly on the face of The Virgin. It seemed to Helen that, at least Sarasvati looked capable of acting on behalf of her people. The Virgin seemed prepared to listen, but not much more than that. In a year or two, she had forgotten much of what had brought her to the place. She occasionally told her fellow residents that she had urgent business, and had best be getting on with it, but in the morning she had invariably forgotten. At first, they reminded her of the business she had mentioned (Helen was speaking the vernacular fluently now), but she only looked puzzled and worried, and the matron tactfully indicated that they should not disturb the woman unnecessarily.

Helen stayed at the Ashram for five years, taking the name Sister Mary. One day, Sister Mary complained of a headache, which got steadily worse, until she was writhing in pain. The sisters appealed to the brothers next door, but they had nothing to offer, and it was clear that Sister Mary was the problem of the nuns alone. All the money she had brought with her, a few hundred dollars, had been spent long ago, and now Sister Mary needed medical attention.

Only a strong narcotic could lessen Sister Mary's pain, and it was administered by one of the sisters who was a sort of amateur medic, and knowledgeable about pain-killers. To their great relief, Sister Mary woke in the morning, and said that she was fine. But she had remembered what had transpired just before she had arrived at the Ashram: there was someone she had to find out about. It was a young mother, about to deliver, and Helen feared that there might be complications.

The residents gathered round her, and figured out where this person was supposed to live. Over the five years, women had come and gone, and only a few of them remembered that Sister Mary had come to them so long ago that the delivery must have already taken place.

"When you have found your friend and made sure she is fine, you must know how to come back! Can you find your way back here?"

"I'm not sure," said Sister Mary.

They set about to make sure that Sister Mary had detailed instructions about where the Ashram was located, and how to get back.

Helen set out, and settled into a steady walk. She had no money, and had to walk to her destination. She was not sure about what she was doing, but Lalitha's face was firmly etched in her mind, and Lalitha's voice, and a feeling that she simply _had_ to do this, after which she would be at peace.

Arriving at Lalitha's home, she learned that Lalitha had aborted the first baby, but had gotten pregnant soon afterwards. But then, said the woman who spoke to her, there had been a huge fire, and Lalitha's husband had died in it. Lalitha and the baby were safe, said the woman, but they did not know where she was.

Helen's mental state was not so strong as to be able to make decisions based on complicated and uncertain information. She began to walk, as was her habit when confused. The sun was high, and she paused at a bus shelter, to ease her aching feet. These shelters were high off the ground, and Helen sat down, heedless of the dust and her white saree. Then, to her amazement, she saw a face that was so similar to that of Lalitha that it was uncanny, but it was someone else.

"My lady! Aren't you Miss Helen?"

"Sister Mary," Helen said, automatically.

"Sister Mary!" The girl was confused, but clearly pleased to have met Helen, and she gave the distinct impression that she was absolutely confident about who Helen was. "We thought you had gone home!"

"I came to look for Lalitha," Helen said, using her rusty English with difficulty.

"Yes, yes! She has gone to America! I think she was looking for you!"

The girl, of course, was Lalitha's sister, Sita.

Sister Mary returned to the Ashram, defeated. Frustrated at every turn, she fell back on the farming, and threw herself into the life of the place once again, working twice as hard as anyone else, never raising her eyes to meet those of anyone else, but looking only at the ground, or at whatever she was working on. She did not any longer sing, and the autoharp was packed carefully away. They all thought she had lost her mind. Meanwhile, Sita has assumed that Helen was on her way back to the USA, and was confident that Helen and Lalitha would be joyfully reunited very soon.

Some years later, Sister Mary had a seizure while working, and had to be carried to her bed. She was no longer her full weight of 160 lbs that she had been when her plane had landed, but she was still a big-boned woman, build on the lines of John Nordstrom's Scandinavian ancestors, and it took four women to carry her. There was a new matron in charge, and she said Sister Mary had to have professional attention right away.

Sister Mary was taken by ox-cart to the closest Catholic hospital, where the physicians declared that for this sort of problem, an X-ray was no good. She would need either a CT-scan, which was brand-new technology, or an MRI-scan. They went through her effects, and found a variety of American paraphernalia, and decided to take her to the American Consulate.

Gradually, Sister Mary was ferried to the Consulate in Bombay. Medical facilities in Bombay were world class, but the Consulate did not have the discretionary funds for a protracted stay in a medical facility, but they did have discretionary funds for the repatriation of an American Citizen. So the unidentified patient was put aboard a plane for Washington, D.C, where smarter heads could deal with the problem. The problem had been tentatively identified as a tumor.

## Hospital

Once in Washington, Helen was given an immediate MRI scan, and it was discovered that an enormous tumor was causing all sorts of problems. They could not be sure until they performed exploratory surgery, but they were confident that the only frightening thing about the tumor was its size; it did not have the terrible characteristics of some tumors which made them almost impossible to remove cleanly.

It just so happened that one of the surgeons who had been on hand to help with the surgery was Dr. Amy Salvatori, who was one of Helen's closest friends.

"Oh my god, it's Helen," she cried, and her fellow-surgeons looked at her blankly. "Helen! Helen, surely you've heard of her! The violinist girl!"

"Oh. Oh yeah; she went missing some years ago!"

Amy looked at the face again, and was sure. The hair had been cut short, and she had lost an enormous amount of body mass, but it was unmistakably she. She looked at the hands and the wrists, and yes, they were the stevedore forearms that Amy knew well. She was beginning to get emotional, because she had loved Helen from the time they had first met, when Amy had joined the Chamber Orchestra to play flute and oboe. In later years, Helen had given Amy a great deal of money to establish a fund for pediatric surgery, and then disappeared.

The surgery confirmed the belief that the tumor was not dangerous: only a minimum of healthy brain tissue had to be taken out.

The patient recovered quickly, and Amy came to visit her. Sister Mary looked at her blankly.

"Helen, it's me, Amy! You remember me?"

Helen shook her head. She couldn't remember anything. She was a total amnesiac.

## Milk of Amnesia

Back in the bosom of her family, Helen could not recognize a single one of them, and they began to feel hopeless. They had known little about how she had made her way out to India, and it was a long while before Janet thought of asking Juliana Hoffman. Juliana had blamed herself for three long years believing that she had facilitating Helen's demise, and was almost hysterical in her joy that Helen was alive. But the fact that Helen had lost her memory meant that they could learn nothing of what had taken place in India. All Helen could tell them was that she had lived in a Catholic ashram for as long as she could remember.

Various family friends took turn babysitting Helen, but the lady in question was restless and unhappy. Surrounded by strangers, she was in the habit of wandering off and getting lost. Finally Cindy O'Shaughnessy, a family friend and a former nun, told the rest of the family that she would find out what Helen would like to do, and let her get settled anywhere she could be happy, and keep loose tabs on her. "She's miserable here," she said, and they knew it was true.

"Why do they keep calling me Helen?" she asked, as Cindy set out with her, still going fairly slow, since she had been unable to figure where Helen would rather go.

"That's your name, hon. You've lost your memory, and we're hoping you'll get it back soon."

"Helen. Doesn't ring a bell."

"That's okay; one name is as good as another! For the longest time, I called myself Cindy, but it turned out my real name was Mary-Catherine!"

"Oh." Helen turned to look at her intently. "I guess you lost your memory too?"

"Yeah! And you helped me get it back!"

" _I_ did? How'd I do that?" Helen seemed genuinely interested.

"You took me skating, and suddenly I remembered going skating with my folks, when I was a little girl!" Cindy's eyes misted over. She owed Helen so much; Helen had smuggled her out from right under the nose of a prostitution gang that had kept her captive. Cindy loved Helen fiercely, but now she didn't want to show her just how much, for fear of frightening her. She had to play it cool. "Would you like to go visit your college? Anything that would trigger your memories would be good!"

"Okay," said Helen, sounding doubtful.

But the College sparked no memories. It was now just after graduation, ten years after she had been the student speaker at her own graduation. If Cindy had thought to take her to the Chapel steps, it might have sparked something, but Cindy focused on the Little House, and the parts of the town that were familiar to Cindy. Helen shook her head, and Cindy and Helen got back in Cindy's little Ford Pinto.

"Well, we've tried Illinois, and Ohio, we may as well try Kansas. Your dad will be happy to see you!"

"Is that the ... tall fellow, John? Didn't I meet him already?"

"Yes; he came out to Old Elly's home, where we set out from." Helen had been polite to him, but nothing had worked. John Nordstrom had embraced his daughter, and wiped a tear from his eye. He had told Old Elly that he could keep Helen at the farm, and that had been the best idea until Cindy had brought up the idea of a tour.

Helen seemed to enjoy being on the road, but the farm did not spark any memories, nor did meeting with Annie. Cindy could see that Annie was heartbroken, and more importantly, Helen could see it, too, and she offered Annie a hug, feeling sorry to dash Annie's expectations.

"I'm trying really hard," she assured Annie, and that was more heartbreaking than anything. "Nothing comes," said Helen.

"I'm running out of ideas," confessed Cindy, as they got back towards the highway. "I could take you to Minnesota, where you have family, if you like!"

" _More_ family?" She pronounced it _faem-_ ly, and Cindy suppressed a smile. Helen's beautiful speech had given way to a more rural Midwestern dialect.

"Yes; these are your mother's folks, the Johnsons. I knew them in school!"

Helen smiled at her, and Cindy blushed with pleasure. Helen was beginning to regard Cindy as a friend, something she had badly missed when Helen had first come out of anesthesia.

## Minnesota

The cousins crowded round Helen when they got to St Paul, and they made a great fuss over her, and she smiled and was polite, but it was as though she had never met them before. A couple of the girl cousins actually looked a lot like Helen, especially the youngest, Heike. Helen told her, "You look like someone I know!" But they knew it was only a joke, and Heike disguised her acute disappointment with a stiff face, and Helen felt intimidated.

When Cindy was filling up the gas tank, Helen sighed and said that she ought to be getting a job, and earning some money. "You're paying an awful lot of money for the gasoline, and I'm just sitting here ... I feel stupid."

Cindy racked her brains for something to say.

"Helen, you don't have to just jump up and go find a job. We're not impoverished, and we can certainly keep you comfortable until you find a job you really like. Don't settle for just anything!"

"Something I like?" echoed Helen, thoughtfully, chewing on a buckhorn while Cindy drove West. "I seem to remember farming. Yeah; I definitely remember doing a little farming."

"Is that when you were in India?"

"Uh huh. I lived on a farm." Cindy was getting excited, but kept driving. "I remember my name! It was Sister Mary!"

"Sister Mary? Why? Was it a church, or a convent or something?"

"It was ... a Catholic Ashram. I lived there for years and years, and we ... farmed. Yeah, I'm sure of it!"

It took a while for Cindy to digest this information. Gradually an idea began to shape itself.

"Would you like to work at a Catholic farm?"

Helen nodded vigorously. "I think I would, actually. Yes, I definitely would. Where would we find such a thing?"

## California

After about a week, Cindy and Helen had found a farm run by Catholic nuns in central California. Helen just loved the look of the place, in a sheltered shallow valley, the lovely little farm grew everything, and was home to a score of orphans of both sexes, ranging in age from a couple of years old, to young people in their twenties.

Soon it was arranged for Helen to stay with them. The person in charge was an elderly nun, Sister Cordelia, and Helen seemed comfortable with the idea of staying. She was given a room at the end of a long block of rooms, all occupied by young women in their late teens and early twenties, and Cindy began to worry whether Helen's sleeping libido would awake with a vengeance. But from the time Helen had been returned to her family and friends, she had appeared to be utterly uninterested in any sort of relationships at all.

A wave of grief swept over Cindy. She remembered Helen, a vital girl of seventeen, bright-eyed and intense, but still self-effacing and shy, but oddly determined. Cindy had actually seen her first as she waited on the sidewalk, ostensibly to pick up a customer, but Helen and she had planned the meeting carefully, to help Cindy escape from her captors. But Helen had moved so fast, there had been no violence at all. A taxi had been waiting, and they had got in and driven off and immediately gone to ground. Cindy had still not regained her memory, and in her mind she had been a prostitute, and determined to repay Helen in the only coin she had, and they had had sex in Helen's room, but it had been oh! So different from the horror of entertaining pathetic men on their spiral of self-destruction. Cindy had still been in the mind-set of caring and compassion that had originally led to her taking vows of service, but she had known in her heart that the relief she provided her clients was only temporary. Something about Helen had struck a chord in her, and she had been completely besotted by Helen. Much later she had learned that Helen had reminded her of her teenage love who had been out of her reach, which was one of the reasons Cindy had turned to the monastic life. But _this_ Helen, anxiously studying the farm and its inmates, was a mere caricature of that girl in Cindy's memory. Her skin was all dull, the life gone out of it; the hair was clean but limp and lifeless, the eyes bloodshot, worried-looking, the movements uncertain and tentative. In ten years, Helen seemed to have aged twenty. She was taller now, rangier, slightly hunched ... Cindy could not bear to keep listing in what ways Helen had sunk from the angel she had been to the drudge she seemed to be now.

Helen turned to look at her, and there was anxiety there. "You gotta write down your address for me," Helen told her, worriedly. "I might need to ..."

"I know," Cindy said gently, holding back her tears. Helen wanted a lifeline, in case she had to be rescued. She was beginning to trust Cindy, but she did not offer what Cindy had been hoping to hear: that she would like to stay with Cindy. Cindy was too principled to encourage that too aggressively. Helen had to find herself first.

Once Cindy had reluctantly driven away, it was lunchtime, and Helen sat with the women and ate. It was simple food, good produce from the farm and a stew of a variety of meats, and a glass of juice. It was late spring, and they were well along on the cultivation cycle.

"So, Helen, what can you do? Our tractor is on the fritz, and we're waiting for the fellow who repairs it; until then, it's hoeing by hand!"

"I could take a look at it, if you like."

"The tractor? You know tractors?"

Helen shrugged. She hadn't seen a tractor for more than ten years, but it seemed to her that it couldn't do any harm to look at it. The sister who had taken Helen in charge was thinking the same thing. The girls had never interested themselves in the mechanical stuff just because there were these Indian boys —these were Native Americans, not Helen's kind of Indians— who were happy to tinker with the hardware.

The two of them between them managed to get the engine started, but there was something wrong with the linkages that worked the attachments. But it was nothing for a girl with Helen's education, even if Helen could remember nothing of it. Even at college, Helen had been the go-to person for fixing the equipment in the Physics labs, when the instructors and the technicians had been either too busy, or too lazy to attend to them, and some of the kids had delighted in damaging the instruments, just for a lark.

The climate was arid, though a lot milder than that of the Ashram environs. Helen was uncomfortable with the sheer mass of chemicals they seemed to use, but not having a context for an opinion on the matter, Helen went along with the procedures that seemed to be usual for the little farm. It was barely fifty acres, and was less intended to be a commercial enterprise than something that was self-sufficient, and occasionally profitable. They sold wine to a small circle of customers; there were a few folks that came by to get produce; they had a few milk cows, but that was about all.

It turned out that Helen had better instincts for farming than anyone but the woman who had fixed up the tractor with her, Gertie. Gertie was bright, and soon realized that Helen had a lot more packed away in her head than she could actually remember.

"How's she doing?" Cindy asked. She had called Sister Cordelia, who had handed the phone to Gertie.

Cindy lived with the Johnsons, or rather, had an apartment close to the Johnson home, and ate most of her meals there, but earned a slender income by teaching violin and cello. It was she who had given Helen her first advanced lessons in violin technique, soon after she had discovered her aptitude for bowed instruments. For a year, Helen had kept to playing Renaissance instruments: viola da gamba, treble viol, and Baroque violin, all gut or nylon-strung instruments, and her technique had been phenomenal. But she had decided to try the modern violin, and made her own violin at the workshop. By a fluke, it had been a fabulously wonderful instrument, and Helen had made three more, all ranging from really good to excellent. Knowlden, the man who had gotten Helen started in instrument-making, knew that Helen had a fabulous gift, but she was so wonderful as a performer that it had not made sense to keep her at manufacturing. Once Cindy had shown Helen modern violin technique, she had soon progressed too far to need lessons.

"She's doing really great. She seems to know a lot about farming, ..."

"Yes; we learned that she had been living in this sort of convent that had a farm. That's why I thought it made sense to stay with you all, because she would fit in so well."

"Yeah. I think she's doing really well. She knows about tractors, and pumps; mechanical things are so easy for her! She's a natural with gadgets."

"Yeah," said Cindy, nodding; it made sense. "Has she been singing at all? She can sing!" Cindy could not bring herself to reveal that this was _the_ Helen, the operatic soprano. (Actually, Helen was more of a lyric soprano, though she had indeed sung lyric opera roles.)

"No; she comes to the singing, though, and sits quietly at the back! Are you sure she sings?"

"Oh yes. She can, er, play the piano, too. She can play pretty much anything, but ... you know she has amnesia, right?"

"No, I didn't! Did you tell Sister Cordelia?"

Cindy replied that she had, but Cordelia probably had her reasons for not making it known.

Somehow, though Helen did not appear to make much of a difference in the life of the little community, they seemed to get a little more energy. The farming went very smoothly, at least partly because Helen could put herself to anything that needed doing, so nothing needed to wait until somebody could leave something else and do it. Helen would cook, and serve, and work the tractors, do weeding, clean the yard and the floors, do the laundry. It was all the work she had done in India, but here, of course, it was so much easier: there were washing machines, and gas ranges, and nice brooms and indoor plumbing and detergents, whereas in India Helen had to do the Ashram laundry at the well, with bar soap that roughened her hands and cracked her fingernails. Helen did not work like a maniac; he always gave the impression of being easygoing and cheerful. But the work just got done like magic, on time.

Sister Cordelia decided that she would put up a little school, for the benefit of the Indian kids who lived close by. They were supposed to attend the community school, but of late, staffing the Indian School had been difficult, because a string of teachers had moved away to better-paying jobs, and the school buildings were falling into disrepair. The Indian leaders and Sister Cordelia agreed that it was time to build a new school building, in which they would put the pre-school and child care, and maybe Grades 1 to 3.

Once building got underway, it was discovered that Helen was an amazing carpenter. She was strong, and could lay out even a plan of a couple of hundred feet in extent. Gertie asked her how she could do it, and Helen only shrugged. She hated to be quizzed about anything that was related to her amnesia, and she realized that she was probably drawing on skills she had forgotten she had, and resented having to explain it to Gertie, not knowing that Gertie knew about the amnesia business.

One day, they discovered that a real estate developer was setting out a number of modest homes along the road that they took to go into town. They were all going to be ranch-type homes, of a number of different styles, ranging from two-bedroom starter homes to larger 3-bedroom homes, but none larger than that. It was now August, and Sister Cordelia had arrived at the conclusion that Helen should be mainstreamed into society. There was so much potential there, and it would make sense to develop her skills as a carpenter, while she still had the farm community as her family.

California was going through a drought at the time, and the news on TV was that this would be a more difficult year than the ones preceding. Helen had always been critical of wasting water, and Cordelia and Gertie had understood why: the part of India in which Helen had lived had been almost continually in a state bordering on drought, and the local culture considered water waste as sinful, and Helen had absorbed those values completely. Now, having listened to the news of the drought, Helen was determined that everyone in their community should be frugal with water. One day Helen had got so angry at one of the girls that she had begun to cry. Cordelia had decided that a little change of scenery would be all to the good for the woman.

She had intended that Helen should keep the money she earned, but Helen on her own offered to pay Sister Cordelia for her room and board.

"That was not the point, dear," Cordelia said, annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken. "You work enough to earn your keep here. We don't need the money."

"But if I work for the construction company, I can't work here, too!"

"Well ... I guess you have a point. Okay; whatever you can afford."

## Carpenter Helen

Cindy took a week off, and drove down to California. Helen needed a social security number and an ID. Her papers had all been lost in India, but Helen had a social security number and only needed to take her driving tests again. Helen was a fair driver, though Cindy remembered that she had been obsessed with speed as a teenager. But now, she tended to drive aimlessly, her mind elsewhere. But she was quite reliable, and had that wonderful hand-eye coordination that was the envy of everyone, and earned her license without difficulty, despite not having her own car. The Cherokee still stood in the driveway of the Little House, which was now rented by Amy Salvatori. Amy could afford a mansion, but she liked the little house.

Helen gazed at her license with visible pleasure. She turned and smiled her gratitude to Cindy, and the latter noted how much younger Helen looked. Her skin was clear, the skin tone was good, her eyes were clearer than they had been, she had fleshed out just a little; she wasn't anywhere near the clean-limbed beauty she had been as a youngster, but she was a good distance along in the right direction. Cindy threw her arms around Helen, simply happy to have her _mostly_ back, and to her delight, Helen returned the embrace with a little of the enthusiasm of old. There was an amused twinkle in her eye, which echoed the twinkle in the eye of John Nordstrom, whom Cindy knew well. "I want to take a few pictures of you, so I can show your Dad, and Old Elly, and Janet!" she said. Helen drove Cindy's car to the business strip, and they bought a disposable camera at the drugstore, and got a passer-by to take a photo of the two of them together, and a few of Helen alone, looking bashful, but handsome in her jeans and T shirt. Her hair was now to the middle of her back, tightly braided, but a couple of strands on either side covered the tips of her ears, a style that she must have picked up in India. She had always been self-conscious of her elven ears that tended to stick out a little too far for Helen's taste. This wasn't really the same Helen, Cindy had to admit; there seemed to be a lot more of her father in her now than there had been before. It was all the more strange that seeing him, and her childhood home, had not awoken the memories that slept.

A few days later, Helen applied to work at the construction site, and was hired at six dollars an hour. It was mostly Indian and Mexican labor, except for the foreman and a few fellows who did the plumbing and the wiring, though the Mexicans insisted that they could do all that just as well, and grumbled to Helen privately about it.

Soon Helen had picked up all there was to learn about housing construction that she hadn't known already. She had seen the little school building completed, and done most of the heavy lifting, and helped with pouring the foundations and raising the roof. But these homes were to be sold, and had to be up to a more rigorous code than a mere basic schoolhouse, even if the schoolhouse had to satisfy California safety standards for school facilities, even if being under the supervision of a religious organization gave them a few privileges.

Helen was amazed at how quickly the homes were completed. She learned about brick-facing, and siding, and driveways, and heating systems and cooling systems, and working on two-story houses, of which there were several. They were able to finish a house every five days or so, though the bigger homes took longer. Soon Helen was given a raise, and a higher rate when she worked on roofs of two-story houses.

She still lectured the girls when she caught them wasting water, but now she was more concerned with ways of avoiding water waste, and conservation, and less with remonstrating with her friends. She was reading, now, and urged Gertie to adopt water-conserving irrigation methods that allowed lesser losses through evaporation. Though Cordelia kept saying that she did not need Helen's money, she was surprised and grateful when Helen gave her half her earnings, which was several hundred dollars a week, which Helen handed over with a triumphant grin.

## Baltimore

When Lalitha had found her home burned to the ground, she had run with her child to her sister, borrowed enough money for a short journey, and a clean saree, and gone to visit an American couple who lived some distance away, who had been good friends of the missionaries who had facilitated Lalitha's enrollment at Helen's College. She begged them to let her speak to her friend Katie, who was now back home in the US.

They were only too happy to allow Lalitha to make the call, and soon Lalitha was talking to Katie.

"I want to escape from here," she said, under her breath, so that the owners of the phone would not overhear. "My husband is dead, and I don't want my father to get hold of me!"

Katie's husband was a difficult man. What Lalitha did not know was that the good reverend had been infatuated with the youthful Lalitha ten years ago, and both wanted to help bring her over, and doubted whether he could keep his hands off the lovely Indian woman. Katie had borne his wandering eye for twenty years, but was beginning to lose patience with his hypocrisy. He was an arch conservative, and tolerated little in anyone else, but prayed every night to be relieved of his sexual obsessions, and was confident that God forgave him.

"We could get her over as some sort of domestic, on a work visa," Tom offered. Katie knew better than to accuse him of having ulterior motives. So a week, and a couple of thousand dollars later, Lalitha was being met at the airport by a delighted, but somewhat wary Katherine O'Malley, and her sanctimonious husband, Rev. Thomas. Lalitha looked completely different; still slim and graceful, her face was just as beautiful, but the marks of suffering were everywhere on her face. She held a scrawny little boy by the hand, her son.

Katie was grateful that Tom left Lalitha strictly alone, but from little clues, she knew that his every waking moment was filled with lustful thoughts of the lovely Indian, and his dreams at night were about her as well. Everything seemed to be as before, but his sermons were filled even more with rants against the evils of modern American life, and he was less forthcoming to Katie about what he was thinking. The US of the Nineties was filled with concerns about AIDS and HIV and gay and lesbian rights, and Tom hated every bit of it. Lalitha watched TV with them every once in a while, and knew that there was just no way to tell Katie about her tragic love affair with the famous violinist.

After she had been in the US for several months, Lalitha collected a little money that Katie had given her, and with her son, went looking for a place from where she could learn more about what might have happened to Helen. She knew nothing about Helen having come to look for her again; that was still a couple of years in the future. Lalitha had assumed that Helen would find her way back home.

She found a store that sold inexpensive cellphones, and bought service, and then proceeded to a public park, and pulled out the piece of paper on which she had written down the phone number of The College. The Admissions Office was open on Saturday morning, and she asked how she could contact Helen Nordstrom. She was referred to the Alumni Office, which she had to call on Monday.

It was Thursday afternoon when she could get away again. The Alumni Office referred Lalitha to John Nordstrom in Kansas, where it was still eight in the morning.

"She's gone to India, miss," said John Nordstrom. He sounded weary but polite. "Here, talk to my wife. Annie, ... it's someone asking after Helen."

"Hello?"

"Hello, my name is Lalitha, and I knew Helen in school! Can you tell me how to find her?"

"Helen disappeared right after graduation, hon; we have no idea where she is! We believe she's in India, somewhere. We just don't know."

"May I leave my name and number, and maybe you could call me if she shows up?"

"If you like, certainly! Have you tried the Krebs house, in Illinois?"

"Oh. Who is this Krebs?"

"They ... they're friends of Helen's, from her College days; they're hooked in a lot better to places where Helen might show up, that's why I suggested them. Wait, here's the number ..."

But the Krebses hadn't heard from Helen in several years either, and Lalitha only succeeded in getting everyone upset about Helen having gone missing. They questioned Lalitha closely, and one of them, Janet, recalled hearing about Lalitha from Helen around graduation time. But Helen had flown out to India not telling anyone they knew, so in the end, it seemed to lead nowhere. But Janet did take down Lalitha's number.

A little after Lalitha had rung off, Janet had the idea that Helen might have gone to Florida, to get help from Juliana Hoffman, to whom Helen turned whenever she needed something that needed a lot of money, such as an air ticket. Juliana answered the phone, and revealed, with great sorrow and embarrassment, that yes, she had bought Helen the ticket. It had been a round trip ticket, and she had expected Helen to return within the month, but it hadn't happened. "I should have told someone," she admitted, but Janet murmured that she couldn't have known that Helen would be gone so long.

Some six years later, when Juliana heard that Helen had been found, she recalled vaguely that someone had inquired after Helen long ago, something that had completely faded from Janet's mind. A month or so later, Juliana called Janet to remind her, and Janet remembered that Lalitha was waiting for news of Helen. She agonized over the question of whether it was in Helen's best interests to facilitate her reunion with Lalitha, but then, they had all been in love with Helen at one time or another, and it seemed self-serving, to say the least, to keep Lalitha and Helen apart.

"May I speak to Lalitha, please?"

"This is she; who is calling?"

"Lalitha, this is Janet. You probably don't remember me, but ..."

"Janet! Has Helen been found?"

"Yes! Amy found her in a hospital in Washington D.C! She's lost her memory, dear. She had a big tumor removed, and that might have had something to do with it."

"She can't remember anything? Nothing at all?"

Janet shook her head. "Not a thing. There's hope still, but ... every month it looks less and less likely, you know how it is."

"Where is she? I would like to see her, please!"

Janet explained as carefully as she could what had transpired, and where Helen lived.

"Who were you talking to, Mom?" It was Janet's daughter, Eleanor, called Little Elly. Janet's mother, Eleanor, had been the first Elly; then Helen had been named after her, because Helen's mother, Sylvia Johnson, who had married John Nordstrom, had been Old Elly's closest friend while she was alive. (Helen's name was actually Eleanor.) Then Janet had named her child Eleanor after Helen.

Elly, and her closest friend, her youthful aunt Tomasina, the same age as Elly exactly, stood gazing at Janet, Elly animated and curious, and Tommy solemn as always. Tommy looked exactly like Helen must have looked when she was twelve.

"That was a lady called Lalitha, who wants to find Aunt Helen."

"Hey, why don't we go out and see Aunt Helen? Huh, Mom?"

"Elly, you know she's lost her memory, hon. It won't help to pester her, when she doesn't know who we are."

"I'd just like to see her."

"Me too," added Tommy. (Tommy was the product of a brief affair John Nordstrom had with Old Elly, some thirteen years ago, before he had married Annie. Tommy was both Helen's and Janet's half-sister.) Tommy was thin and tall, about half a foot taller than her niece Elly, who was a cuddly child, with lovely long chestnut hair and beautiful brown eyes, a more arresting beauty than her mother's more severe good looks. Evidently Jason Kolb had a lot of Mediterranean ancestry, judging from his daughter's appearance.

## Lalitha on the Bus

"I have to make a trip," said Lalitha to Katie.

"Oh. Where?"

"California. I will take Suresh with me. It will be good for him to see some of the USA. I haven't been further than Ohio, myself!"

"Who will play the organ at church?" asked Katie. "Tom will be upset!"

Lalitha sighed impatiently. Katie could play the organ perfectly well, and Lalitha hated to attend church anyway. She couldn't stand Tom; he had been patient and pleasant in India, but back in the US he was cranky and inflexible. "I will be back," she assured Katie.

Katie could not bring herself to approve of the plan in good grace. "Suit yourself," she said glumly, but by the time Lalitha and Suresh had packed their little bags and come to take their leave, she put on a good face, and Lalitha stepped forward to embrace her.

At some point during that embrace, Katie was able to communicate to Lalitha that her love was more than Platonic, and Lalitha was taken unprepared. Katie held her tight, and began to weep, and Lalitha felt utterly sorry for her. I will be back, I will be back, she repeated; she could never turn her back on poor Katie, who had done so much for her. At one time, she had seen the Goddess in Katie, as well, but Katie had never awoken the instincts in Lalitha that Helen had succeeded in awakening. Katie was just a friend, or had been; a very, very good friend.

Her mind in turmoil, Lalitha led the way to the Greyhound station, and bought two very reasonably priced round-trip tickets to Sacramento. She had a lot of savings, but she could not afford to fly.

## Tennis

Helen had been working in construction for a year, and made tons of money, and even after giving half of it to the farm, she had a lot of money put away. She was reluctant to put the money in the bank, but Gertie persuaded her, and it was earning interest in various CDs in the local bank. By January, already, she had put away several thousand, since she got her supper and her breakfast at the farm. They were eating better at the farm, too, since Helen frequently brought them food from the bigger towns near which she was working, or at roadside stands on her way out to work and back. She had bought a beat-up old truck, and worked on it until it was mechanically in good working condition, and she was waiting until the weather would be warm enough to paint it. She wanted to paint it white.

"How much do these places sell for, anyway?" she asked her supervisor. Helen was now skilled enough that she wasn't under direct supervision all the time, and this summer she would be certified as an electrical worker, which meant she could certify electrical work herself. If she had remembered that she had a college degree, it would have been much easier, but her memory only stretched back as far as the hospital in Washington, D.C.

"Depends. This one would sell for, oh, I don't know, something like sixty thousand. That one would be, like, a hundred. The big ones, you know, with two floors?"

"Yeah?"

"I think, maybe, around a hundred and fifty. Hard to tell. Depends on the location."

Helen had turned pale at the mention of the enormous —to her— sums of money. She had shaken her head and looked at her feet, and said she could never afford anything like that. He had explained that she could easily get a loan, but she shook her head; she would be paying it forever.

One day, she came upon some kids playing tennis, and she pulled over and watched them. For the first time, something stirred in her memory; she was sure she could play tennis. The kids grinned and waved at her, and she turned off the engine, and went to lean on the fence, and watch them.

Presently, three of them decided to take a break, exhausted, and the girl who remained turned to Helen, and asked whether she played. These were fairly affluent-looking kids, and Helen felt a little bashful about engaging in conversation with them, but the girl came to the fence, and after chatting for a while, said they could just "hit back and forth for a couple minutes," which seemed something that might not be too hard.

Coming round to the gate, Helen was let in, and loaned a racket, the biggest one they had, because Helen had such large hands. To their amazement, Helen picked up the game in mere minutes, and more amazingly, had almost perfect form. Helen, of course, had learned from the best, but neither she nor her new friends had any clue about it, though they suspected that she must have been taught tennis at one time.

"How old are you?" they asked, during a break.

"I'm, I don't know, like ..."

"Look on your license; your birthday will be on there! You're weird!"

Helen had never thought to study her driver's license. She took it out now, and there was her birthday, in late September! She was thirty-two years old.

By now, she was mentally prepared for the information. All these concepts, of social security numbers and driver's licenses had not made sense for the longest time. But now, her thoughts were sufficiently well organized that she could find a place on which to hang her birth date, and her age.

"You don't look thirty-two," was their opinion. "You look, like, maybe eighteen!"

Helen blushed. It seemed a compliment, and she thanked them.

They told her she needed tennis shoes, and she needed shorts or a skirt, and she needed her own tennis racket, because she was good enough to own one. "Remember: shoes, shorts, and racket! You can come by anytime; we'll let you in!"

The following weekend, Helen had obtained a pair of shorts, which had to be white, of course, and a cheap tennis racket, a cheap pair of court shoes, and a second-hand guitar she saw at a music store. She knew Cindy was a musician, but she wanted to see whether she could learn to play the instrument well enough so that she could surprise Cindy with a tune or two.

While she was paying for the guitar, she saw other customers coming in, and trying out guitars, and she watched carefully. They were doing some amazing things with the new guitars they were playing, and Helen turned to the young fellow who had sold her the guitar.

"Can I play that sort of stuff on this guitar?" she asked softly.

"Sure! This is a good one; no reason you couldn't! This is a real good guitar; worth every penny. New, this one would have cost you, like maybe fifteen hundred."

"Could you tune it for me?"

He tuned it for her, and gave her a couple of picks for free, and showed her how to play the sort of thing that Helen had asked about. Come back when you've saved a little more, he said, and we'll get you set with a nice case for it. This guitar, he said, deserves a decent case.

Her tennis friends were happy to see her back. They were dismayed at the quality of her racket, and at the cheap sneakers she had bought. They lectured her on how important it was to get good equipment. "The best way to get a good racket," said the girl who had first asked her over, a feisty young thing of about fifteen, "is by mail order. I could show you sometime!"

Cheap equipment notwithstanding, Helen could play rings around her friends by the end of the evening. But now, Helen wanted to get home, and start playing her new guitar, which was sitting on the floor of the cab, on the passenger side.

After a quick shower, Helen got into a clean pair of jeans, and picked up the guitar. She was immediately surrounded by a number of curious girls from the farm. One of them knew a couple of chords, and showed Helen. Strumming the three or four chords they were able to show her, Helen began to understand how it worked; she realized that she could invent any number of chords for herself.

Michael rode the boat ashore,

Hallelujah!

Helen sang, and the girls were delighted!

Requests came, thick and fast, and Helen was able to accompany almost anything they wanted to sing. Hearing the commotion, Sister Cordelia came out.

"Where did you get that guitar, Helen?"

"I bought it! It was, like, five hundred bucks!"

If Sister Cordelia thought it was an extravagant purchase, she kept it to herself. Then she remembered vaguely that Sister Mary-Catherine —alias Cindy— had mentioned that Helen had been some sort of musician. Helen's past brief notoriety had not penetrated to their little world, and so Sister Cordelia had no way to relate Helen's musicianship to anything else, but it was clear that now they had an accompanist for their sing-songs.

Helen did not make very close friends at the farm. Gertie was the one to whom she related best, but somehow Gertie was not her type. Gertie was all practical, and all about farming, and Helen and she were the engine of creative problem-solving on the farm. Gertie was encouraging about Helen working at construction, but she never hesitated to tell Helen if her help was needed on some farm task. But Helen and she were just not very close.

The evenings were filled with tennis and guitar-playing. Helen could now pick beautifully, and play sixties folk music perfectly well. She had bought a little cassette player, and a number of cassettes, and listened to them, and learned to play those songs by ear: Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor, not realizing that these were the songs her sweet mother had sung to her as an infant, and all through her school years, until that fateful day when an enormous tree had crushed into their car as they were returning home through a thunderstorm, killing both Sylvia, and their beloved Airedale, Martha.

Finally, after mulling over the matter of investing in a house for a month, Helen decided to look into it more actively. That spring, houses were not selling well in their area, and the developer and the construction company decided jointly to offer the houses to their own employees at a dramatically discounted rate. One wonderful day, Helen made a down-payment on a small home in a struggling development. It was at the edge of the cluster of homes, at the end of the street; the street itself ended abruptly at a gully, reputedly infested with rattlesnakes, but the house had a large dirt yard, and was half-painted. The previous owner had unexpectedly been laid off, and had managed to sell the house back to the developers. Helen was getting it for forty thousand dollars, though it was really worth considerably less at that time.

Sister Cordelia came out to see it, and was dismayed. "You're going to be working on this for a long time, Helen."

"I know, I know," said the happy new owner. "But it was cheap!"

It was just a mile from the farm, and Helen faithfully promised to visit. They said they would give her dinner if she came at dinnertime. And she must come by for the sing-songs, which now would suffer the lack of an accompanist.

Helen settled into the new home, and cleaned it up, and Gertie and another girl came over to help finish painting the place.

"It looks pretty good already," was Gertie's assessment. "A fence would give the yard a little shape, you know. What do you say?"

Helen was all for it. The view of the gully was rather dismal, and a fence seemed like a good idea anyway, and Gertie and Helen designed it, and Helen was to get the supplies the following weekend.

The following weekend, however, Helen was sidetracked by the idea of looking in on a tennis tournament at yet another town their company was building near. This place was about ten miles away, and Helen had seen signs for the tournament posted all over town. On the way back from the lumberyard, she drove by the tennis courts, and the tournament was in full swing. It was a private tennis club, and Helen parked on the street, and decided to go watch, leaving her racket locked in the cab.

The level of play was modest, and Helen was firmly convinced that she had a good chance if she were to register, but it seemed that it was open only to members, though anyone could watch. She watched for a while, and then felt a call of nature, and went into the clubhouse, to use the toilet. When she came out, she saw at the end of the hallway a little girl clutching her wrist, her face a grimace of pain.

As soon as the kid saw Helen, she suppressed her expression, only her eyes giving a clue that she was hurt. Helen hurried up to her, and bent down. "Have you broken anything?"

"I don't know," she whispered. But when Helen was finally able to get her to take her hand away, she could see that the wrist was broken.

Helen looked around, but there was nothing she could use for a splint. Making a quick decision, she ripped a strip from her skirt, and carefully wrapped it around the break, though every time a movement made the child hurt, the hand flew back, to grab Helen's fingers.

The fingers of the kid's injured hand refused to work, and Helen improvised a way of immobilizing the arm by using the kid's own T shirt.

"I'm going to take you to hospital," said Helen, and her eyes grew round with alarm.

"I don't think we have the money for that," she whispered. "I want to go home."

"I'll pay for it," said Helen, "and your folks could pay me later!"

She shook her head vigorously, and Helen learned that they were in dire straits.

"How about we get you a pain-killer, and then we can go home and check with your mother?"

She looked worriedly at Helen for a while, but the pain must have been intense, and she finally agreed to that plan. Helen had a hunch that, once they were in the Emergency Room, they wouldn't allow the kid to leave without having the fracture set.

All Helen's nurturing instincts were aroused, and she held the child to her breast, and picking her up effortlessly, took her out to the truck, explaining to the few curious questions she encountered on the way that there was a sprain, and seating the kid in the truck, drove out to the tiny hospital that served the area. There she learned that the child's name was Gena, and that she was eleven.

As Helen had hoped, once the doctor saw the wound, he ordered an X-ray. Gena declared that she could not afford treatment, and the doctor looked at Helen with puzzlement. "Aren't you her mother?" they asked. Helen blushed, and said she wasn't.

"We must call her parents," they decided, but Helen argued that it might be risky to wait until the parents arrived. As it happened, there were procedures they could follow if a responsible family member wasn't present. Helen had to sign for some limited responsibility, though she wondered what that could mean.

Before the X-ray could be looked at, Gena passed out from the pain. A drug was administered, but Helen found herself talking to Gena's mother.

"Hi! My name is Helen. Your daughter Gena got hurt, and I brought her to the emergency room. She's being treated, but I wanted to let you know."

"Oh, dear god, is she all right?" came the immediate reply.

"Yes, yes, she's fine, but she's got a hurt wrist, and she passed out from the pain!"

"What happened? She was at the tennis tournament! Did she fall?"

"I don't know; I found her holding her wrist, in pain, and I rushed her here. Listen, I can help with the costs, if that's a worry!"

"Which hospital is this? Is it the one in town?"

Helen answered all her questions, and finally the distraught mother said she would come over as soon as her husband got back from work. They were a one-car family.

"I could pick you up, if you give me directions," Helen had said. But the directions were so complicated, Helen just could not make sense of them. They were at an impasse.

A nurse came up to inform Helen that the little girl was asking for her, and Helen told Gena's mother what was happening, and hung up.

The pain medication had done its work, and Gena gave Helen a watery smile. Her wrist was in the process of being put in a cast, and she was dividing her attention between the doctor working on her wrist, and Helen who stood at the door. She was the most beautiful child Helen had ever seen: straight blonde hair crowned a beautifully-shaped head, perfect nose, perfect lips, ears just perfect for her face, perfectly arched eyebrows, a perfect high forehead, and lovely long lashes. Helen's heart was quite lost when the pretty grey eyes found her again. Helen felt rooted to the spot; she would not leave unless little Gena came with her.

In a little less than an hour, Gena was free to leave. All the instructions were written down, and given to her, and she and Helen set out for the parking lot, hand in hand. For the first time, Helen noticed the cute little tennis skirt she wore, the smart shirt that was back being a shirt, rather than an arm brace, and the graceful gait of the girl, now that she was no longer in pain. They had a prescription for a strong narcotic, to be taken if needed.

"I like your truck," said Gena, once she had been made comfortable. "We had to sell ours," she confided, adding that Mom had lost her job recently.

With Gena's help, Helen found her home without too much trouble. On the way they had picked up Gena's bike, which had been chained at the courts. Gena had used Helen's phone to call her mother, and she was waiting at the doorstep.

Helen saw a lovely woman of about her own age, a cuddly blonde with deep blue eyes and a heart-shaped face, with many features echoed in Gena's face in miniature. And the woman had an infant on her hip, Gena's baby sister, Alison. The woman introduced herself as Bethany, and blinded Helen's eyes with the brightness of her gratitude. Helen was made comfortable, and after Gena had been debriefed in detail about what had happened, and all the paperwork had been closely studied and kept where it could be found quickly, Bethany insisted on serving tea and sandwiches.

Gena's father was a custodian at a local school, and his shift ran until midnight, and Bethany decided not to call him home.

"If you hadn't been right there, I don't know what would have happened!" Bethany said, looking at Helen as if she were some angel of mercy. Gena nodded solemnly. Baby Alison studied the visitor cautiously, and then held out her arms to Helen. "Oh, look at that! She wants to go to you!" exclaimed Bethany. Of course, Helen had to take the infant in her arms, and be rewarded with a cherubic smile. "She's a friendly child," Bethany admitted. "Thank goodness; at least I can put her in daycare if I get a job!"

It had been many years since Helen had held an infant in her arms; she had been one of little Elly's and Tommy's principal caregivers, but of course she could not remember that. Bethany saw the dreamy expression on Helen's face, and murmured something about Helen being a natural with kids. Meanwhile, Gena came round, and leaned against Helen's other side in her trusting way, and Helen was completely lost.

Helen was invited to have dinner with them the following night, but Helen refused, knowing that they simply could not afford such hospitality. But she offered to join them at lunch, and bring some supplies over.

"Why, did Gena let drop anything?"

"Let drop? No; why, what sort of thing?"

Bethany looked reproachfully at Gena, who grew red, and looked beseechingly at Helen, begging her with her eyes not to reveal that she had hinted at their difficult financial situation. But she needn't have worried. Bethany decided to tell Helen herself. "We depended on my paycheck for paying most of our bills," she confessed, "and now we have to watch our money. But Jim earns enough for us to get by. Why, what sort of supplies were you thinking of, Helen? We have some stuff in the fridge, though I have to go shopping for groceries pretty soon ..."

"Oh, no, I just live on a farm, and we have lots of produce you could have! Like onions, broccoli, ..." she rattled off whatever vegetables came into her head, though most of them could not be harvested until much later in the year.

"Oh." Bethany's eyes grew round at the possibilities there. "You know, Helen," she said softly, "God will always provide. I'm not afraid for tomorrow. See, Gena was in trouble, and He sent you. It was no coincidence."

It had been a long time since Helen had thought on those lines, but she was conditioned to respect that sort of belief, and she nodded, though she sincerely doubted whether divine intervention actually worked like that. She had forgotten all about The Goddess, and how Lalitha had her believing that the Goddess could work miracles.

Before Helen left, she kissed little Alison, who was distressed when she was handed over to her mother, then kissed little Gena, who put her unhurt arm round her neck, and held her tight, and then turned to Bethany, who kissed her on the lips, and could not let her go.

"You are an angel," she whispered, as Helen reddened with embarrassment. "You have the face of an angel, Helen. When I look at you ... I feel that heaven is near!"

Helen shook her head. "If I was hurt, wouldn't you have taken me in to hospital? It's the human thing to do!"

"You don't understand, Helen." She pressed her hand to her breast. "I have the sight. I know holy people when I see them. And you are one. You are destined to work miracles. Remember that I told you this."

It was a very disturbed Helen who drove slowly home.

## On the road

Lalitha was disturbed to realize that the bus they had set out in only took them to Philadelphia. There they were transferred onto a bus that would go to Pittsburgh. "When we get to Pittsburgh, will we get a bus all the way to Sacramento?" she asked. But they said no; they would change again in Denver, in Salt Lake City, and again in Reno.

The woman had patiently explained that the drivers could not stay at the wheel continuously; it just wasn't safe. Lalitha imagined that if she ever learned to drive, she could never stay at the wheel more than a couple of hundred miles.

At first, Suresh was all eyes, as he watched the landscape unroll through the windscreen of the bus from the front, where he had taken his seat. But an elderly lady got in in Breezewood, and he was asked to give up his seat by the driver. So he sat next to his mother, and stared out the window, and wanted to know what he was seeing. Lalitha could only guess, but she told him as much as she could. Over the last few years, she had read the American novels she had been told were the greatest, and enjoyed many of them, such as _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , and _The Grapes of Wrath_ , but they described the America of a bygone era, though it was a lot more familiar than that of _Huckleberry Finn_. The world that unfolded from the window of the Greyhound bus was at once familiar, and unfamiliar. The Pennsylvania countryside was hardly ever mentioned in literature, and it seemed strange and wonderful, reminiscent of the foothills of the Himalayas, which Lalitha only knew from Indian movies she had seen ages ago.

Pittsburgh came upon them catching them unawares, and they were bustled into the main station building, where Suresh promptly fell asleep on a bench, while Lalitha guarded their two pieces of baggage, staring suspiciously at her fellow-passengers. There were many Indians in the station, but they looked like down-and-outs to Lalitha's critical eye, and she avoided catching their eyes.

Early in the morning, their bus was announced, and they boarded a newer bus, and found a seat as far forward as they could, but not so far as to have to yield their seats to the elderly.

Suresh was wide awake, and he had bought them some snacks to supplement the travel food Lalitha had packed, and they munched as the bus wound through the dramatic hills surrounding Wheeling, West Virginia, and entered Ohio.

Every once in a while, they stopped and dropped passengers off, and picked up more, and they chased the Sun, which overtook them around Columbus, which was a familiar name to one who had enjoyed living in Ohio for a year, and then the Sun went ahead of them, and they watched it set. The bus wound along, stopping in East St Louis, and going on through the night. There was a fresh driver at the wheel, who kept talking to the passengers in the front in an unintelligible dialect, and presently mother and son fell asleep.

When they woke, the bus was climbing up the shoulders of the Rockies, approaching Denver. Suresh woke first, and shook his mother out of her sleep. "Look!" he said, pointing at the amazing mountains lit by the Sun behind them. The bus labored its way up the weaving highway, and presently they were approaching a city as different from Baltimore as Baltimore was different from the little town in which Lalitha's freshman year had been spent. Lalitha had spent little time taking in Baltimore as a tourist might have, but the contrast was clear even before they alighted, and got an eyeful of the city from ground level.

They were put aboard the bus to Salt Lake City almost immediately, barely having time to buy a snack. Don't worry, they were told, they would break for lunch.

## Bethany

Helen showed up on Sunday late in the morning, since Bethany said that they attended church, and it was an all-morning affair. Helen was introduced to Bethany's husband, and Gena's father, Richard, a quiet mousy man, but a handsome one, to Helen's eyes. She had seldom seen a man so beautiful, but so retiring. He clearly doted on his wife, but he seemed so wispy that he was almost transparent. He greeted Helen courteously, and then stepped into the background, letting Gena and Bethany deal with Helen. At first, Helen was uncomfortable, but Bethany was at a loss as to how to prepare some of the foods that Helen had brought, some from the farm, because she had promised Bethany that that's where she would bring the produce from, but others she had bought from groceries some distance away, including foods that were clearly unfamiliar to Bethany.

Bethany tried to help with the food, and to keep her husband comfortable at the same time, but it was exhausting, and very soon Bethany gave up, and left the food preparation to Helen, and little Gena, who was a wonderful helper. Helen was entirely in charge, except for asking Bethany whether they would be happy eating this food, or that. Richard was practically a vegetarian, though Bethany said she would be happy to each anything. After Helen and Gena had been cooking a while, they looked round, and Richard was nowhere to be seen, and Bethany was looking ill.

Helen and Gena carefully took the food off the burners and hurried to see to Bethany.

"Are you all right?"

"Oh yes, I'm fine. I worry about Richard so," she confessed, but Helen knew something more was troubling Bethany. "What have you fixed? Oh, this looks so interesting! May I try a bit, just to taste?"

Helen laughed, and said yes, of course she could. Bethany proceeded to pick up just a little of each preparation—mostly stir-fries and a salad — and went into ecstasies about each food she tasted. Gena went into the back, and found her father hiding with a magazine, and brought him in to lunch.

They sat down to the meal, and all through the meal, Bethany kept saying how wonderful it was, and asking where Helen had learned to cook. Helen had no idea herself; she had simply known she could cook, but there were no specific memories associated with the preparations. She had just put together what she discovered that she liked to eat, and simply known what to do with the ingredients. She had surprised herself with the salad dressing, which was basically an oil and vinegar dressing with salt, pepper, and a lot of basil which she had found in a shaker, practically unused. Richard nibbled at the stir-fry, but ate the salad with shy approval. Right after lunch, he made his getaway.

Gena spent a decent time visiting with Helen, but got bored after a while, and went out the back, and presently they heard a steady thumping, which Bethany said, with a roll of her eyes, was Gena, making hoops at the back. Helen smiled; she had seen some of the kids at the farm and at the playground doing that, and had found it amusing.

Bethany chatted with Helen for a little longer, and then elaborated on her theme that Helen was so beautiful and helpful and caring that she could not believe that Helen was entirely human.

To try and put things in perspective, Helen revealed that she had recently had very invasive cancer surgery, and after she had come out of anesthesia, had lost her memory entirely.

Bethany's eyes were wide with shock. But rather than moderate her effusive praise of Helen, she was even more convinced that Helen's saintliness was a result of the cancer. "Those who get cancer are usually so innocent, aren't they?" Helen said that she didn't know; nobody she knew had been afflicted with it except herself. "But then," said Bethany, "you've probably forgotten everyone you know, haven't you." Helen had to agree.

Bethany had obtained Helen's phone number, and called her every evening after she was back from work. Helen showered, and had a snack, and then Bethany would call.

"You're the only friend I have in the world, Helen," she said one day. "I know a few people, but people today are so ... interested in the wrong things, you know? It's TV, and buying things, and sex, and ... just nonsense! I like you, because you're interested in none of those things!"

Helen shrugged, though of course Bethany couldn't see it. Bethany proceeded to complain about Richard, who was a good man, she admitted, but impossible to talk to. The only subject he was interested in was Bethany's health, about which he was unhappy, and his own health; and he was convinced that he was going to die. "What a ninny." Helen had laughed at the unexpected expression, but Bethany had said no, there was no better word to describe him.

"But Gena is such a wonderful child, there must be _some_ good in Richard," Helen insisted, unhappy with the turn the conversation took so often. Bethany quickly agreed, but eventually went back to bring up Richard's being a ninny.

After about fifteen minutes of Bethany's less-than-sparkling conversation, she hung up, and Helen went out to the farm for supper.

Helen missed playing tennis with her buddies who had gotten her started. On Saturday, when she went back to visit Bethany with more produce, she mentioned tennis, and Gena immediately perked up, and offered to hit with Helen.

Hitting with an eleven-year-old was no substitute for playing with adults, and the kid's hand was in a cast, but Helen decided to take her up on the offer. Carefully strapping the arm—her left—to her body, Gena led Helen on foot to the neighborhood public courts, which were moderately busy, but they found one court, neglected and weed-infested, in a corner, and setting down their bags, began to play. Gena said, with a cheerful grin, that maybe they should just play forehands, and Helen was happy to oblige. Helen could place the ball anywhere she wanted, and proceeded to feed Gena a ball. With beautiful ball control, Gena hit it back right to Helen's forehand, and they kept up a rally of almost twenty-five shots. Gena was delighted, and Helen was very impressed. The kid could really play!

But best of all, Helen and Gena sat down and talked. Away from the family, Gena turned out to be a thoughtful conversationalist, with very clear ideas about herself and her family. She adored her kid sister, and loved her mother, but was a little impatient with the latter. She also loved her father, but was a lot more impatient with him.

"He seems to think that your Mom is not well," Helen said, her thoughts somewhere else.

"I think so too," said Gena, unexpectedly. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Helen thought nothing of it at the time, but it came back to haunt her very soon.

## Sacramento

Getting to Sacramento was the easy part. Now Lalitha had to find a farm in the country, and Lalitha had no transportation. She found a bench outside the bus station, and called Janet at the house in Illinois.

"I'm here in Sacramento," she told Old Elly, who had taken the phone, "and I don't know where to look for Helen!"

"Oh, wow," said Elly, "I haven't been out to visit her; I don't really know! Janet is at school, but ... my dear, how did you get out there?"

"Greyhound," said Lalitha, feeling hungry, and sure Suresh must be starving, too.

"Oh dear ... listen, could you get a room at a hotel somewhere, and I'll get Janet to call you?"

"It doesn't matter," Lalitha said, suppressing a sigh, "this is my own phone, and you can call me anytime. Here's the number — but Janet has my number!"

Elly evidently was unfamiliar with the idea of a mobile phone, but finally Lalitha explained how it worked, and hung up. Then she and Suresh picked up their baggage, and began to look for a place to while away the time until Janet could call.

As it happened, Janet called an hour later, and said she would see whether Cindy could help. Lalitha had no idea who Cindy was, but agreed to that plan. Presently she heard her phone ring, and a sweet voice speaking to her. Wait where you are, said Cindy; I'll get someone to pick you up.

An hour later, Lalitha and Suresh were surprised to see two women getting out of the cab of a pickup. One was a heavyset girl with her hair cropped short, wearing a heavy metal cross on a chain, and the other was Helen. Helen was taller, a little more youthful-looking than Lalitha remembered her in India, and she looked at Lalitha with interest, but absolutely no recognition in her eyes.

The baggage and Suresh were made secure in the truck bed, and Lalitha got in the bench front seat, and Gertie squeezed in next to her. It felt really strange to be seated next to Helen, who treated her as if she were a stranger. Helen drove them out to the farm, where Lalitha was introduced around. "This is Lalitha," Helen told Sister Cordelia, and Cordelia could see that Helen knew only that Lalitha was someone from Helen's past whom Helen could not recognize.

"What can you remember?" Lalitha asked, once again. They were in Helen's little ranch house, at the little card table.

"Well, I woke up, and I could only remember the last few days at the ashram, you know? ... And then this doctor came along, Amy something, and ..."

"Yeah, I know who you mean. She played the flute, I remember."

"How'd you know that?"

"She was your friend, Helen! Can't you remember Amy?"

"I tell you, I can't remember anything! If I did I would have told you, wouldn't I?"

"Okay, okay. So your memory starts in the Ashram, where you had just regained consciousness."

"Yeah. I spent some time in Illinois, with Janet, and then visited the College, where I had graduated from, supposedly, ..."

"You walked around the College?"

"Uh huh, with Cindy. It was no good. We went past this little house which is supposedly mine, but that didn't ring a bell, either. Then we went to seem John Nordstrom, who is my Dad, I'm told. He must be my dad, because he looks a bit like me. He was pretty upset."

Lalitha could imagine. From the annoyed tone of Helen's voice, Lalitha got a feel for how frustrating it must be for Helen, being unable to come up to the expectations of her family. That was always Helen's greatest fear: that she would fall short of someone's expectations, unable to deliver the goods.

Helen had no linen for guests, or even a bed for the guest room, and Lalitha laughed, and smiled fondly at Helen, and at last Helen smiled back. It's fine, said Lalitha; Suresh and I can sleep on the floor.

"You can have my bed," Helen said, "I'll sleep on the floor. I bet I'll be more comfortable than you will!"

"You don't understand. In India, I slept on the floor all the time!"

Helen's eyes opened wide. "Are you from India?" she asked in surprise. "I thought you were from my college!"

It took a long time, mostly because Helen simply did not have the background to understand any of it. Lalitha had to fill in the gaps in Helen's education as she explained her history, while she tactfully steered clear of their history together. It seemed that Helen did not have a clue yet of her preference for women. Lalitha had not consciously planned to try and make Helen fall back in love with her, but she had not expected that Helen would be so dramatically changed. She still felt a sense of duty, to try and restore Helen to something like her condition before she left for India. It was the least she could do, after how desperately Helen had tried to win her away from her father's crazed clutches.

## Sleeping on the Floor

Helen was acutely unhappy about allowing Lalitha and her son to sleep on the floor. There was little furniture in the house, just two armchairs and a coffee-table, a card-table and four folding-chairs, Helen's bed, and that was all. It was warm weather, but it did get a little chilly in the nights, which Lalitha did not know. Helen had a full-sized bed, and she would have definitely felt better if the visitors had taken it, since there was room for two. In fact, all three of them could have slept in it. In Helen's mind, there was not the concern about sleeping with a woman which there definitely was in Lalitha's mind.

On her part, Lalitha's concerns were a little different. At the sight of Helen, as she had come close enough to be recognized, Lalitha had felt a wave of desire that she had not expected. She had sincerely come to meet Helen with a view to seeing to her welfare, and not to take physical comfort with her, though she had been prepared to give it, if Helen needed it from her. For the sake of the boy, Lalitha wanted to keep any lustful thoughts to a dull roar. Her offer to sleep on the floor had nothing to do with any social issues; sleeping on the floor in warm weather was a common thing to Lalitha, and she had not thought twice about offering it, whereas she had been very uncomfortable about sharing Helen's bed, and only slightly less uncomfortable about forcing poor Helen to sleep on the floor, to which, she had assumed, Helen was not accustomed. Helen actually had slept on the floor, on a mat, numerous times, but Lalitha did not know that.

All through the night, Helen worried about her guests. She had improvised a pad for them with things she had, such as a bed-sheet and the tarp she used for the truck. Helen had not yet rediscovered sleeping-bags, which would have been perfect, but Helen was not yet an outdoorsman, and her experience had proceeded in straight lines. From time to time she got out of bed, and tiptoed out to check on the visitors, who were fast asleep, the boy curled up next to his mother, and Lalitha softly snoring, exhausted from the three-day journey.

Around three in the morning it got chilly. Lalitha had silently awoken, and pulled out an old saree, and covered both of them with that doubled up. Suresh had moved close to his mother, to borrow a little of her heat. Helen had brought out her own blanket, and gently covered them with it, and went back to bed, pulling on a sweatshirt over the T shirt she had worn to bed. At last, sleep overtook her, and when Lalitha tiptoed in to check on her at sunrise, she was fast asleep.

Just then, Helen's alarm went off, and she turned a sleepy head around, and found Lalitha gazing on her with a strange look on her face.

She sprang out of bed, realizing that she had guests who needed to be settled before she went in to work; it was Tuesday.

"Coffee? What does the little guy have in the morning?"

"I've put some water on the stove; we can make coffee or tea. Shall I fix you some eggs while you shower?"

"Er, I can take care of it, er Lalitha," she said, stretching mightily. "There's a little coffee machine, you know." She pronounced the name wrong, with the accent on the second syllable. Lalitha had corrected her ten years ago, but she ignored it now.

They headed out together. Lalitha knew better than to argue with Helen early in the morning. It was easier if she just got started with breakfast; at least, it had, when they had been in college.

Helen went to the little coffee machine, an ancient device Helen must have gotten from Goodwill. Lalitha had gotten accustomed to coffee as well, and she didn't quite see the significance of Helen drinking coffee. When she had been a singer, it had always been tea.

It was clearly disconcerting for Helen to have people in the house with her, but she had always been quick to adapt to any new situation, and together they prepared and ate breakfast, and Helen showered, and it was time to decide what was going to happen for the rest of the day. Helen looked at her watch.

"Helen, you go ahead and do what you usually do; Suresh and I will explore around the house, and wait for you."

"I work, like, ten miles away," Helen said, looking worried. "Otherwise, I could come check on you at lunch."

"It doesn't matter," Lalitha said, with a sweet smile. "Go, go! You're getting late!"

"You sure?"

"Absolutely sure!"

Helen shrugged. "I wish I had a TV, or something. Books, magazines ..."

"I have a book! We will be fine!" It struck Lalitha that Helen might not want her to remain in the house while she was gone. Her expression became cautious. She told Suresh to quickly put his slippers on, in her own language, and told Helen that they could leave with her, and Helen could lock up the house.

Helen shook her head. "No, I never lock the place up," she said.

As Helen drove away, she worried briefly about the woman and the boy who were waving her off; not so much because she was that concerned about her stuff, but because she wasn't sure what they could do while she was gone, and what was expected of her. Lalitha had given her a great deal of information to think about, and Helen had tried to read between the lines, but to no avail. Amy and Janet and Old Elly had told her that she had been academically more than successful, but had left out the fact that she had been a concert artiste, a much-sought-after performer, the only brake on her popularity having been the fact that she was a student. But Lalitha had told her more: Helen had learned that she was an accomplished artist and painter; able to use and program computers; an athlete —which Helen could easily believe; based on her tennis skills alone, she must have been an all-round athlete— and a skilled craftsman. She had made violins! Helen had mulled over that as she lay in bed. She had earned a B.A., which was the source of pride. She must encourage Gena in her schoolwork, urge her to keep up with it even in the summer!

Her mind drifter to thoughts of Gena and Bethany, and the lovely baby. It was almost too much to have to juggle her concerns for that family, and also Lalitha and her young son. She puzzled over all this as she negotiated the rutted road to her worksite. Once there, though, she set all these thoughts aside and, as was her habit, threw herself into the electrical system of the house they were working on, occasionally helping with getting some big piece of lumber into place, or a piece of a built-in kitchen cabinet.

Lalitha and Suresh looked at each other, and wordlessly turned towards the house.

"Let's clean the place just a little bit," said Lalitha.

"Let's clean it completely! She will be surprised!"

"No, son; that will make her nervous, and worry about owing us a favor ... Let's only clean so that she won't notice."

"What's the point, then, Ammah?"

"The point? So that it will be clean, what else?"

The floors were concrete, and easy to mop down. Soon the kitchen was spotless, but not actually sparkling. Lalitha could not resist going into town with Suresh and getting a rake, and the two of them raked the yard, washed the windows, and showered, after which Lalitha boldly rummaged through Helen's clothes, and took them out to the nearest Laundromat, which was a great distance away, washed and dried them, and walked back. Suresh was a biddable child still, and willingly helped with all the work. As they approached the house, they were pleased with how tidy it looked. Lalitha sighed; Helen would be upset.

"There is a guitar," observed Suresh, indicating it with his chin.

"I saw," said Lalitha, trying to appear not too excited.

"Aren't you going to play it?"

"Don't be silly; I don't play guitars!"

"Shall I try?"

"You?" Lalitha laughed. Suresh knew to play the piano a little, but had shown no great interest in music thus far, to her great disappointment.

But his interest in the instrument sitting on Helen's suitcase got her interested as well, and she brought it out to the living room, and sounded the strings. She could tell that it was in tune, because the strings were in tune with each other. A little study revealed the principle of the thing, and without any instruction, Lalitha taught herself to pick out several chords, to Suresh's surprise and delight.

"You _can_ play!"

"I'm just experimenting," said Lalitha, with a little blush. It's moments like this that make a child view its parents as interesting people, rather than mere authority figures, and Suresh watched closely while Lalitha created ever more complex chords on the simple little instrument. But soon her fingers began to hurt with pressing on the strings, and she turned to folding the laundry.

Helen couldn't resist rushing home for lunch, having negotiated a slightly longer-than-usual lunch break, saying that she had house guests. She had been in the habit of flirting with the guys, and they wanted to know whether the guests were men or women.

On the way home, Helen picked up some supplies for lunch, wondering what Lalitha might have been up to. Not knowing anything about Lalitha except that she was just a little bossy, and a fair cook, Helen didn't know what to expect, after all, her experience was confined to a year's worth of construction, all her previous life having been condensed into what came to Helen as pure instinct.

Narrowly avoiding getting caught for speeding, she skidded into the yard, not noticing how it had been cleaned up, and hurried into the house. She caught Lalitha just opening the little refrigerator, on the point of fixing a snack for herself and Suresh.

Suresh had been reading a comic he had brought along, which he dropped and came up to grin at Helen.

"You're back!"

"I got some stuff we can eat for lunch," said Helen, slightly embarrassed, but oddly pleased to have someone in the house, waiting for her. Lalitha recognized the sort of food that Katie and Tom had eaten for lunch, and suppressing a sigh began to help Helen put a quick lunch together.

"Is this for dinner tonight?"

"Yeah! If you wait, I can cook it up for ya," said Helen.

Lalitha smiled. "I'll get started, but I'll leave most of the tricky cooking for you," she said, tongue in cheek. In their college days, Helen had been an adept even at cooking, but obviously Helen couldn't remember any of that, and Lalitha had observed that Helen's culinary skills had regressed considerably.

They ate companiably, Helen and Suresh wolfing down their meal, while Lalitha ate more deliberately.

"So what have you been doing?"

Lalitha looked at Helen in exasperation. "Didn't you notice anything?"

"What?" Helen looked about, and Suresh indicated out the window, with a grin. Helen stood up and stared outside, now seeing the highly improved state of the yard. Lalitha was pleased with her reaction, and she felt the old feelings come back. How amazing it was that Helen desperately wanted to please everybody, but she, Lalitha had lived to please Helen.

"Thanks so much," Helen said, deeply embarrassed, but gracious. "I kept putting off cleaning the outside," she confessed.

"I can't even imagine what it must be like, to have total amnesia," Lalitha said softly. "I think you're dealing with it really well."

Helen looked at her gravely, and nodded slowly. "I picked up electrical wiring pretty fast," she said thoughtfully, "and it may mean that ... some of what I knew is ... kinda ready to be, like, polished up, you know? Like cleaning off bad contacts, or ... something like that."

Lalitha nodded.

"How soon do you have to be back?"

"1:30," said Helen. She sat at the table, and Lalitha and Suresh sat down. Helen looked around; she needed furniture desperately. As long as she lived alone, she hadn't need anything, but now ...

"Something really amazing happened last week," said Helen. "I had gone to watch this tennis tournament, you know?" Lalitha and Suresh nodded. "And I had just gone into the toilet, and when I came out, there was this little kid, holding her wrist, like this, and her face all scrunched up in pain. So I talked to her, and took her off to the emergency room. I only knew to go there because one of the guys at work cut himself pretty bad, and we had to take him to get stitches! Little things like that ... I'm like ..." Helen shrugged, to express how ignorant she was about the simplest things.

"She was all right?"

"Yeah, she had a broken wrist, and it took a while to get it set just right. They said they had to do it under the X-ray; I don't know, I was busy talking to the kid's mother." Helen mulled over the fact that she barely knew what to do in an emergency, but she did know enough to call Gena's mother, and talk to her without sending her into a panic. "I took her home, and met the family," said Helen. "I would like for you to meet them," she finished, somewhat lamely. She glanced over to grin at Suresh. "She was eleven! How old are you?"

"Twelve!" he said at once.

Lalitha thought it was best to tell Helen that she had played her guitar, but Helen was not worried. "Just be careful," she said. "The guy told me it was worth, like fifteen hundred dollars. I got it for five."

"Five _dollars?"_ exclaimed Suresh, and Lalitha hushed him, but Helen said no, five hundred.

"Where are your violins, Helen?"

"I have violins?"

"Yes, of course! You must have left them in the house, and Amy probably has them now."

"I could call Cindy," said Helen. "She's the one I sort of talk to, when I need to know that sort of stuff."

When Helen got back from work, she quickly showered, and insisted on going to the used furniture store, to get some bedding. Lalitha said a used frame was fine, but she wanted to buy Helen a good mattress. She had brought a thousand dollars in traveler's checks, and said a good bed would be the perfect house-warming present. She argued Helen down, and shortly they returned with a bed frame, a new queen-sized mattress of good quality, and a used sofa in fairly good condition. Suresh had let drop that he wanted to learn guitar, and Helen was about to buy him a spanking-new guitar, but Lalitha said a good used guitar was plenty to learn on. "I want to try my hand at repairing a guitar, and see how that goes," she declared.

"But Ammah, that means while you're repairing it, I can't play!"

"All right," said Lalitha, giving in; there was more to repairing a guitar than simply bringing one home; she need tools and materials, and there was none of that here. But they needed linen, and Lalitha steered Helen towards finding something suitable.

They stopped by the farm, briefly, and then came home to the ranch. It was 142, Gully Lane.

"You've been washing my clothes," accused Helen, staring at the neat pile of folded jeans, shirts and panties. Helen had picked out quite feminine ones to wear under her jeans, and Lalitha had been amused. The old Helen had worn strictly basic underwear by the time Lalitha had met her, and learned Helen's taste in foundation garments. Helen had loved to parade around in panties and bra, but now Helen was being very modest so far, except for last night, when it had started out very warm.

Lalitha had prepared most of a substantial supper, despite threatening to let Helen do the cooking. They ate, and Helen's phone rang; it was Bethany.

At first the conversation was fairly ordinary, as far as Lalitha could tell. She was busy setting up the bed frame, and trying not to listen in on the conversation, and failing. After a while, Helen was being silent, and Lalitha peeked out to see what was going on. Helen was blushing furiously, and Lalitha wondered what that was all about. Then she heard Helen forcibly changing the subject.

"Listen, Bethany, er, a friend is visiting with her son... yes, a lady ... someone I used to know ... a family friend ... actually, someone who was in college with me. ... Yeah, I went to college, Bethany. Uh huh. ... Yeah, I have a degree." She looked up at Lalitha and shrugged with a rueful smile, then got that absent look that people talking on the phone have. "You know, I got an idea. Would you like to come over for supper on Friday? ... Yeah, all of you. ... Yeah, Richard, too, uh huh. ... Er, he's about twelve. ... I guess I'll have to come over, and show you the way, or draw you a map, or something. ... I guess about four, or five. I'd say five. ... Great! Okay, Bethany, I'll talk to you tomorrow. ... No, I can talk, but I just got some new stuff that has to be set up. ... Like, a bed, and stuff. ... Yes, for them. ... No, we got linen, we're fine," Helen said, blushing furiously. "OK, I gotta go. Bye, Bethany! ... I love you too! Bye! Wow," said Helen, hanging up, and getting to her feet. "That woman is a little _too_ intense."

Lalitha could imagine what it must have felt like to have Helen show up, with the little girl's arm in a cast. Now this Bethany was swooning over Helen.

The bed was soon set up, and the visitors' room looked more reasonable. There was a little wooden crate on which Helen had put her suitcase, but that was fine. There was actually a little bedside table, and they had bought a little lamp, so that Lalitha could read in bed.

Helen was walking about the little house, looking at it with new eyes; it was no longer a bachelor pad, but a place where Helen might have to receive guests.

"At least, it's painted," Helen mumbled, and Lalitha felt utterly sorry for her.

Suresh's new old guitar was brought out, and Helen tuned it for him, after the new strings had been put on, and Helen picked a little on it, and handed it to him with a smile. Helen had bought it for him, and Lalitha told Suresh in her Indian dialect to thank Helen properly.

"Thank you for the guitar!" said Suresh, bashfully.

"You're very welcome," said Helen, having listened to Lalitha and Suresh speaking their language with great interest. The language had stirred something in Helen's memory; the sound of it was very familiar, and Helen struggled to remember any pictures, any scenes that the sounds of Indian speech might bring forth, and at last, she could see a dusty road, vaguely, but nothing more.

Helen looked up at Lalitha, embarrassed that she might have noted Helen's battle with her stubborn amnesia. Lalitha, however, was studying the guitar thoughtfully, biting her lip, and Helen suddenly did remember something, namely that Lalitha had considered repairing a guitar for the boy.

"Were you serious about trying to repair a guitar? How would you have done that?"

Lalitha turned to Helen, her head on one side. "I learned in college, Helen. You and I learned instrument-making from this Mr. Knowlden; I need the right tools, but they're mostly just woodworking tools: saws, files, chisels, glue ... you know; there are a few specialized tools, but to repair a guitar, I think I could manage with very basic equipment." She leaned back on the new sofa, her hands behind her head. "I haven't done anything like that in ... thirteen years." She looked very unhappy. "It is such a sin, not to use what you have learned. I used to play organ in this little church in Baltimore, —just manuals, of course; it was only a little electric organ— but they'll have to manage without me."

"Man, I have tons of tools at work, I wish I could bring some home ..."

Lalitha smiled. "Not the same sort of tools, though. We need cabinet-making sorts of tools, not housing-construction-type tools!"

It goes without saying that their rest that night was a lot more comfortable. The new linen alone, which they had spread without washing, was lovely to sleep on.

The next day, Lalitha asked to be dropped off in the largest town in the vicinity, and said she would spend the morning there, and call Helen if she needed to be brought home. Helen had described how to take a bus most of the way back, but Lalitha was planning to buy equipment and supplies. The thought had come to her that if she could repair a guitar or two, she might be able to earn money at it, while she kept at trying to jog Helen's memory into returning.

She found a good hardware store, which had a few basic tools she could begin with, and which offered to get a few more specialized tools for her in a couple of days. Then she and Suresh put their new purchases in his backpack, and went to look for an antiques store which might have an old guitar or two she could try to repair. By the time Helen called in on her cell phone to check on her, she had found an old guitar that had been put up to be sold on consignment, and also found a music store which sold things like frets and tuning mechanisms, which Lalitha wanted to replace rather than try to repair, as well as an inexpensive keyboard for Suresh to fool around with, but which she hoped might trigger something in Helen's head.

As it happened, Helen had gotten the idea of building a simple addition to the house, namely a sort of shelter on the lines of a car port. She had scrounged some scrap lumber, and had also bought the sorts of tools she would need to put up the shelter.

Back at home, while the light was still good, Lalitha helped Helen pour the concrete for the footers, set the two four-by-fours, and fasten the beams for the roof. Helen was delighted with her new tools, and interested in what Lalitha had bought. Lalitha was pleased, too; instinctively she realized that certain kinds of work might help Helen remember. Building construction might not, but instrument repair very well might. Meanwhile, Suresh was having a great old time with the keyboard, which he could play very well, and soon he had read through the manual, and was putting it through its paces.

Helen suddenly realized that they did not have a dining table for when Bethany and company arrived the next day. It was still barely light, but stores would be open. Helen was worried, guessing that major items of furniture would not be cheap.

They hurried out to an unfinished furniture store, which Lalitha had spotted in the morning. An unfinished dining table was available for six hundred dollars. It was beautiful, unfinished oak, and came with six matching chairs, also unfinished.

"I don't have time to finish them by tomorrow," mumbled Helen.

"I'll help you; we'll both help," offered Lalitha. "Let me help with the cost, Helen!"

Helen looked at her unhappily. Lalitha remembered how independent Helen had been; it would be a battle to force Helen to accept her help.

"I could pay you later," said Helen.

"We'll talk about it," said Lalitha. She could see that Helen loved the beautiful lines of the table. Lalitha would have preferred Cherry, or Teak; her tastes had been influenced by six years in Maryland, but Oak was fine.

Together they finished the table, and put it away to dry. Helen could barely contain herself. Lalitha, Suresh and Helen assembled the six chairs, and Suresh was exceedingly proud of his contribution. The chairs, Lalitha said, need not be finished before the big party, and Helen agreed.

By midday on Friday, the table was dry. Helen called several times asking, and Lalitha was able to say that the table was ready to go by two in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Lalitha had prepared a number of appetizers and snacks for both the adults and the kids, and had started on a number of dishes that would suit the tastes of almost anyone, having learned from Helen beforehand what they seemed to like. Without thinking, Lalitha tried to make herself as attractive as possible, digging out the nicest clothes she had, except for the sarees. Once she had gotten ready everything she had planned for the party, and only a few items that Helen wanted to prepare herself remained, she got into an old pair of overalls she had bought for the purpose, and began to take the old guitar apart.

Helen managed to get away by 3:00, and made it home in half an hour, and started with the items she was going to fix, having admired the fabulous finish of the new table. Even as they had worked on it the previous evening, Lalitha had realized that Helen seemed to remember the principles of finishing she had learned long ago. Furniture finishing was a somewhat different matter than instrument finishing; the finishing material was not expected to have any acoustic properties, for instance. Helen was also pleased with the parts of the meal that had been completed, and the state of the house. Lalitha had put away all the messy paraphernalia that went with the guitar-repairing, and looked lovely in a demure skirt and sweater.

Half an hour later, Helen set out to lead her guests to her home, grateful that it was no longer the dump it had been, as she realized now. She was fine with dumps, but Lalitha made her feel as though she ought to be respectable. Hanging out with the construction workers, especially the Mexicans and the Indians, she had begun to absorb a little of their underdog view of the world, moderated a little with slight disapproval of some of their anarchic and anti-establishment attitudes, even if they weren't formulated in those terms in her mind.

Gena was dressed neatly in new jeans and a pretty top, and Bethany looked lovely in a frilly pink business, and Richard looked smart in jacket and tie. Baby Alison was fast asleep, having just nursed with Mama. They got into their little sedan, with Bethany's and Gena's faces wreathed with smiles, and Helen proudly turned the truck around, and led off.

Lalitha saw them coming, and asked Suresh to get the door. Helen was urging them inside, and Suresh was greeting little Gena, who was the first at the door.

"Hi!" said she, and Suresh smiled and said, please come in, and turned to follow her with his eyes, and Lalitha, who was just inside, suppressed a smile. She knew to expect Gena to be a pretty child, but was startled by just how beautiful the little blonde was. "Hi," she said again, to Lalitha, just a little uncertainly, and Lalitha smiled and welcomed her in, as the rest of the crowd came through the door.

Helen introduced everyone all round, evidently having picked up some of this gracious behavior from somewhere, or having remembered it. Lalitha remembered that Helen had been introduced to a dozen different people already, and must have learned the routine.

Everyone was presently seated, and Lalitha and Helen served the snacks and soda, and soon everyone was munching away with sounds of approval, and the new table was being admired, and the young people were being complimented on their smart looks, and Gena and Suresh encouraged to go look at Suresh's new guitar. Gena's arm was in a smart navy sling, and she looked perfectly fine and happy, though Lalitha couldn't help being anxious about whether the bones had been properly set. She was a dainty child, and with her limited knowledge of medicine she could think of a dozen things that could have gone wrong, which would require surgery.

The meal was a hit. Lalitha tried to fade into the background, but Helen was doing the same, and each of them realized that they had to stop doing that at the same time. But Bethany took up the slack, and once she had stopped her maniacal gushing, began to be an intelligent conversationalist. Gena and Suresh soon exhausted the possibilities of the guitar and the keyboard, at least for the moment, because both children were somewhat reserved and shy. The adult conversation promised to be interesting, and they headed out to listen. Suresh had been put in charge of making sure that Gena had everything she wanted during the meal, and he did a good job, being anxious that his mother's meal should be duly appreciated. But Gena loved all the food, both familiar and unfamiliar, and did not have to be encouraged to tuck in.

Inevitably, Bethany began to tell Lalitha about how lovely she was, which amused Helen very much. Helen had warned her that this would happen, and though Lalitha had not realized how extreme the problem would be, she was able to turn the tables on Bethany by the simple expedient of saying that she was the most beautiful woman in the room. This had the effect of making Bethany go all serious, and thank the Lord for her health, and everybody's health, and Gena's safety, and so on.

By the end of the evening, which was quite late, even Richard had thawed enough to join intelligently in the conversation. He steered clear of any discussion of health, but instead contributed to the talk about the new addition to Helen's house that was underway.

Finally, they said their farewells, and thanked their hosts, and reluctantly tore themselves away, Helen having made sure that they knew the way home.

"What do you think?" Helen asked, and Lalitha said she thought it had gone very well indeed, despite any small conversational missteps she might have made. But Helen shook her head and said that Lalitha had been the very soul of tact.

Though usually Helen slept in on a Saturday, this time she was up early, only to find Lalitha up even earlier, the coffee brewed, and the eggs prepared, and Suresh still in bed. Lalitha called out in dialect for Suresh to get out of bed and come get breakfast, and Helen stopped what she was doing, and asked Lalitha whether it was an Indian language.

_Can you understand what I'm saying?_ she asked Helen, and a slow smile spread across Helen's face. "I'm getting a word here and there," she remarked, but when Lalitha asked for the meaning of a specific word, Helen gave the wrong meaning, though it was a reasonable guess.

They had breakfast, and went out to put up the roof on the little side porch, and after much pounding, it was complete.

[K: I'll hurry through the stuff that follows.]

Gena asked to visit the next day, which was Saturday. She normally attended a tennis clinic, but they asked her to wait until her wrist was healed, understandably. So Helen brought her to visit with Suresh, and they played one-handed basketball in the backyard, with a hoop Helen put up. The little car port was now complete, and Lalitha was able to move her guitar-repairing operation out there.

Helen decided that she would try her hand at furniture-making, because she wanted to make a little bedside table for herself, just like the one in the visitor's room, so the car port began to evolve into a workshop. Lalitha and Helen, together, were able to make a number of pieces of furniture out of cabinet-grade plywood Helen managed to find in the scrap section of the lumber yard of the Hardware supplier.

The weekend was over, and Suresh was put to working on his reading list, and not allowed to play with the neighborhood kids, who wanted to play basketball all the time. Suresh negotiated two hours of basketball, between 6 and 8 in the evening, which Helen supported, and so Lalitha gave in, provided the kids played close to the house. The hoop was moved out in front, since the street was practically a dead end, anyway.

Lalitha got that first guitar repaired, and then decided to accept guitars for repair from the store. The store bought damaged guitars from clients, and arranged with Lalitha to sell them when she had finished repairing them.

In between guitars, Lalitha decided to make a lute for herself from scratch. She had already made a couple in her younger days, and they had been sold, which was how she had managed to earn a ticket back home. Inevitably, Helen saw her working on her lute, and got interested. She learned how to make a guitar, first, and was delighted when it turned out pretty good, though it took three weeks to make, in the evenings and weekends.

## The Twins Visit Helen

Elly and Tommy were so inseparable, they were called The Twins. They had been pestering their mothers, Janet and Old Elly, to be allowed to visit Helen, and been told that it was a difficult journey, because the farm was so off the beaten track. But Elly had got it into her head to visit her favorite aunt, and Tommy would do anything Elly wanted, and so one day Cindy called Helen, asking whether it was a possibility. "I could come along," said Cindy, but she said she would prefer to drop the kids off, and pick them up later.

"Oh, sure," said Helen, without thinking. "Actually, Lalitha is still here, so, I guess she might be able to keep an eye on them while I'm at work," said Helen.

Cindy was relieved, because sometimes Helen did not quite understand what she was getting into. She had forgotten that Lalitha was probably still out there, and now that she had been reminded of it, asked to speak to her.

"Hi, Cindy!"

"Listen, Elly and Tommy want to come visit, and I could drop them off, but I was hoping that I wouldn't have to stay the whole time!"

"I guess I could keep an eye on them for maybe a week or so. If that goes well, they can stay longer, but it all depends, Cindy. I haven't seen these kids since they were infants, and they might be a handful!"

"Well ..." Cindy said, and Lalitha got the distinct impression that Cindy was looking over her shoulder, making sure she wasn't overheard, "... they actually are a handful. Not Tommy, but Elly is a crazy one! But they love Helen, and will probably behave for her! Of course, it's been years and years since they really spent any time with her, so they'll have to get to know her from, you know, kind of from scratch. But they're determined to come see her!"

A few days later, Cindy arrived at the farm, and was directed to where Helen lived, at number 142. It was Saturday, once again, when the two tired but excited girls spilled out of the car, and ran towards Helen, having forgotten that Helen only knew them as acquaintances.

"Hi, Aunt Helen!" yelled Elly, dancing up to Helen. "Can we stay, huh? Like, for a week? We'll be very good!"

"Hi!" said Helen, suddenly shy, but having spent time with Gena, she felt a little more comfortable with these two. Tommy just stood a little back, and smiled, well aware that her sister did not remember her at all.

Cindy got out, grinning, and came to talk to Helen. The girls were made to promise to behave themselves, and lugged their baggage out, and Cindy was given a meal, and presently they were alone, Helen, Lalitha, Suresh, and The Twins.

It started out pretty well; the girls helped around the house, and then went exploring with Suresh, promising to be back in an hour. And they were.

They had brought their violins, and faithfully practiced their exercises under Lalitha's watchful eye. Lalitha did not know string technique, but could tell whether they were playing the right notes, and so they were satisfied that everything was being done correctly, as far as they could tell.

The three youngsters were good at entertaining themselves creatively, and when Suresh's guitar was discovered, Elly figured it out, and presently all three of them were playing guitar, in turn. When Helen's experimental guitar turned out well, the Twins begged her to make a second one, so that each one could have his or her own, and this Helen could deliver. It went faster, and took just a week, with Lalitha helping. It was plain plywood, not the special Spruce that was traditionally used, and the sound was dull, but it stayed intact, and promised to take a lot of mistreatment without falling apart.

Gena met the Twins, and soon the five of them were close friends, and Gena hated to go home at the end of the day whenever she visited. Elly tended to lead them into risky adventures, but Tommy and Suresh together were able to rein in her wilder ideas, and when Cindy came for them two weeks later, it was a sad parting for them all.

## Memory

Once the visitors were gone, Lalitha began to get impatient with Helen. She kept asking her whether she could remember one thing or another, and Helen began to get annoyed. Finally, Helen lost her temper, and said Lalitha should either quit pestering her, or just leave.

There was a heavy silence, and Lalitha took a deep breath, and began to yell. She wasn't doing this for herself, she said, she wanted Helen to have access to her memories. She then broke down and cried. "I remember the first time I saw you," she sobbed, "the Goddess was in you! Oh, if you could have seen yourself! It was so wonderful! I told you, the same day, and you didn't believe me at first, but then you believed! You are so _packed_ full of _talent!_ I could scream, when I see you working like a laborer, when you could be playing the violin! You can do anything! _Anything!"_ Lalitha was furious and frustrated.

Helen stared at her, and Lalitha saw determination, annoyance, and a little pity in Helen's eyes, and she knew she had lost.

"Man, I'm sick and tired of all this Goddess, and angel nonsense. I help someone, and pretty soon they're giving in to some sort of superstition. There is no goddess, dammit, it's just me, being me! I've lost my memory, for heaven's sake, that's all! Can't I lose my fucking memory in peace?"

"Ammah, please don't fight! Helen, it's okay! It's over, it's fine, all right?"

"Go sit down Suresh. Don't interfere."

"Don't yell at the boy! This is my house, and nobody yells in this house!"

"Helen, I won't yell. I will be silent." Lalitha was so full of grief for having lost control that she was utterly repentant, and took the blame for the entire flare-up. "It was my fault, I had no right." She swallowed hard, but could not resist confessing one last thing. "It was for love of you that I spoke up. There is so much gratitude in my heart, for all you did for me, and ..." she had promised to be silent, so she made a vague gesture of capitulation, and went to the visitor's room, and sat on the bed, facing the window.

It was a horrible day. Suresh crept about like a thief, bringing food to his mother, and taking snacks out to Helen, who pulled him into a hug, and said it was all right.

"Come, sit and talk to me," she said to the boy, smiling.

He obediently sat, looking worried, but smiling.

"You're not mad at me, are you?"

"I'm not mad at anyone," said Helen. "You have to realize, in some ways, I'm only two years old!" Suresh stared at her in confusion. Helen laughed. "You know I lost my memory, right?" He nodded. Suddenly he was ahead of her, and smiled, but she explained anyway. "I only remember two years of life; everything else is gone. I don't know how to ... deal with situations, you know? You see a situation or two, and then ... you know how some things should go." She hung her head, and shook it in self-reproach. "Next time someone yells at me ... I'll just keep quiet," she said in an undertone, and Suresh marveled that he could understand perfectly the lesson he was being given.

Late that night, Lalitha came and stood at the open door to Helen's bedroom, and Helen saw her and slowly came out to her.

"I want to tell you something," said Lalitha, for all the world sounding like a little girl. Helen nodded, and followed her out into the yard. In the guest room, Suresh was fast asleep. They stood, Helen silent, dreading what Lalitha might have to say, but having an inkling, too.

"Don't say anything until I've finished," Lalitha asked. Helen nodded. "I'm very, very sorry! Will you please let me stay? When I leave, I want to leave as a friend. I want to leave ... at a point where you want me to stay!" She smiled suddenly, and Helen was stunned at how beautiful she was. She could almost believe all this crap about the goddess.

"I don't want you to leave now!" Helen said, with a smile. "Please stay!"

And for the first time, they held each other tight for a long minute, and released each other reluctantly.

Suresh was overjoyed that their friendship had been repaired overnight.

When Lalitha's first repaired guitar was sold, she was overjoyed. It had sold for only a few hundred dollars, and she netted only a hundred and fifty dollars, but it proved that she could repair a guitar well enough to be commercially successful. Helen was beginning to ask about making a lute, because Lalitha had told her that she had made a few, and shown Helen pictures of them. Helen loved the look of the instruments, and wanted to make one in the worst way. This meant that she had to get into a routine of work every evening. A portion of the shelter had to be enclosed, and she had to put in at least an hour every single day. Lalitha would help, but they were both clear that Helen had to take responsibility for the project.

Helen's interest inspired Lalitha to try her hand at making an instrument from scratch. Thus far, they had only made instruments just for fun, cutting corners, using plywood, and so on. Now it was time to try to make fine instruments, and they had to start in a small way, because neither of them wanted to sink a huge amount of money into supplies. The supply purchases had to be driven by revenue from sales. And Lalitha spent a lot of time in Sacramento, trying to learn the prices of fine instruments of the quality she was capable of delivering. The manager of one of the big music stores noticed her, and they got to talking. He was a friendly man, and he was of two minds. He was familiar with the work of Knowlden, and at first he was skeptical about her claims; he did not actually say so, but Lalitha just knew that he could not believe that someone who looked so obviously _foreign_ could have links to the Early Music tradition, at least as he understood it. There were more knowledgeable experts in that company, but Lalitha did not have the courage to approach them.

Lalitha's acquaintance, once he was _mostly_ persuaded that Lalitha had indeed worked in Knowlden's Ohio workshop with the famous Helen Nordstrom, said that if her instruments were good, they could sell for a lot of money, but they would not sell very fast. So if Lalitha wanted to self-fund her projects, she would have to undersell her instruments.

Meanwhile, Lalitha watched with worry Helen's complicated relationship with Bethany. She could see that Bethany's attraction to Helen was most definitely sexual, though her ultra-religious world could not allow her to face that fact. Meanwhile, Helen was completely oblivious to the idea of homosexuality at all, except that it was a silly aberration in pitiable people, and her friends and family had been careful not to tell her that most of her relationships had been lesbian. Lalitha was beginning to believe that Helen's main romantic interest was in fact Gena, and she was very nervous about Gena's increasing hero-worship of Helen. The plaster cast had been only a temporary one, and Gena had to be taken in to the hospital two weeks later, and Bethany had persuaded Helen to take them. Helen had taken off from work, and at the hospital, they had been told that a new cast was going to be put on. Gena had been questioned more closely about how she had broken the wrist, and it had come up that she was a budding athlete. In that case, the doctor had said, I would like to operate, and strengthen the break with a pin. Or we can immobilize it and check it again in a couple of weeks. Helen was skeptical about the entire business, though she was tactful, and careful not to antagonize the medical staff. In the end, it was determined that Gena's bone structure was probably too delicate for a pin to help, and they went with a cast for a week, and then a special splint that would allow a little movement.

Lalitha's suspicion about the relationship between Helen and Gena was moderated a good deal by Gena's warm attitude towards Lalitha, herself. Gena thought Lalitha was cute, and bestowed her loving smiles on Lalitha as well, and soon Lalitha came around. But Lalitha continued to keep a wary eye on Helen, watching for any signs of inappropriate behavior towards the little girl.

Lalitha's and Helen's relationship was getting ever more stormy. At first, Lalitha had been careful to be diplomatic. But once her defenses were down, she forgot to be tactful. She kept forgetting that, while Lalitha had known Helen for decades, Helen had only known Lalitha for a few months. Once, in some connection Lalitha had told Helen to knock it off, whatever it had been. _You always do this,_ she had accused. Helen had turned around and given her a look of scorn. _You don't know me_ , she had said, but what she had meant was: _I_ don't know _you_.

Every week, Lalitha's love for Helen kept shaking off its shackles more insistently. She knew, in her mind that she could not stand on her rights to Helen at all; there were no rights now. But it was becoming more difficult to remember that. Something in Lalitha's face reflected the love that she was battling, and it came across as a sort of aura, something supernatural that was trying to emerge from within the embattled woman.

Things came to a head when a violin arrived in the house. It had either been mailed out by someone, or perhaps Lalitha had seen a good violin and bow for sale at a good price, and snapped it up, but anyway, Lalitha had brought it to Helen, and waited for something to happen. Helen did not pick it up for the longest time, but finally did, and was about to start playing, but laid the violin and bow back down, looking puzzled.

"You're remembering something!" Lalitha said, too impatient to wait for Helen to say something in her own time. Somehow or other, this sparked off the biggest disagreement yet. It wasn't noisy, and there was no shouting, but Helen and Lalitha were more furious and disappointed in each other than ever before. Suresh was spending the day with Gena and Bethany, and missed the exchange.

It was Saturday, and Helen had just returned from Gena's. Helen went into her room, and closed the door. Lalitha stood perfectly still for a while, then went about her work. She did not come in to supper, and refused the food that Suresh took in to her, after Helen had picked him up. The house was like a funeral. Nobody talked, the radio was off, and Helen was quiet inside her room.

The following day, Lalitha went into town on foot with Suresh, and Helen wondered what they were doing. Lalitha came back without the boy.

"Where's Suresh?" Helen asked, the first words she had spoken to her in most of a day.

"I've sent him to Baltimore," said Lalitha, and Helen began to get alarmed.

When Helen returned from work the next day, Lalitha was nowhere to be seen. Helen looked everywhere, and finally found her outside the fence, on a rock overlooking the gully. She turned dull eyes on Helen, and watched as she approached nervously.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Why?"

Helen was nonplussed.

"You haven't eaten in two days!"

"I'm not hungry." Indeed, she wasn't. She had a bottle of water by her, and that was all. She had been filling it at the garden tap. After not eating for two days, for a while it became easier. It helped not to swallow the water, but to rinse her mouth and spit it out.

Helen went away, angry.

It was a difficult night, but Lalitha had come back into the shelter and slept there, and in the morning, she was back out on the rock with her bottle. Helen went to work, and found it hard to concentrate. But it was a difficult job that day, and she managed after a while to forget Lalitha's nonsense. She hoped that Lalitha would come inside and eat something while she was gone. She believed that the Indian woman was simply avoiding her, but the opposite was true. Lalitha had realized that she wanted Helen more than anything in the world, and was looking for guidance from the Goddess. She wanted to know: was Helen intended for her, or was she not? If not, Lalitha thought, she would rather die. She had sent the unhappy boy to Katie, and told her that he was her responsibility, in a sealed letter. To him, she had only said that she would be coming along soon.

"Did you get something to eat?"

"No!" She could hardly get the word out. Helen could hardly bear to look at her. There was hardly any expression on her face except the pain of hunger, a sort of terrible calm, and something else Helen was a stranger to.

"What are you trying to do?"

Helen could almost hear the words in her head: _Sit down, Helen, I'm going to explain._

Helen crouched down to listen. She was a little distance away; there was only room on the rock for one human, and maybe a rattlesnake or two.

Lalitha explained, slowly and painfully, pausing for a swallow of water, that if she could not have Helen, she would rather die. She had sent the boy to her friend in Baltimore. She had come to help Helen, but she had learned that she needed Helen far more than Helen needed her.

"What do you mean?"

"I've told you ten times, Helen. I love you. It is a simple thing, no? You are a clever girl; you can do anything, understand anything. Can't you understand love?"

A look of utter distaste washed over Helen's face.

"That's disgusting!"

Lalitha shook her head. She did not have to speak. She smiled, thinking some secret thought to herself, and Helen felt a gentle dismissal.

Late that night, Lalitha took it into her head to sing. She sang softly, a hymn to her goddess. It was a classical Hindu song, of a devotee to the goddess, saying that she loved the deity without any expectations. Helen was fascinated; she wrapped herself up, and crept up to the fence to listen. She kept a good distance away, coming only just barely close enough to listen.

Lalitha had never sung before. She did not have a voice suitable for singing Western music; she had learned to sing this song in her childhood, evidently. Her mother had died when she was young, she had told Helen; this must have been a song taught by an aunt, or in what passed for the Indian equivalent of Sunday school. The tune was most definitely diatonic, but in an Indian mode which would have been familiar from a theoretical point of view to the old Helen, but to the Helen who was listening, the tune had to work hard to break the obstructions of amnesia, and the obstructions were a lot stronger than the tune.

But where memory failed, pity prevailed, and Helen groaned, and walked around through the gate, and approached Lalitha, who started with a gasp, until she recognized Helen.

"Come inside and sleep, Helen! You're going to catch something sitting out here!" The bottle was empty, and Lalitha seemed unbearably thin and wasted, though it had only been three days of starvation. The moon was just rising, and lit up the landscape unevenly.

You are so beautiful in the moonlight, my beloved! The goddess has turned her face from me, but I am satisfied. My love for you gives me strength to bear anything! Come closer, so that I can see you, my love!

In their heightened emotional state, two things happened. Lalitha looked strangely beautiful in the dim light, and where her self-torture failed, her beauty might have succeeded. Helen had always been unable to resist small, defenseless things. But more importantly, one word broke through Helen's amnesia: _beloved_. The Indian word, or at least the endearment that was the equivalent in Lalitha's dialect of _baby,_ or _Cherie_ , or _Liebchen_ , which Lalitha had taught Helen when they were still in their late teens, or at least Lalitha's late teens, had been the one they used with each other in bed that blessed Christmas, and with a burst, Helen remembered Lalitha as she had been then.

Helen gave a long, shuddering groan, and scrambled up the slope to pick Lalitha up, hampered by the cotton sheet Helen had wrapped around herself. But her frantic emotions gave her strength, and he crushed Lalitha in her arms, making her cry out, and strode back up to the road, and into the house, and took Lalitha into her, Helen's, room, and laid her in her bed.

"I'm beginning to remember!" she muttered, her mind greedily stumbling through the corridors of her memories, remembering more and more, and she lay panting by Lalitha's side, her mind's eye not in California, but in a little house in Ohio, in the arms of a lovely eighteen-year-old Indian girl in the throes of her passion.

Careful, Lalitha gasped, my skin hurts everywhere! Oh my love, my love, my love!

_Are you all right?_ asked Helen, the dialect coming to her now.

You know the language?

Of course! I have spoken it for months!

(She had spoken it for years, but she could not remember.)

## Recovery

The event left Helen thoroughly shaken. Lalitha was in a state between hysteria and euphoria, except that the adrenaline that had given her the strength to hang on was gone, —actually had gone early in the day— and she was weak, even after a meal of soup, and much later, a bagel and a hard-boiled egg, which Helen thought would help her bounce back, and which Lalitha was too weak to contradict.

Lalitha rested for a day, and most of the second day, but after talking to Katie in Baltimore, and salvaging a little of her peace of mind, and making plans for being reunited with Suresh later in the year, she retreated to the workshop to occupy herself with a little woodwork. She knew Helen would stick around and fuss and take off from work if she stayed in bed. She was ashamed to admit to herself that she could hardly wait until she was in bed with Helen; the drugged dragon of her libido was roaring to wakefulness, and Helen's lips were ever in the eye of her imagination, but she didn't have the energy to do much about it, and soon her work habits forced her mind to be conscious of the instrument she was building. Helen's lute had been set aside when they had started fighting, and she took the time, on a break, to inspect it closely. She sighed; there were mistakes, but not desperate ones, and she took time out to backtrack a little, and make a few adjustments. The quality of a lute was as much in the details of its construction as in the overall design, which in this case was very promising.

It seemed to Lalitha that though a lot of the life of the Ashram in India had come back to Helen, she remembered nothing of her trip back the US, or her meeting with Lalitha and her husband, or the school at which she had worked briefly. She resolved to write a long letter to India, to Sita, whom she had neglected for so many years. Sita was her only reliable family, outside of little Suresh. Lalitha was resolved to have no contacts at all with her husband's family, who must truly believe that Lalitha had murdered the man. She was intensely curious about Helen's life after they had parted, and had quizzed Helen once their emotional reconciliation had been decently concluded, but Helen had still been stunned with all the memories of their college year together, which was as far back as Helen could recall. Everything before that incredible moment when Lalitha had first seen Helen was vague. She could recall Janet, and she could recall describing to Lalitha the earlier years of her life, and she could remember the images that had passed through her mind as she had talked, but only the memories of her memories seemed to remain, not the memories themselves.

Helen found it hard to return to work. The parts of her past life that had suddenly burst into her memory were trying to crowd out the memories of the most recent year, which held the skills she needed for her work, but she could go on autopilot. She pretended to be a little ill, and subjected herself to a little innocent ribbing by her buddies, who thought she was pregnant. There were few other women on the crew, and none who were her friends. There were a couple of young girls, fresh out of high school, who were friendly when Helen happened to go over to help with a house being built by one of the other teams, but most of Helen's fellow-workers were guys, several of whom she had to work hard to keep at a distance. She had never understood why, until now, when she realized that, until her operation, at least, she had been a lesbian. As far as she knew now, she had never been with a guy, though Cindy had told her that she had been briefly married, but it hadn't registered. Everyone in Helen's extended family tended to forget that little piece of trivia, anyway.

Helen's relationship with Bethany now appeared alarming and worrisome. She now had the vocabulary to analyze it, and the concepts to peg her anxiety upon. The enormous pile of newly restored memories pushed her interaction with Gena and Bethany to a distance, and it seemed as if it had been sometime in the past that she had last seen Gena, though it had been barely a week ago.

Helen drove home fearfully, not sure what to expect. She expected to have to nurse Lalitha for days, but when she pulled up at the house and went inside, Lalitha seemed fine.

She had brought home something they could easily prepare for supper, and seeing that Lalitha had been working on an instrument, Helen took up her lute, too; it made it possible to be near Lalitha without having to make conversation, and keep her hands busy.

It was Saturday, and Helen hadn't returned Bethany's call. As soon as it was a decent hour, Bethany called again, and Helen quickly said she was coming right away to pick up Gena.

Bethany was waiting for Helen, looking anxious. Helen smiled for her, and Gena came out, and Helen feasted her eyes on Gena. It was as if she was seeing them anew; for the first time, she appreciated the beauty of mother and daughter with all her faculties intact. She was beginning to look at everything with critical eyes, but she could find no fault with Gena, and even after Bethany began her usual babbling, behind the foolishness, Helen could see a woman who was deeply distressed.

"I was so worried about you!"

"Why?"

"Why, because you sounded funny the other day!"

Helen frowned, and then recalled that she had hung up quickly because she and Lalitha were not on talking terms, and she had been listening for something, perhaps for Lalitha to come in to supper.

"I ... I was a little worried about Lalitha," she said, unconsciously giving it the proper Indian pronunciation. It came across to Bethany as a startlingly different speech style.

"You sound different, somehow! What has happened to you?" she demanded. She had sharp ears, Helen thought; somehow Bethany had picked up on the fact that an enormous part of Helen's memory was back, and with it, the speech of her college years. Instead of mimicking the workmen who surrounded her presently, she was using the cadences she had used all her life, based on the speech of her mother, mostly, and a little of her father, who tended to talk 'Western' when he wasn't paying attention.

"Do I!" Bethany narrowed her eyes.

"You've had a personality change!" Bethany joked, but Helen could sense her uncertainty. Helen held out her arms for little Allie, who was leaning towards Helen, wanting to go to her. Bethany held her out.

Helen thought hard, and decided to be honest.

"A whole ... a whole bunch of my memory came back," she said softly, inexplicably embarrassed. "It was, like, waking up from a dream," she said, awkwardly. She shook her head. Perhaps she had said too much, and now Bethany would ask questions she could not, or preferred not to, answer.

"Oh my word," Bethany said, her hand covering her mouth, "I keep forgetting what it must mean, to have ... amnesiation, or whatever ..."

"Amnesia," Helen offered.

"Yeah. Oh, you poor, poor thing!"

Helen shook her head. "I've got a job; I don't have children; my troubles are nothing!"

Bethany stared at Helen, and Helen stared back.

"Promise me that, if anything happens to me, you'll look after the kids!"

Helen's eyes opened wide, all else forgotten. "Why? What's going to happen to you?"

"I don't know; I had a bad dream, Helen. I think god told me that ... my time was at hand."

Helen laughed it off, and managed to get Bethany cheered up. A day or two ago, she would have mentally accused Bethany of being a drama queen. But now, she wondered whether Bethany was ill, and whether somehow she had some premonition of some catastrophic illness. Bethany watched TV all the time, and reported to Helen all the tragic illnesses that people seemed to get, that were reported in the news, especially cable news, which seemed to be all bad news as far as Helen could tell.

Presently Gena and she were on their way. Gena was talking nineteen to the dozen, but even she turned to look at Helen quizzically. "Why're you talking funny?"

Helen smiled at her. "It's complicated," she explained. "A lot of my memories came back ... and, I suppose, I remembered some of my speech habits, like words I used to say all the time, in a particular way; I don't know; ... I'm probably using words I had forgotten, different vocabulary ..."

"Yeah, that's it! The voice, too, you're talking higher!"

" _Higher?_ Not just different vocabulary?" Helen was feeling strange. She had forgotten, and talked to Gena as if she were an adult, and she was replying as if she really were an adult. A smart, observant one, too.

"Both. Bigger vocabulary, and higher pitch, too."

_Wow_ , thought Helen. _That's_ certainly something to ponder.

With Suresh gone, there was only Lalitha to entertain the young lady, but after a brief exasperated look at Helen when Gena was not looking, she did a good job of it. She had begun a ukulele, just for fun, and decided to give it to Gena. It needed a bridge, and strings. It had been cheaply made, with plywood instead of the wood that expensive ukes were made out of, but Lalitha had gotten the bent woodwork perfect, and made the neck light but strong, for a girl with a broken wrist.

Gena was utterly taken with the gift, and watched closely while Lalitha worked on finishing it. Helen paced about, and Lalitha was sure that she had plenty to think about, not least the extent of the memory that had been restored. While they were stringing the little instrument and tuning it roughly, they heard a beautiful sound!

Helen had picked up the violin that had caused all the trouble, and gone out to the back porch —a long covered area in the shape of an L, where the laundry was, and which must have been intended to be two sides of a pool that had never been installed— and was playing it. It was a lovely melody, which Lalitha recognized at once: a tune which was simply gorgeous, from a French opera. Gena gasped, and listened for a number of seconds, before she looked wide-eyed at Lalitha, and crept over to the porch to see. Lalitha's heart was thudding so hard, she thought she might become ill; she pressed the heel of her hand over the pounding organ in her chest, and went behind Gena. Of course, the violin skills, and the _memory_ of them—must have been the most important thing in Helen's consciousness; Lalitha should have expected that this would happen. Presently, she knew, Helen would begin to sing, all day long, as she had done as a child. Or maybe she wouldn't; who could tell? She was no longer a child.

"That was lovely!" whispered Gena, when Helen finished the tune, and Helen turned to her with a blush.

"It's all coming back," Helen told her, "in bits and pieces; mostly some of the really painful memories, and ... some of the really wonderful ones!" The smile she bestowed on the little girl was strangely poignant; Helen was trying to bridge, in her mind, her newly restored memories with her new recent experiences. Gena had to take her rightful places in Helen's brain, from having been one of the half-dozen people she knew and loved, to one of the scores of people; her family, whom she loved, and her friends, whom she loved too. But Helen had seen her, and smiled, a special smile for Lalitha, which made her heart flutter in a different way.

She slipped away, leaving the two of them alone. She was no longer as concerned about Helen and Gena as she had been.

"Hello?"

"Cindy?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"It's Lalitha! Listen ... I have some important news."

"Oh no. Is everything all right?"

"Oh yes. A couple of nights ago, Helen ... got back quite a bit of her memory. I mean, she knows who she is ..."

"Oh god ... that's _wonderful!_ Oh that's wonderful! Oh Lalitha, how did you do it? I'm going to hang up and call everybody, to let them know! Did you say it's all back?"

"Well, it's patchy. She remembers most of senior year, because that's the only part I knew, see?"

"Yeah, that makes sense. But not before? How far back does it go?"

"Up to when we met, the meeting itself, at the College."

"Wow. I guess that must have gone over big, with her."

"I guess, evidently." Lalitha was embarrassed.

"And from there, all the way to, well, the present?"

"No, no. I don't know how much of what happened in India you're familiar with, but ..."

"We didn't know a single thing!"

Lalitha quickly summarized the parts of the story she knew, and the parts that, as far as she could figure out, Helen could recall.

Soon, Cindy rung off, and spread the good news to Helen's family, while Lalitha was beginning to think that perhaps Helen should call her father directly, and let him know.

"Dad?"

"Helen? Is it you?"

"I can remember, Dad! I can remember a lot!"

"Oh goodness! I guess we'll have to come out and see you the first chance we get! But I don't want to leave the farm, girl; there's new livestock ..."

"Oh Dad, I'll come over ... let me talk to Annie, quick; then I want to call Janet, and Tommy, and ..."

"Here's Annie!"

The one who was the most interested in the details of Helen's returning memory was Amy, and she insisted that as soon as Helen had visited with her family, she wanted to see her. In the end, Old Elly said Amy should come down to the Illinois house, which was a central location.

But Helen could not go on the long-overdue visit, as planned. When Helen and Gena drove back to drop her off, Bethany was in bed, very sick indeed. Gena had gone in, not getting a reply to the doorbell, and found Bethany lying in her bed, struggling to breathe.

"I don't know ... exactly what is wrong with me," said Bethany. "I think ... if I can sit up ... help me up, Helen; if I can sit up, I think I can get out of bed, and see to the housework ..."

With a massive effort, Bethany did get up, and dressed herself, and tried to give the impression that she was fine. But Helen, with her new-returned mental resources, could see that something was very wrong. Picking up little Alison and taking her out to change her into a dry diaper, Helen quietly insisted that Bethany should go to hospital. Bethany resisted for the longest time, but Helen had her way, and half an hour later, Bethany was being put through a barrage of tests.

Helen decided to call Juliana Hoffman, remembering that she had enormous financial resources, and if she couldn't use them in a situation like this, what use were they? Juliana was delighted to hear from Helen, and said yes, certainly, the money was available.

"Her white blood cell count is through the roof," said the physician in charge. "We have to do a couple more tests before something emerges. Right now, we only know that you're very sick, Bethany, but not with what condition."

"Could you keep the kids for a few days, Helen? Maybe Lalitha could help you with them, huh?"

Suddenly, Helen had two little children she had to look after. When she had brought up the question of how the hospital bills were to be paid, the hospital staff and the doctor sat with Helen and told her that if the patient was too concerned with the financial burden, she would never recover fast enough. "We'll put you down as a possible financially responsible party, but we'll put her as having the main responsibility; we have programs to help with the costs."

Meanwhile, Helen and Lalitha had arranged to visit Illinois, and when Richard was asked whether it was all right to take the two little girls along, he begged them to take the children. Alison was an infant, and the airlines would not allow them to accompany people who were not immediate family, except in special situations, which had to be documented to the airline, and Richard had to be hauled, trembling in fear, to the airline office, to put his signature on the release. At the last minute, he was calm, and spoke intelligently to the official. "Their mother is very ill, and I can't afford to stay home from work," he said, more articulate than he had been for half a year. Weren't there other close relatives? "Nobody more reliable than Miss Nordstrom, here," he had said. "Nobody at all I can depend on. Nobody," he had said, shaking his head, and he seemed a little more adamant than the circumstances warranted.

Before they left for Illinois, Helen visited Bethany alone in the hospital. Lalitha asked whether it was strictly necessary, and Helen said that she thought it was. "I have a bad feeling about Bethany," she said. "I have just a horrible premonition. What could it be? Leukemia? It's not going to be good. I hope it isn't going to be hereditary," she added.

Bethany was calm, when Helen came to visit. "I'm going to be fine," she told Helen. "But just in case, if anything happens to either of us, I want you to take the kids."

"Beth, you'll be fine until I get back. It's just going to be a week to ten days, that's all. We'll be back to take Gena's cast off, and then she can play the little ukulele Lalitha is making for her!"

"She is? Oh, I wish I could be there to see it!"

Helen got angry and told Bethany firmly that she would have the best chance of recovering if she assumed that she would recover, in the first place. Talking as though she would not survive a couple of weeks was exactly the wrong way to go about it.

Bethany's face blossomed in a grin, something Helen had not seen before. "There you go, talking like a professor again! Helen, you talk just like a professor!"

"I certainly do not! I don't think I talk very much differently than I talked just last week!" Helen knew this was not the case, but it was embarrassing to be told repeatedly that her speech and manner had changed.

Bethany began laughing uncontrollably. After a while she stopped, and her face was solemn again. She pressed the button that called a nurse to her room. It was a semi-private room, but the other bed was empty.

"What do you need, I could get it for you," Helen said with a frown. A second later, the nurse stepped in, and came to Bethany with a warm smile. Somehow Bethany had made friends with this nurse.

"Did you call, sweetheart? What do you need?"

"Christine, this is the girl I was telling you about, Helen Nordstrom. Did I get it right?" Helen nodded, glancing at the nurse.

"Are you really Helen Nordstrom?" the nurse asked, her eyes wide with amazement. "The violinist? You made that Christmas Special when you were younger, with the skating, and everything?"

Helen was amazed. The nurse could not have been much older than little Gena when that special had been made. She told the nurse so.

"Yes! I was in Sixth Grade, or even Fifth Grade—something like that! This is such an honor!"

"What are you talking about, Christine? What Christmas special?"

"I guess you didn't know, then, Bethany! Helen Nordstrom is a famous musician. At least, she was some years ago. What have you been doing since then, ma'am?"

Bethany stared at Helen in shock. "I thought ... I thought ... you worked at, like, the construction project, over on the development! Helen, what's all this? You're not, like, a builder?"

"It's —complicated," Helen said, but the nurse interrupted.

"I remember you went missing for a long time. I remember now; and this one magazine was saying that you had cancer. Was that true?"

It took a while for Helen to give them enough information to satisfy the nurse's curiosity, and allay Bethany's worry that Helen was too important a personage to burden with the care of her children.

She shook her head, and lay back against the pillows with a groan, and closed her eyes. The nurse fussed with the tubes that were going into Bethany's arm, and Bethany opened her eyes.

"I was going to ask Christine to witness that ... but we can't do that now," said Bethany, looking tired and frustrated.

"Oh ... I remember now," said Christine, looking repentant. "Bethany was feeling a little down, and wanted me to be here when she asked you to, I guess, take care of the kids if anything were to happen to her. I told her she would be fine, but ..."

"Helen ... if it isn't too much to ask: I still want you to do it. Richard can't do it; two kids are too much for him. _Life_ is just too much for him. My folks are terrible people, Helen, and _he_ doesn't _have_ any folks. You see? It's you, or foster care."

As she left the hospital, Helen was less concerned for Bethany's health than she was for her sanity. Helen could understand her worry that the tests would reveal that she was suffering from some incurable disease, but Bethany's worry about how able Richard was to take care of himself and the children was difficult to explain.

They put the house in as much order as they could, and locked up the valuable equipment, except for the violin, which Helen took with her. Gena was delighted to accompany Helen and Lalitha, and Allie cried at first, but was soon all smiles as her sister leaned over to smile at her. Gena's smile could calm anyone, Helen thought, and so did Lalitha. She was truly a sweet-faced child. The baby was a little angel, too, especially if her older sister was in sight. All she needed was her formula, at mealtimes, and to be held by someone, or to be chatted to by her sister, or Helen.

## Travels

Illinois was wonderful. At the airport, there were a number of cars and a van ready to transport Helen and the two girls to the rambling old house that was Elly's and Janet's home, and the home of Little Elly and Tommy, and occasionally Little John. Helen had to describe exactly how much she remembered, and she told them a sanitized version of her life in the Ashram, glossing over the details. Indeed, Helen could remember only patches, some scenes, mostly interesting because of how different life in rural India was from the experience of those listening (except for Old Elly, who apparently had visited India in her youth).

Little Elly and Tommy took charge of Gena, and showed her round, and showed her their books and their toys, and kept her occupied. But Gena always found her way back, to snuggle with Helen, and gaze into her face. Lalitha could only shake her head in wonder; since Helen's memory had come back, Gena found her irresistible.

Baby Alison spent most of her time in Helen's lap, or on Helen's hip, or in Lalitha's arms. She was content to be with one or the other of them, or to be carried about briefly by sister Gena.

There was plenty to do: tennis courts, the swimming pool, and not least, Helen had to spend a certain amount of time with Janet and Cindy and Amy, her closest friends. Because of Helen's enormously wide interests, there were numerous threads to pick up. There was a lot to plan; Helen was asked to perform in Ohio as soon as it was convenient, and it was likely that as soon as it was known that Helen was playing in Ohio, more assignments would pour in.

During Helen's senior year, a new scholar had joined the music department, named Nadia Van Der Wert, a Belgian, who was a specialist on Johann Sebastian Bach, in whose music Helen had also had a great interest. Nadia had hoped to collaborate with Helen on a scholarly project, but of course Helen had disappeared right after graduation, and Helen had been more interested in performance than in scholarship. But Amy, who had to leave in a hurry, conveyed that Nadia had been overjoyed at the news that Helen was back, and had implored Amy to persuade Helen to make at least a brief visit to the College.

The visit to Kansas was a priority, though Lalitha was uncomfortable with the thought of meeting Helen's father. So Helen packed up supplies for little Allie, and a suitcase for herself and Gena, and flew out to Kansas, which was a short flight. The family had persuaded Helen to contact Juliana and arrange to have access to some of her savings, and Juliana had arranged for Helen to be given a credit card with an enormous line of credit, and the ticket was her first purchase.

She was met by her father, and Gena and the old gentleman took a liking to each other, and they made their way out to Helen's father's farm, where Annie was waiting with a smile, as well as Little John, who was about the same age as Suresh, and who was pleased to meet Gena.

After the sun sank lower in the sky, Helen's father reminded her that there were horses she could ride, but Helen could not remember riding a horse at all. All the more reason to give it a try, said Dad, leading the way out, with Gena and Little John following, to see how Helen would do on horseback.

Helen was soon making friends with the horses, especially a handsome black gelding whom John Nordstrom had admired at a country fair, and decided to buy. He had a long name, but Dad called him captain, and having saddled his own stallion, helped Helen to mount Captain. Helen handled it perfectly well, and they rode out into the pasture, and Helen had a great old grin on her face, and Gena could guess that it was coming back to Helen; she could remember riding _somewhere_ , Gena was sure.

The house needed serious repairs. It had never been modified for more than twenty five years, from when John Nordstrom had bought the farm with the farmhouse, and Helen offered at once to help repair it. "That's what I do, Dad," she told her father, feeling a little odd, "I work with a construction outfit. We build homes," she said. "I get on the roof, and everything. I'm a professional!"

"But what about all your college education? What about all the music? You going to build houses forever?"

Helen looked away and shrugged. That was the tough question. Helen was not ready to face that question yet, but it stared her in the face.

Helen set out for the airport with great reluctance; Gena had simply loved the farm, and Helen's father, and her half-brother Little John, who had really gotten to like Gena, and Alison and Annie had made firm friends. And Annie had cried when Helen got into the truck; she didn't want Helen to leave, because every time she left, something terrible happened, sooner or later. Helen couldn't remember much of Annie's and her history together, but Annie was a lovely woman, and Helen felt the tug she always felt for beautiful women. Some of that was coming back, and Helen had these complicated feelings and attractions and urges, and she began to remember how hard it had been to keep focused on her work, and not go lusting after pretty girls. And her mind turned to the lovely Indian woman who waited for her in Illinois. They had not gone back to being a couple. Lalitha had forced Helen to remember, but now the ball was in Helen's court.

## Reunion

The plane touched down, and Helen and Gena got their baggage and got out, and there was Lalitha with Cindy. When their eyes met, Helen knew that Lalitha was restraining herself with difficulty. There was something in her eyes that called to Helen. Lalitha looked away with a blush, and that was even harder to bear. Helen felt like a teenager, feeling that irresistible pull from that special person, which adults somehow seemed to be able to ignore.

She somehow got through the rest of the day, and performed creditably at the usual after-supper music party that was usual at the Illinois house. The music was always pulled out, and the music stands, and they played at least a half-dozen pieces, sight-reading from old Tom Krebs's vast collection of sheet music and parts. Now, with Cindy there to play Tom Krebs's ancient cello, and both Janet and Lalitha able to play the piano, and Janet able to play flute as well, they could play any number of works. Little Elly and Tommy could hardly bear to watch, for wanting to join in, but their skills were still basic, and this was too far over their heads.

But that didn't stop them from playing a duet that Cindy had taught them. They were good, and now Helen had the resources of her own experience with which to judge them. She encouraged them, and Gena wanted to learn to play, too. What did she want to learn? Anything, she said; I just want to play in, like a band. The bug to play ensemble music had infected little Gena, and Helen could hardly bear the pleasure of it.

Helen waited until the house was quiet, and Gena and Allie were both fast asleep, and made her way silently to the room that Lalitha had been assigned. The twins had been given the entire basement to do with as they pleased, and it was their den. Elly slept on the first floor, and Cindy, Helen, Lalitha and Janet had rooms on the second floor.

Lalitha was awake, and turned towards Helen. Helen slowly sat on the edge of the bed, like some shy nymph, and without a word, they came together, and for the first time in a decade, they reacquainted themselves with how it felt to lie with each other, like lovers.

"Shh, don't make a noise!" Lalitha begged, embarrassed that their encounter could be heard by those in the neighboring rooms, and Helen desisted at once. But they need not have worried; the whole world seemed to be ready for Helen and Lalitha to make love.

Elly was all smiles in the morning, and Helen knew that glint in her eye. The secret was out; Helen had a new love, and Elly was happy. The Twins were puzzled at why there seemed to be some secret that they were not privy to, but nobody cared to enlighten them.

## Ohio

Then it was off to Ohio.

Amy met them, and brought them to the little house, asked them to make themselves at home, and hurried back to the hospital.

"Whose house is this, Helen?" asked Gena.

"It's mine," said Helen, unable to hide her pride. It was a tiny little cottage, but she loved it; it had so many memories for her, now that her memory was back. She knew that some memories were still not there, but she had enjoyed the house for a year, especially that wonderful Christmas Holidays with Lalitha.

Nadia was delighted to meet Helen and Lalitha, and there was a big reunion in the music department. Nadia got the lion's share of the time, after which Helen got to visit with Norma, who listened to her sing, and said that her voice was fine, but a little weak in the extreme edges of her range, and she only had to sing. "What do you have? Is there a piano?" she asked in her classic soprano voice, and Helen had to say, no, she didn't have a piano. "Helen, just rent one. You're not going to be there very long, no matter _what_ you think. Rent one, and have Lalitha help you with scales, and sing a little Bach. Start with _Mein' glaubiges Herze_ , that's a good one to get going with. Then perhaps the _Aleluia_ from Mozart's motet, and a little Purcell ... things you _like_. Don't waste time with anything you don't like as a piece of music in itself. If you don't enjoy the exercises, it's not going to happen."

The Chamber Orchestra of Ohio was in raptures just to have Helen back. Lalitha took little Allie with a smile, and Helen picked up the violin, and they were immediately into the concertos that Helen loved to play. That first impromptu movement was beyond perfect; the orchestra played well, and Helen played well, even after a decade of playing nothing but a single short piece for Gena that one evening, and a couple of evenings in Illinois. Gena was listening, stunned, and Lalitha was reminded once again that Helen was not just anybody, but a musical phenomenon. Lalitha's father had almost succeeded in destroying one of the most priceless talents of the century. She shook her head; he had a lot to answer for. Of course, there was nothing to say that Helen had a right to take anyone she chose as a lover, but keeping Helen and Lalitha apart had hurt both Lalitha and Helen beyond their ability to assess.

Helen played and played, and it was clear that, except for a little loss of agility, and a little stiffness in the fingers, Helen was as good as ever; she only had to practice for a week or two, and she would be completely ready.

A concert was already scheduled for that Friday, but they would change the program to include Helen as a featured soloist.

Helen was taken completely by surprise to find that Juliana had moved her horse farm to Ohio. During Helen's senior year, anticipating that Helen would remain in Ohio, Juliana had quietly bought a fifty-acre piece of land near the college, and begun working on it, building an enormous, fenced-in farmhouse with a pool and tennis courts, just like she had in Florida, and had moved into it the following year. Helen was nowhere to be found, but Juliana liked it in Ohio, and she had settled into her new ranch. In addition, she had invested in an enormous computer system for her half-sister Gretchen, who had been a little kid back when Helen had been in and out of the Florida estate, but had gone through a number of major personal tragedies. Now she was interested in computer systems, having gotten started by going through Helen's own personal computer, and learned all the software on that, and gone on to more sophisticated technology. Long before Web technology was commonplace, Gretchen and Juliana had created a Web server and now Gretchen was in the process of collecting all the porn on the internet. She was a porn addict, but her drives were enormous, and she wanted to make her collection available for free.

As yet, though, she was hoarding it jealously until she was ready, in the hope that Helen could come by and appreciate it.

When Helen found out that Ohio was Juliana's new home, she was overjoyed. She had not seen her benefactress since her Sophomore year, and she owed her a visit most urgently. But when she heard that Gretchen was back from Europe, she hesitated. She had a vague memory that she, Helen, had been the cause of Gretchen's most horrifying experiences, but she could not remember what she had actually done, though she strongly suspected it was something that would be very difficult to discover, simply based on her memories of the sort of thing that she had indulged in back then. But she could only remember loving the youthful Gretchen, who had been just about Gena's age at the time.

Of course, Helen was being beset by requests to perform all over the US and in Europe, even before the concert on Friday had taken place, and she stumblingly began to make excuses. But Juliana had a sixth sense for these things; she had her own problems with Gretchen, and wanted to make sure the two women had the best chance of smoothing things over when they did finally meet. Juliana had a vague idea that Helen had gone to India to look for a particular person, and she knew it had to be a woman, and that would be a complication once Gretchen found out.

Friday came round, and Helen found a lovely black and grey gown to wear, though everybody thought she should wear at least a touch of color, and Gena found a beautiful pin for Helen, which she was pleased to wear for the concert. Gena had never seen a typical classical music concert, and Helen was just as excited to give Gena the experience as Gena was to attend the event. Lalitha had, in that year in Ohio, participated as an extra percussionist on one occasion, when they had tried something a little out of the Baroque repertoire, and she was well known to the orchestra. But it was one thing to be Helen's girlfriend when she was seventeen, and quite another to be an adult lover at the ripe old age of thirty. She squirmed with embarrassment to be recognized as Helen's _partner_ , but each day it seemed more reasonable and proper, and the right choice for her. It was becoming so that she could not see any life for herself that did not center around Helen. This was the doing of the Goddess, she said, falling back on thought habits of a lifetime. Anything unusual and wonderful was the doing of the Goddess, and Helen was as unusual and wonderful as they come.

It was a large hall, one that they usually could not fill. The Chamber Orchestra of Ohio had not only survived the decade, but become amazingly well-established under the direction of Jane Beckett, and they were now broadening their repertoire to include the classical and early romantic works that their orchestra was large enough to play: Mozart, Haydn, C. P. E. Bach, Beethoven, and Gluck and Cherubini, and composers of that period. And of course, they played Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns just for fun.

When Helen appeared on stage, Lalitha, who was seated with Gena and Allie, heard the kid gasp. Helen looked superhuman, though of course they had seen her get dressed, and had driven to the concert hall all together in Helen's Cherokee, which had been maintained quite well by Amy and her friends. The opening piece had been a Bach Orchestral Suite, featuring the new brass instruments that were being manufactured by Knowlden's workshop. Now Helen was going to play the Beethoven concerto, one that she had become famous for. It was not a concerto that was exotic at all; it was straightforward, at least to modern audiences, and its challenges were modest, but it needed a youthful spirit, and an outgoing personality to carry it off. Helen had just the sort of charm to make it work, and so did the orchestra. The members who remained of those Helen knew were ten years older, and it had been hard for them all to look at each other and see the effect of the years, and Helen had privately had tears, wiping her eyes while she deplored to Lalitha how her friends had aged. Helen herself, Lalitha thought to herself, had seemed to have aged a mere five years at the most.

Gena did not think the music particularly spectacular, except for the last movement, which seemed absolutely brilliant to her. As the last chord sounded, she knew at once, and leaped to her feet, uncertain whether to clap. It was a standing ovation, and the television cameras around the room caught it all.

The nightly news had a clip of it, and caught little Gena leaping to her feet. "That says it all," said the announcer, "that right there! She made us want to stand up and cheer! Helen Nordstrom, back from being away for ten years. Everything seems to be intact, and in good working order. And doesn't she look radiant?"

"She certainly does," said the co-host, her voice warm with approval.

Nadia met with Helen the next day, and called Norma in.

"If you can afford it, get some sort of assistant, Helen. Someone who can handle your finances, and keep track of your performing schedule. Play everything you can, until you choose to go back and earn a teaching degree."

"Oh god," said Helen, "I don't know if I'm ready to go back to school yet!"

"And you must squeeze in some time for our project, Cherie. You must learn to do a little of everything. You have to ration out your time!"

"But Nadia, once she starts her coursework she won't have any time for playing concerts! This is the time!"

"But she should take a month, and finish all the traveling at once. I mean, traveling for the project!"

"I have some connections who might know someone who can be the agent for scheduling her appearances. There is a young fellow, Robin Friend, who was familiar with the circuit. I was at university with his father. Robin is the one to ask."

"I have a friend who can help with the financial work," said Helen. "She's been investing my savings, and I have, you know, quite a lot of savings. I'm too embarrassed to say exactly how much!"

"Is it an enormous amount, or such a tiny amount that you're too shy to tell us?"

"It was something like a half a million," said Helen, blushing like crazy.

"Oh my goodness. I would say he's the one to keep track of the money, then. Where did you get so much money? I know I shouldn't ask!"

"I used to give the money I made to Janet, —you know Janet! And she sent it out to this person, and she invested it."

"There were a couple of good years, I remember; if she moved the money out at just the right time, you could have made a killing, I suppose!" (But of course, that had been ten years ago. Helen hadn't quite figured it out, but what she called her _savings_ were considerably more than she sum she had mentioned.)

But the euphoria ended abruptly. When Helen called the hospital, she learned that Bethany was gravely ill, and not expected to last more than a few days. She had a complicated kind of cancer, which would have killed her in time, but they had also found a brain tumour, which had begun to spread so fast that they estimated the time she had in mere days. Bethany was already on life-support, and they begged Helen to return as soon as she could, especially since her husband, Richard, had not returned their calls.

Helen dared not tell the sad news to little Gena. She slipped away to meet Juliana; she could not afford the luxury of avoiding Gretchen now. She would need an enormous amount of money to help save Bethany if she possibly could. Helen wanted to have her moved to a larger hospital, in Sacramento or San Francisco. The few thousands she would earn at that night's concert could help, but it was more important to fly out to Bethany right away.

Juliana had been at the concert. She hurried to greet Helen with a broad smile on her face, but saw the stunned expression on Helen's face. In a few words, Helen conveyed all the information she could remember: she needed to manage her finances, and Juliana said she would find someone competent to keep track of them temporarily; she needed money to try to help her friend Bethany, who was near death, and Juliana promised all the help she needed, and said she would do it without dipping into Helen's money at all. "It is a good thing you are doing, Cherie," she said, "and I will help. Don't worry about the money. Just call me when you get there."

Helen went home, and when Lalitha and Gena saw her, they knew at once. Gena was very calm, though the color was gone from her face. "Is she dead?" asked Gena.

"No," whispered, Helen, "but she's a lot more sick than we guessed."

"Are we going back?"

Helen had nodded.

Within a few hours, the plane was circling the airport, and a few minutes later, Helen, Lalitha and the children were in a rented car, and shortly after, at the hospital, but Bethany was dead. She had died while they were in the air, and there had been no way to let them know, and nothing Helen could have done.

Leaving Lalitha and the two children at the hospital, Helen drove to the modest home in which Bethany and Richard had brought up their little girls. The front door was open, and on the dining table was a neatly folded letter. Helen could barely make herself open it.

"I have been getting ready for a year," said Richard. "Please take the kids. Be a mother to them. Bethany didn't know, but I have been dying for a long time, and I don't have the courage to stay alive. I think I have some mental disease, probably Schizophrenia, and I don't have the courage to take responsibility for the girls. Nobody in my family is any use. Bethany's folks are a lot more decent and reliable, but dirt poor. Here is their address; when they see Gena, they may be moved to taking her in. But I think Alison is going to be yours. Or who knows? They make take Alison but not Gena, but it would be more expense for them, and I fear for her life if they're careless with her. It would be best if they were adopted together, Gena would be miserable if they were split up.

"Sometimes I imagine that life would be bearable even if Bethany died, if I had someone strong, like you to lean on. But I know I could never ..." there was something illegible, and Helen could not begin to guess what it might have been. "... to write this sort of thing in a letter, but you know what? I don't care. Don't even try to look for me. I'm not in the house.

"Give Gena and Allie a hug for me.

"Richard."

Oh god, thought Helen, I don't need this. He had been thoughtful, and saved her the trouble of looking all over the house for his corpse; he had gone somewhere, probably a hotel room, and made an end of it.

"What'll I do? What is expected of me?" she asked out aloud. "First Mom, then Henry, then Ruth, and ... now this?" It seemed to Helen as if she were some angel of death. Perhaps it would be Lalitha next; they might be dead in the hospital, she thought, and laughed.

Then she remembered that Gena had confided in her one day, that she thought her father would die too. And Gena had always pitied her father; it had never been love, only compassion. What a strange child she was, Helen thought.

"Dad has ... disappeared," Helen told Gena. Baby Alison could tell that something was wrong, but she was more upset that Gena was upset.

Gena looked directly at Helen, and nodded, and dropped her eyes, as if she was embarrassed. It filled Helen with sorrow that the child took responsibility for the lack of responsibility of her father.

She raised her eyes to Helen, and then glanced at Lalitha, and back again. There was a desperate hope there.

"What should I do? Where can I take Allie?"

"Your mom wanted you to come with me," said Helen.

"Yeah," said Gena, nodding. "She told me that, but ... I thought she might have forgotten to tell you. Allie, too?" Helen nodded. "Thanks, Helen."

Lalitha stood aside, and let the little exchange take place. The Goddess gave her calmness to take tragedy in her stride. It seemed natural to her that if life were to be stolen from Bethany so unfairly, that the children deserved someone special, like Helen, to take them under her wing. That was the sort of solution that the Goddess would arrange. Lalitha was content to help in any way she could. She had to go get Suresh, and the three kids would grow up together.

Helen learned the ropes of dealing with death and its many complications right in the field. She arranged for the cremation, and found out how an adoption had to be arranged. Bethany's witnessed request had to be carefully documented, and Helen had to find out whether there were any close relatives who would take responsibility for the children, and get permission from them for the adoption. The relatives lived in Colorado, and when Helen visited them with the children, they politely declined to take the children, and were pleased to give Helen documentation of their preferences. With Juliana's help a California law office arranged for the adoption to be officially recorded, and within a week, Helen was officially Gena's and Alison's legal guardian. It was one of the most wonderful moments of Helen's life.

Lalitha left for Maryland soon afterwards, leaving Helen with the children, but by then Helen was comfortable managing both children. They all three slept together in Helen's big bed, and Helen was in absolute heaven. It was now October, and the days were becoming shorter, and the temperatures were regularly below seventy. They made visits out to the farm, where Helen thanked them for all the help they had given, and Gertie was confused and upset to see the new Helen, with her strange change in speech and manner. But she agreed to keep an eye on the house in exchange for a small stipend, which meant extra income for the farm, and Sister Cordelia was satisfied.

Helen got a call from a number she did not recognize.

"Hi," said the caller, "I'm Robin Friend, and I got your number from Norma Major, actually. Would you like help with scheduling your appearances, and with filtering them? I'm available. I've had some experience with someone who's just retired, so I need a job!"

Evidently he was still in London, and Helen obtained a little more information from him, and decided to hire him. He had an interesting personality, and he seemed very knowledgeable indeed about the particular musical world in which Helen felt comfortable, namely the artists who performed music ranging from the Renaissance to the Romantic, using original instruments when necessary and possible, and who were not particularly preoccupied with the business of making money. Helen and Robin talked over several days, because they were in such different time zones, and it was not convenient to talk for more than half an hour at a time.

Presently, Helen and the girls were back in Ohio, in Helen's Little House, and she called Lalitha to find out what was happening with her.

Lalitha was facing big problems. Tom O'Malley had questioned Lalitha about what had happened in California, and figured out that Lalitha and Helen Nordstrom were considering setting up a lesbian household, with three children, including Suresh.

"You plan to take this innocent child into this house of sin, is that the plan?"

"It is not a house of sin, Reverend. We're two consenting adults, and our relationship is not based on sex; we have known each other for a long time, and we want to live together in mutual respect, and we're very---mindful of the rights and the needs of each of the children."

Tom's face twisted in distaste, but he continued to speak politely. "I see you've picked up some hifalutin phrases from somewhere. _Mindful._ Lalitha, you have not the slightest inkling of the meaning of _mindfulness._ You want to have all the freedom in the world to indulge your perversion, and you have no compunctions about letting the children witness this licentious behavior." He was getting very red indeed. "We took you in in good faith, we expended an enormous sum of money to provide you with travel to the US. We arranged for your visa. We protected your from all the evils that surround us from all sides, and gave you a safe, comfortable place in which to bring up your boy. But no. You had to pursue this evil woman to the ends of the Earth, and now you want to take this innocent boy into this pit of depravity. No. I'm not going to allow it. I'm going to fight it with every resource at my command. If you keep this up, Lalitha, I will have you declared an unfit mother, and let me tell you, if you oppose me in a court of law, I have significantly more credibility in this county than you could ever dream of having. That's it. I have spoken. The boy remains here."

"I see. It is the money you spent on me that is the sticking point here." Lalitha was furious. She had not, in her worst nightmares, expected Tom to show his true colors, but she had forgotten how obsessed he was with homosexuality, and sex generally.

" _Money?"_ To Lalitha's horror, Tom began foaming at the mouth, and his eyes rolled up in his head, and he fell to the ground.

Katie had made herself scarce when the 'interview' had begun, and now Lalitha ran around the house, looking for her. The two women stared at the man on the floor, and Katie got to her senses first, and began to minister to her husband, doing inexplicable things with his tongue, which she explained later was an important procedure, to prevent death by choking.

After Tom was finally out of danger, and they had managed to move him to his bed, Suresh came home from school, and when he had been told about the big argument (but not the gruesome details,) he said he would rather keep attending the same school. He loved Helen, and he was delighted that Gena would be living with Helen, but somehow, he liked Baltimore, and he liked his school, and he had friends there, and he asked his mother whether there was some way he could stay, and visit her every now and then.

It was hard for Lalitha not to take the request as a vote of no confidence in her, but Katie privately assured her that none of Tom's accusations (all of which she had heard clearly) had been even hinted to Suresh. Katie knew what Tom wanted in his heart of hearts, but did not have the courage to reveal it to Lalitha yet. So Lalitha packed her bags, and left for Ohio, her self-esteem reduced to practically nothing.

## More Travels

By the end of October, a tired and sorrowful Lalitha was reunited with Helen, who had her hands full. Amy had bought an enormous house on the ritzier side of town which had belonged to a friend, who had decided to relocate to Maryland, ironically, and Helen had moved into the Little House. She had discovered a great many things she had collected over the years, including various instruments she had either bought or actually made, tools and supplies, and fanciful clothing, because she had loved to dress up in her younger days, and she remembered that Halloween was one of her favorite holidays.

Gena was distracted for a while with the change of scene, but she was old enough to realize that she had lived through a major tragedy, and she confided to Helen that she believed that her father was dead, too. Helen wondered whether she knew what death really meant, but Gena had been allowed to see her mother's corpse before it was cremated. Bethany had been dressed in a white dress in which Gena had seen her often, but it had been clear to the child that this was only the shell of her beautiful mother. Her sorrowful sobs were not the sobs of a child, but those of an adult; Gena had been forced to grow up very quickly.

Helen had tidied up Bethany and Richard's house before Gena had been taken there to collect everything she wanted to bring with her, and the house had been put up for sale, to pay off the balance on its mortgage, the rest of the money from the sale to be put in trust for Gena and Alison, under Helen's control.

There was Gena's bicycle, her tennis stuff, and clothes; the parents had practically nothing worth owning. Having consulted Gena about it, Helen gave it all to the Salvation Army to dispose of as they saw fit; hoping that the clothes, at least, might be useful to someone. Gena kept one of her mother's dresses with a smile. Helen could hardly suppress her sobs on Gena's behalf, but Gena bore herself bravely, as if she had known that her life was going to change.

If she was happy to come to live with Helen, she expressed it with restraint. Helen knew in her heart that Gena loved her, but she also knew that she had never hoped to become Helen's at such tragic cost. But Helen had the distinct impression that Gena had anticipated losing both her parents, even if she had never seen all the ramifications of it.

Robin Friend, Helen's travel coordinator and sort-of agent, quickly settled into his job. Helen had still not met him, but he had a phone number in New York and in London, and had an enormous network of contacts through whom Helen received invitations to play all over the world. It was Robin's job to accept certain kinds of assignments immediately, check with Helen whether she would take other kinds of jobs, and turn down the rest. He learned fast, and Helen always referred direct queries that she received to Robin.

Helen's first assignment was to play the Mozart _Sinfonia Concertante_ in Cleveland, with a young violist who was becoming very popular, and of whom Robin heartily approved. The concert was a great success, and served to cheer Helen up a good deal.

Soon afterwards, Lisa Wallace (the young woman whom Helen had gone to help right after a horrible automobile accident had left the girl's face cut up by smashed window-glass) and Marika Johnson, Helen's favorite cousin, called her from St Paul. They had made friends, and were now a couple. Marika had graduated with a music major, having attended the College soon after Helen had graduated. Lisa had attended a large university in California, and earned an Engineering degree in addition to a degree in music. She had given up music, but had gotten interested in sound engineering, and they wanted to talk to Helen about forming a field recording company.

"We get a set of field microphones, right? And we have this way of recording sound on a video recorder. There's commercial methods, but our method is better! We can record anything, anywhere, and we can make CDs of live recordings! It's brilliant!"

Meanwhile, Helen had finally met Gretchen, and made peace with her. Gretchen was now a tall, thin girl, strikingly attractive in her own way, but it seemed that she was happiest when she was fooling around with her computer. Helen talked to her about Lisa and Marika's plan, and she immediately said that it was very plausible, and a good bet.

"What do they want to do, Cherie?" she asked. "Are they working for some company?"

"No, they want to start up their own company with me! Are you interested?"

Gretchen shook her head. She said she preferred to work alone, but she would be pleased to consult with them on any problems having to do with data encoding and transmission. At this time, data transmission by any method was all done through proprietary channels, essentially phone lines, which charged very high rates from their customers. Once Gretchen, Lisa and Marika got together to talk about the problem, a number of brilliant ideas popped up, including a technique that became popular some years later as "tunneling through the Web", where it was possible to create a virtual network of computers located in different parts of the country, by using a packet transfer method between the computers, which was not interceptable by other nodes on route.

Nadia, meanwhile, had a project which she felt was of the utmost urgency. The manuscripts of Johann Sebastian Bach were archived in a number of libraries, in Russia, East and West Germany, the British Museum, Oxford University, and in universities in the US, at Yale and Harvard. There was some belief that there might be Bach manuscripts among personal papers at other universities, because aging scholars were in the habit of leaving their personal papers to these major institutions which were slow to go through and catalog them.

"The ink, Cherie, had some acid in it, you see, and it has been slowly eating through the paper. So two things must be done: the manuscripts must be saved somehow. But before that, the easiest thing is to photograph them, right? That's what I want to do!"

"Photograph every single existing Bach manuscript?"

"And copies, and parts, and even printed sources, like the Bach-Ausgabe. As soon as it is public domain, Cherie, these things must be made available to the world. It is the treasure of mankind, Cherie, and should not belong to some fellow who is trying to keep it for himself, and rent out the information. That is immoral!"

Helen gradually began to understand the scope of the idea, and she began also to realize that she had the knowledge with which to convert moderately good images into music files, which could be converted into usable sheet-music. Few people with her computer background were interested in the problems of the music world, and it was imperative that the music should be liberated before it was copyrighted by someone on some technicality.

"I don't understand any of this," declared Lalitha, though Helen knew she had a fairly good idea. Several minutes each day were used up talking Lalitha out of a sour mood. "But I will come with you, if you like."

One glorious day, Helen, Lalitha, Nadia, and the children were stepping out into Customs at Heathrow Airport near London. Robin had retained a travel agent who handled everything, and they had reservations at a hotel. Robin had also lined up a performance with a major orchestra in London, and Helen was playing, once again, the Brahms concerto, on a modern violin strung with steel strings. With the COO, Helen played a gut-strung violin, but she had been practicing with a steel-strung modern violin, one she had made ten years ago, and she was ready.

The performance went well, and there were many well-known Brits in the audience, and the following day, the papers were full of praise for Helen. 'After many years spent away from the concert stage, Helen Nordstrom showed London that she hasn't lost her touch, and a whole new generation lost its heart to her last night,' said the newspaper.

But they also reported that she was on a mission. Helen had declined to give details, but she was interested in Bach, they knew, and she was turning to musicology, hoping to go into academia. She was given access to the materials in the British Museum, and with a new high-resolution camera, Helen and Nadia began to photograph all the Bach manuscripts and sheet-music that was one of a kind, or where the copyright had expired, and the resource was in the public domain.

In the evening, Helen got started on the software she wanted to write herself to process the images. She first had to make it work on photographs of printed sheet music, after which it could be enhanced to read increasingly less perfect music notation. It was the musical equivalent of optical character recognition.

## Chrysalis

Everywhere she went, Helen charmed everyone. It seemed to Lalitha that she wore Gena and Alison almost as if they were fashion accessories. They had been dressed beautifully: fashionably and tastefully, in the most stylish clothes imaginable for children of their age. Lovely clothes were available in Britain, and Lalitha watched, with grudging admiration, as Helen selected clothes for the kids with unerring instinct. Both children were still beautifully behaved, though Lalitha expected that Gena could turn into a monster at any time, with all the attention she was getting.

Helen was an incorrigible flirt, and flirted with everyone, men and women alike, though it was all done with tact. Helen's fame was soaring, and no one dared to make social demands of her; there was never an invitation out to celebrate an event, or if there were, it was always, no, it's past the bedtime of the girls; we have to get back to the hotel. They had a suite, though it cost a little more, and they had some privacy. Lalitha was embarrassed to find that once they had changed out of their evening clothes, she could hardly wait until Helen made love to her; Helen was exhausted, but she never complained; at least, hardly ever. Just a couple of times, Helen crashed into bed naked, too tired to change, and Lalitha had to content herself with whatever comfort she could extract out of Helen's corpse-like body.

There were a couple of instances where Helen bought very daring clothes indeed. Lalitha did not like how provocative they looked on the mannequins, but she was learning that Helen had an exhibitionist streak in her that bordered on the pathological. She often went out without underwear, and Lalitha frequently caught her actually salivating over some luscious young thing that was walking by on the opposite side of the street. But nothing happened; Helen always allowed herself to be steered back to whatever errand they were on. There were interviews, on Radio and on Television, and articles in all the magazines, and Nadia began to get impatient; there was just so much they could do in London. They had accumulated an enormous pile of digital data, and it was being trickled out to Ohio in a steady stream, in a precursor of what eventually became common as peer-to-peer networking. In fact, no sooner than p2p was discussed in forums, Marika and Lisa were talking to Gretchen about it, and they had implemented it on their server.

Helen eventually tore herself away from London, and they headed out to Belgium, France, and Germany.

In Berlin, before Helen could get anywhere near the library, Robin had her playing and singing with a small chamber orchestra, and then with the Berlin Philharmonic the next day. For the first time after the surgery, Helen was encouraged to sing a recital of Bach arias with the chamber group, and she sang a set of four arias in a joint recital with several German artists. Helen heard recordings of the recital, and was pleased at how she had performed. She sent copies of the recordings back to Ohio. The performance with the BPO was a triumph, and Helen was the envy of many performers who would have loved to perform with the famous orchestra.

As soon as Marika heard the recording, she and Lisa were on a plane to Berlin, to make sure that none of Helen's casual performances escaped being recorded. From then on, Marika and Lisa were part of the traveling group, and every performance was recorded both by in-house recorders, and by LMN associates, which was what Lisa, Marika and Helen had decided to call their company. It was still an unofficial partnership, but when tax time rolled around, they knew they would have to have some legal standing in order to file.

Lisa and Marika were now full partners in the music archiving project, and the three women worked on the database whenever they had a spare moment. The _Bach-Ausgabe_ , which was an organization set up for the preservation of the works of Bach, was insatiable for information about what Helen was doing, and whether it would undermine their own efforts. But since Helen was not interested in any sort of revenue, they could not find a reason for opposing the project legally. They did stubbornly insist on editorial control, and if and when Helen began to transcribe the music into notation, and put the standardized sheet music in digital form on the internet, they would be all over it like a straightjacket.

## Home again

One day, when they were out early, Gena saw some German kids on their way to school, and remarked on it. Suddenly Helen and Lalitha realized, to their horror, that in all the excitement, Gena had missed a couple of months of school.

"What sort of mother am I?" she said, eyes wide. Gena nodded slowly. She wasn't the sort who would rejoice at having school attendance being overlooked.

"You know what? Between Helen and me, we could teach you some things. Mathematics, music, I suppose a little writing ... Helen, help me here. You should know history and geography, and things like that!" Lalitha was aghast about the lapse, and blamed herself.

Helen quickly agreed. In fact, they could teach Gena everything she needed to learn very well indeed. Every morning, from that day on, Gena had to sit down and do mathematics and writing. For writing, Helen insisted that she should keep a journal. "That's like a diary, but it has to be in good writing: complete sentences, correct spelling, everything." Gena nodded gravely; she was completely on board with the idea.

Miraculously, US textbooks were available in Frankfurt, which was where they had been at the time, and they bought enough to get Gena started.

Lisa and Marika had been joyfully reunited with Helen, and introduced to Lalitha and the children in Berlin. Nadia knew them both, because Marika had been a music major, and Lisa had met Nadia when visiting her mother, Pat, who was a close friend of Nadia's. Now they took an interest in Gena's schooling, especially Marika, who read through Gena's journal, and gave the young lady lots of positive feedback, and suggestions for style and content. But Italy would have to be skipped, and Helen told Robin not to take any invitations from there. Perhaps next year, she said.

They flew back to Ohio in late October, and the first order of business, of course, was to find a school for Gena. The local school was a good one; it was where Janet and Jason (Little Elly's late father, and Janet's husband) had taught a decade ago. Now, of course, Janet taught at the Friends' School in their little town in Illinois. Gena was placed in Grade Six, and now they had to make sure that one of them stayed home for Gena's sake, when Helen needed to be traveling.

## Holidays Again

Holidays did not begin until Gena's new school let out, which happened around the third week of December. Helen and Lalitha attended the various recitals and concerts that the College invariable put on towards the end of the Fall Semester. The undergrads knew Gena and Alison fairly well, since they had gone into the College for Halloween, and been made a fuss over by the music majors, and Gena had begun to regain a little of her bounce that had seemed to disappear forever with the loss of her parents. (Richard's body had been found in an abandoned quarry, but Helen did not inform Gena, though she thought it was something that had to be done sooner or later.)

Helen made another Christmas Special. The demand was so high that she decided she would accommodate her fans, the number of whom had begun to rise once again. It was simply something like the chamber concerts they usually had at Old Elly's house in Illinois, with everyone participating in performing various pieces of music. This time, Elly and Tommy had learned a number of pieces, and Cindy was about to persuade Tom to take up the Cello. Helen played the violin, and the Viola da Gamba, one she had made at the workshop, almost the very first major project she had undertaken. She sang, and so did all of them, with a few men's voices from among Helen's friends at the COO. They read the nine traditional lessons, and included as much variety as they could, and Gena and Alison were in it, and so were Marika and Lisa, and Pat Wallace. It was sent off to the local PBS studio after Marika and Lisa, who had professional video authoring software, had crafted it into a thing of beauty. It was as good as a Christmas present to Marika, who didn't have to eat if she could be editing and fooling with video. She was good at it, and just as importantly, had excellent taste, so that the production values were more than professional.

There was a mad round of invitations for Helen to both sing and perform live over the holidays. Lalitha was spending the holidays in Baltimore, though she would much rather have brought Suresh up to Ohio, but Reverend Tom would not hear of it, and Lalitha needed to spend some time with Suresh, or he would become so attached to Katie that he would presently stop being Lalitha's child altogether.

Helen put in an enormous amount of work on the processing of the data from the October tour. Gretchen was constantly inventing tools to make the recognition features of their software more efficient. At this stage, the program would convert most of an image to music, and then query the user for help with any obscure or blurred or otherwise unclear portion of the music. It proceeded from left to right, and simply stopped and waited if it encountered what was, to it, an impasse. At first it was a great advance to build a filter that would simply insert a placeholder, and then continue with its algorithm, so that when it finally stopped, the human input for a number of different interruptions could be all done together. And, in order to avoid editorial input, Helen had to devise ways of inserting an ambiguous notation, and write a footnote saying "Undecipherable marking," or something similar.

While this was going on, Nadia approached Helen about writing a survey of all that was known about period music performance: not so much about the music itself, but how it must have been performed, what the instruments had been like, and how it could be performed today, with all the arguments there were pro and con different choices. The research had been all done in the previous thirty years, and this would be simply an overview, a pulling together of all the scholarship that had been already conducted. Helen was agreeable, and began work on it.

"Cherie," said Nadia, after looking at what Helen produced in the first few days, "you write so beautifully! You have to become a qualified scholar, Cherie. It is your destiny. You must earn a doctorate. Come, I will help you. Get started! Apply to all the good schools; one is sure to take you!"

"But Nadia, I want to perform, and travel! What use is a doctorate? I bet it'll actually make me less attractive as a performer. Nobody wants to see a doctor play the violin!"

Nadia glared at her. Nadia herself was a well-known performer on the harpsichord, and was a recognized authority, but it was true that she was not invited to concertize on the big stages of the world, like Helen; she was more in the lecture-recital circuit.

Just after the New Year, Lalitha returned, looking bleary-eyed. She would not tell Helen anything about what had transpired in Baltimore, but she smiled when asked about Suresh. He was doing well, and was keeping a balance between being cautious with the O'Malleys, and being too affectionate with them. It was a tough game to play, but Lalitha said he did not seem too anxious about it.

"I must agree, Helen. In my heart, only the best must become teachers, and you're the best. You should keep performing, but get qualified, and teach. You don't have to make public that you have a doctorate."

"But that means five or six years of research! My god, it's drudgery!"

"I will help you!"

The next semester, there was an invitation for Helen to team-teach a course at the College. Nadia would be the instructor of record, but Helen would present most of the lectures, and get paid for it. It was on interpretation of period music, and on period repertoire. It was an experimental course, a combination of specialized music appreciation, and performance.

Early in January, she went in to the department, and after paying her respects to Norma and the other professors she knew, spent a brief time with Nadia, making sure what she had planned to present was in line with Nadia's preferences, and Nadia was pleased. The semester began, and Helen loved every minute of it. The students liked her very much, and Helen enjoyed the constant interaction with the kids, who sometimes disagreed with her very strongly. But Helen always had good arguments, and most of the time she was able to persuade them to her way of thinking.

A few weeks into the semester, Helen applied to a number of graduate programs, and she was invited to visit most of them, but the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia was the one that offered her the greatest opportunity to pursue the sort of research she was interested in, and the one that would give her the most credit for the work she had done already.

"They want me to take courses in music education, musicology, and conducting," Helen reported to Nadia.

"Why conducting?"

Helen shrugged. "It might be fun," she admitted. "I'm not sure about the music education classes, though."

"Actually, Cherie, that makes more sense than the conducting."

Helen decided to try her hand at conducting at the college, to see how much she liked that idea. A small group of students agreed to form a glee club, and Helen looked for pieces that they might enjoy singing together, and there was no lack of suggestions from Nadia and Norma. Helen found that she enjoyed the glee club immensely, though there was a glee club already at the school. The students enjoyed it even more. "Cherie, it might be a good idea to expand the chamber group you have, and perform some orchestral pieces, you know? Like a chamber orchestra." The class Helen was teaching was going into small group performances conducted by Nadia, but Nadia was suggesting that they try more ambitious works. So Helen broached the idea, with some trepidation, and got a surprising amount of support from both the students and the faculty.

## Cecilia

A surprising development was that Helen found Norma in a deep depression one day. She was in the habit of occasionally visiting Norma in her apartment, to sing for her, and Norma had asked her to come by in late February, to sing through some arias from the Matthew Passion. She had met Helen in the department and deplored the fact that the Matthew Passion was considered "heavy", and there seemed to be a reluctance to feature solemn music, except in churches.

Helen found Norma almost unable to function. She was gracious and polite, but very slow in her speech, even for a woman who was one of the least demonstrative people Helen knew.

"Tell me what's upsetting you," Helen begged.

"Actually ... I ... there is ... well, I have a cousin, Cecilia," she began. Helen nodded, and with great encouragement it emerged that Cecilia's mother had just died, and Cecilia had been widowed for a few years, and it appeared that, to cut a long story short, Cecilia was all alone, and Norma was her only living relative. Cecilia was bewildered to realize that she had no family left in Britain, and was getting panicky.

"Can she hang on until Easter, and you could go up?"

"I don't want to go up," was Norma's surprising answer.

It took a lot of questioning, but it finally emerged that Norma had always suspected that Cecilia had unresolved feelings for Norma, and Norma was afraid to face her now, in such a vulnerable state. As they kept talking, Helen revealed to Norma that she herself was bisexual, and in fact more lesbian than anything else. "I'm not _out,"_ she confessed, but it was difficult to explain the finer points of the issue to Norma, who seemed to go through life with blinkers on.

"What does that mean?" she asked. Both Norma and Helen were red-faced and embarrassed, but Helen had always been very fond of Norma, and she had never been comfortable with talking about sex with Norma, simply for this very reason: that Norma was so blind to what was going on in the world.

Helen explained that she was still in the closet, that is, that only her close friends knew that she had a lesbian preference, and in fact lived with her lover.

"Who, the Indian girl? Lalitha?" Norma was stunned. Helen knew that half her friends thought she and Lalitha were simply college buddies, while the others knew that they were a couple. Helen simply nodded. Norma had to grow up someday.

"What ... what ... what do you do?" Norma finally got out.

"Dr. Major ... I'm not comfortable giving you details ..."

"Of course not; what was I thinking? So it's true. There are actually people ... Forgive me, Helen, I wasn't thinking ..."

"Why do you want to know, anyway? It's just intimacy ... the same as any intimacy, I guess."

And then, in a flash of insight, Helen knew that Norma was in love with her cousin.

"Why don't you send for her? She doesn't seem comfortable to live all alone, and she may enjoy the life of the College; the young people, and being close to you!"

It was difficult for Norma. It was probably harder for Norma Major , the soul of propriety and straight-arrow-ness, and the senior member of the faculty of the Music Department, than for most others. But once she began to talk openly, it poured out. She looked Helen in the eye, and said yes, she had probably loved Cecily from the time they had been children together, and eventually learned to love her in an 'inappropriate way.'

"There's nothing _inappropriate_ about it, Norma," Helen said gently. " _Love_ is the main thing. Everything else is —extra. You understand?"

"That's easy for you to say ..."

"I'm not just saying it, Norma; I've been in love a lot, and I know. The love is important. The extra stuff ... just happens, you know? If there isn't sex —there, I said it— I get irritated, frustrated ... I feel miserable. If there isn't love, I just ... want to lie down and die!"

They were silent for a while, and then Norma surprised Helen by asking to be held by her, and Helen put her arms around the old professor, and the grave old lady began to sob. Helen held the weeping woman for almost five long minutes.

"I've wasted a lot of time," she said, eventually, hurrying into the back of the apartment to fetch a face towel, and smiling beneath her tears. "I must think about this a little longer; I must be ready when she gets here ... maybe I should go out and bring her here," she thought aloud.

"She should be fine coming on her own," Helen said, presently. "Give her a taste of freedom."

A couple of weeks later, Helen drove Norma out to the airport in Cleveland, and met Cecilia Williamson Smith. She was a lovely woman, all smiles and blushes, just as tall as Norma, but with a completely different, relaxed manner, clearly a little intimidated with the complications of international travel, but simply delighted to be reunited with her cousin Norma, whom she doted upon.

"So you must be a favorite pupil of Norma's," she began, when Norma had got Cecilia's bags put away, and settled her with Helen, while she brewed tea. "Tell me you name again!"

"Helen," she said. "I'm one of her oldest pupils, I'm sure! I graduated ten years ago, maybe twelve!"

"Goodness! You don't look a day older than twenty! How _do_ you do it? Norma, isn't she lovely, dear? And she says she is ... you didn't say! I thought she must be your student!"

"No, no; she's a teacher here, part time. Cecily, this is Helen Nordstrom. She's a famous violinist; I've written to you about her!"

"Oh!" Cecilia was embarrassed with her lack of recognition. It turned out that she had read all about Helen in the papers, and actually knew her story fairly well.

When Helen finally left them alone to catch up, she was quite confident that Cecilia would soon make Norma comfortable with the situation. She had started out talking constantly, obviously a little nervous about what life was going to be like. But somehow, having met Helen and Norma, she had decided that she liked the place, and was determined to be as little trouble as possible. She had some savings, she said, that she could get access to, to ease the financial burden on Norma, but Norma assured her that there was nothing to worry about.

## Summer

Winter Semester presently wound to a close, and Helen prepared to close down the Little House in Ohio, and move to Philadelphia. Norma and Cecily —Norma called Cecilia 'Cecily', and Helen and everyone followed suit— were pleased to take it over, and pay Helen a nominal rent for it. In Philadelphia, Helen and Lalitha found a wonderful house in a mixed neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, and they moved in. There were three large bedrooms, a finished attic and basement, a large eat-in Kitchen, a tiny lawn in front, and a large back yard. Helen and Lalitha felt quite at home in it, and so did little Gena.

Helen reported in to the music department, and was assigned an advisor right away. Her name was Dr. Martha Singer, and her interest was musicology, especially of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the music of the royal and ducal courts of that time. She was not particularly interested in the sacred music of Bach, though she was quite familiar with it. "I'm Jewish, and I can't quite relate to it the way you might, Helen," she said. "The religion is a big obstacle to me."

Helen thought she understood, but she wondered how it was possible to understand Bach without dealing with the sacred music, which was by far his largest contribution, just in terms of sheer volume.

"Have you found a place to stay?"

"Yes, I have," said Helen, describing the place. The academic year was essentially over except for ongoing summer projects, and special sessions, and Martha had the time to come look at Helen's home.

"You'll have to look into schools for the young lady," she said, grinning at Gena. Helen found that Martha was helpful with everything that needed to be arranged. At first she was surprised with the fact that Helen was half of a lesbian couple, but she recovered fast, and was soon talking to Lalitha about her plans, and encouraging her to register for classes, at least to audit them, she said.

## School

At Martha's suggestion, Helen decided to enroll Gena in the Friends' School that was close by. It was a school established by Quakers, and Martha was full of admiration for Quakers generally, and for the school in particular. The paperwork was done, and Gena was registered to attend beginning in September.

Helen and company were given a tour of the University campus, and finally Helen, Lalitha, Gena and the baby were invited to Martha's own home for dinner.

Helen met Martha's husband, Stanley, but their daughter, Rebekah, was out. Evidently Rebekah was in a rebellious phase, though she had graduated a couple of years earlier with an accounting and business degree from Drexel.

The remainder of the summer was occupied with Helen trying to squeeze in as many concerts as she could, before the academic year began, and she had to spend most of her time in the classroom. There were concerts all over the US, from Florida and Georgia, to Oklahoma, Arizona, Minnesota, St Louis, Augusta, Maine, and New York City, and in Vancouver and Toronto in Canada. Robin asked Helen whether she minded doing commercials; evidently a number of businesses wanted Helen featured in their commercials, but Helen insisted that she would only endorse products she had started using before being asked to endorse them.

When she found herself with a large block of time on her hands, Helen once again took up the animation project she had begun in her senior year. She had forgotten most of the techniques, but she had gotten Gretchen to help her a little during the Winter Semester, and now she began to re-learn all the innovative short-cuts she had programmed into the software.

It was slow going, even with the help of Gretchen and Marika, who were both very enthusiastic about the project. Helen became accustomed to the annoyance of having to leave the project when she had to travel for a concert.

Helen had friends in Florida other than Leila, who lived in rural Florida. Most of rural Florida was steadily disappearing, but Helen did not know that. She could not recall Leila at all, but Janet had told her that Leila felt deeply resentful about their breakup, but was now married, and it was best not to confuse matters by trying to meet her. In contrast, several of the girls she had met while being a photographer for the men's magazine were still living in the vicinity of Miami, and Helen met them, with Lalitha and the children, and reestablished her friendships with them.

One day, Marsha came to visit. It was an emotional meeting, but Gena was thoroughly excited to meet the famous movie star, who still looked amazingly lovely. Marsha had given up starring roles, for the most part, but was still in demand for difficult supporting roles. By the time she left, she had managed to accomplish two things. Firstly, Helen put the finishing touches on the animated opera, and after Marika and Lisa completed the post-production, it would be given to Marsha to distribute.

Secondly, Marsha and Helen had long talks about Helen and her stormy relationships, and she persuaded Helen to put together a marriage ceremony for Helen and Lalitha. You never feel complete unless there's an emotional event, which seals the relationship, Marsha said. She had fantasized being married with Helen for so long that she wanted to see Helen go through a wedding ceremony, even if Marsha was not one of the principals.

So one memorable day, they all went back to Ohio, and as many of Helen's friends as could be present were there, and in a ceremony based on those of Lalitha's homeland, Helen and Lalitha were married, on a beautiful hill on Juliana's enormous horse farm. Helen looked lovely in an ivory silk saree, and Lalitha chose red, the traditional color of fertility in her culture. Suresh was smuggled out to the event on a pretext, and sat with Gena and Alison, to witness the joining of Helen and Lalitha as partners in marriage. Lalitha forgot all her woes, and looked radiant, and so did Helen. Marika insisted on wearing a saree as well, as did Nadia. There was a wonderful vegetarian feast following the ceremony, and everyone was amazed that a vegetarian meal could be so good!

It was as eventful for Gena as it was for Helen, to get started with school. The Cherokee had finally given up, and had been junked, and for a while Helen had to take public transport everywhere. It was quite a major undertaking to walk Gena to the Friends' School, get her settled in, and to head off to the university. (Presently, a used Cherokee was found for Helen, which she rarely drove, once she got accustomed to traveling in the City by bus.)

Helen was among the older students in her classes, since she had taken a decade away from education while in India. She found her work easy, and was pleased to find that her coursework was indeed helping with her project, about which she was being very closed-mouthed. In addition to the classwork, Helen also played in the orchestra, and sang in one of the several choirs of the school, just to be able to sing.

She was in Martha Singer's graduate class, which consisted of Helen and just three others. (A large number of Bach specialists had just graduated, and the cycle of courses was beginning again with Helen and these other first-year graduate students, two Americans and a Japanese girl.) Helen's assignments were admired by her fellow-students, and she gradually became recognized as a superior student.

Over the course of the semester, as she began working independently with Martha, and inevitably visited the latter at her home, she met Martha's daughter Rebekah, a very reserved girl who had just graduated with an MBA, and was still looking for work close to home. She was very particular about the sort of employment she wanted to accept, and was depressed. Relations between Martha and her daughter were very strained, and Helen felt uncomfortable with Rebekah in the house.

One day Martha revealed that not only was her daughter suicidal, she was also hostile to her parents, especially Martha. Shortly afterwards, it happened that Helen met Rebekah as Helen was leaving the house, and Rebekah was coming back in, having spent the day working a temp job as a pool typist. Helen, being polite, asked whether she would like to go somewhere and have coffee, and she said she would, and presently, Helen got the distinct impression that Rebekah had the hots for her.

They arranged to meet again the following day, at a coffee-shop. But Rebekah was awkward, and Helen was embarrassed, but they were able to establish a certain rapport. Helen felt odd to be meeting Becky, as she had asked to be called, behind her mother's back, but Becky insisted, and so Helen found it even more odd to reveal to Martha that these meetings were happening.

Presently Becky felt comfortable admitting to Helen that she had absolutely nobody in the world on whom she could depend. It was a long complicated battle, but Helen was able, over several weeks, to broker a reconciliation between mother and daughter. There was no tradition of touching in their family, and when Helen offered Becky a hug one day, the latter was deeply uncomfortable with it. Helen had invited Becky to her house for a cup of tea, and it was then that she had discovered that Helen was a lesbian, and lived with a woman. Things progressed in leaps and bounds, after Helen had assured her that she had no designs on Becky, and that a hug was just a hug.

## Taxes

To her horror, Helen realized that she had not paid taxes for that year, or indeed for the previous year. Juliana had done some complicated arrangement whereby she paid taxes for Helen's investments, but her accounting skills were not up to the task of tackling the tax obligations once Helen began drawing on the funds.

Helen happened to meet Becky at Martha's home, and mentioned her complicated tax problems, and that she would soon need to retain a professional accountant. Becky offered to look at the problem at once, because there were enormous penalties that depended on how long it had been from the date the taxes were due, to when they were paid. She had just quit her temp job in anger, and she consented to take payment for doing Helen's taxes. Martha was overjoyed that Becky had gone so far as to talk to Helen in her presence, and urged her daughter to help Helen get her financial affairs under control. "I don't want to be involved, Helen," Martha said with a smile, "but I'm all in favor of doing the accountancy correctly!"

Becky was a perfectionist, and a chartered accountant, as well as a chartered tax accountant, and only the fact that she found it so difficult to get along with anybody, and the fact that she hated to work for anyone who wanted to cover up anything that looked even vaguely like tax fraud had prevented her from working as a tax accountant. But somehow, Helen had got past her filters, and Becky settled down to look thoroughly through Helen's financial affairs, and their complexity intrigued her.

"You have to incorporate," she said. Helen was taken aback, but Becky explained the idea, and the advantage of establishing a portion of Helen's company that was not for profit. The recording business, LMN Associates, could be a sort of subsidiary, and Helen could take over the regular payments that Janet and Juliana between them had arranged to be made to Helen's father's farm, Amy's pediatric surgical fund, and to Cindy O'Shaughnessy. All these things could offset her tax liability, and Becky had numerous other ideas, and soon Becky was the head of a small organization that managed Helen's money, from which Helen was paid a monthly allowance, and which paid Helen's rent, and so forth. So Helen Nordstrom, Inc. was born. Over the years, it was now worth several million dollars, simply because of Juliana's careful investing. Juliana herself was worth several times that, but she was incorporated in Germany, and flew under the radar in the US.

One day, Helen met a lovely redhead who was the counter clerk at a drugstore. She was beautiful, and Helen discovered that she was still attending high school, but was an accomplished ballet dancer. "Yeah," she said, "ballet is my thing!"

"That's wonderful!" said Helen. "Keep it up!"

"You know, I think I know who you are! Do you sing?" asked the young woman, whose name was Lorna.

"Well, yes! Why do you ask?"

Lorna had recognized Helen from her television appearances. Helen was flattered; not too many people recognized her now. It had been too long, but in classical music circles, Helen was coming to be known to a new generation. But she did not have the same sort of popular appeal that she had enjoyed as a young violinist, and her face was not yet seen everywhere in the media.

One day Helen visited the drugstore with Gena and Alison, and Lorna thought the little girls were just the most wonderful things. Gena was pretty, and Alison was turning into a beautiful child, a veritable babe magnet. After Lorna had fussed over them, and offered each of them some appropriate treat, she asked whether Helen needed a babysitter. Helen said no, she had a girlfriend who helped with all that sort of thing. But Lorna insisted that Helen take down her number, and call if she ever needed someone to help with the children.

Lalitha and Helen were very happy for a year. With Becky in charge of Helen's finances, and with the occasional appearance fee going into the savings, they were financially well off, so much so that they did not qualify for the usual financial breaks that impoverished graduate students were entitled to. Becky had arranged it so that they drew as little from the corporation as possible, to minimize their expenses, which was fine by both Helen and Lalitha, who were quite comfortable living modestly. And best of all, Gena never begged for expensive toys or clothes, and was content to play with things Helen made for her out of wood, or with the occasional educational toy Amy or Cindy or Marika would give her when they visited.

"Gena is interested in violin," said Lalitha one day. Gena was now thirteen, and Helen and Lalitha were pleased to learn that she was at the top of her class. The curriculum of the little private school was somewhat beyond the minimum established by the state board of education, and though Gena had to scramble to catch up with the other kids in her grade, she was all caught up in a couple of weeks with Lalitha's help. Helen was having little trouble, but she had taken on more than the minimal number of courses, and was also a teaching assistant for Martha, who was teaching basic theory and musicianship, which were remedial courses, and Helen helped with both.

Helen decided to start Gena off on a half –sized violin, because the child had rather small hands, and short arms. But Gena's musicianship amazed them. She had begun to sing a few months ago, picking up the habit from Helen, who had started quietly singing in the shower, and then started singing to little Allie, and those two spent a lot of time together. Helen loved the two girls, and she loved to sing to Allie.

So one fine Saturday afternoon, Helen taught Gena her first steps on the little violin, and Gena was presently playing simple tunes, with good tone and intonation. Allie and Lalitha watched with interest, as Gena learned the violin, and Helen learned to teach the violin.

For Christmas, it was decided that the Illinois folk would come down to Philadelphia to spend it in Helen's new "apartment", as they called it, though it really was a little house, actually a little larger than the little house in Ohio. When Elly and Tommy arrived with their instruments, Gena was so excited, she could hardly control herself. Elly and Tommy played tunes with her, they had a wonderful time. There was enough room for everyone, a full attic where the teenagers could all spread their mattresses and their sleeping bags, two extra rooms on the second floor, where Old Elly and Janet, and Cindy could sleep, and Helen, Lalitha and Allie slept in the main bedroom, and there was still a big finished basement for anyone else who might drop in.

Once the family had arrived, and Helen had all the help she needed, Lalitha headed out to Baltimore, as always.

Lalitha Goes to School.

Once it had gotten around Gena's school that she was learning violin, it all came out that her mother was the famous Helen Nordstrom, and they begged Helen to come by, with a view to giving the students a demonstration of folk song, and whatever else Helen was comfortable with performing solo. The school music teacher was a young woman called Elizabeth Brown, who met with Helen, and it turned out that they had many interests in common, especially in consort music, and Renaissance music of Italy, France and Britain. They agreed to meet after school one day, and in a week or so, they had formed a chamber ensemble called the Impromptu Ensemble, under Helen's leadership. Helen's conducting professor encouraged her, and so did Nadia, when she heard about it. "A lot of Bach's early cantatas were performed by very small groups, Cherie," she said. The group rehearsed once a week, and performed every two weeks.

Lalitha helped them out with the Lute, and Lalitha began to regain her interest in performing. And late in the fall, decided to go back to school to earn some qualifications. This meant that on days that she had morning classes, and when Helen had morning classes as well, they needed help with the kids.

Helen went in to the drugstore, and found out when Lorna would be working, and made a special visit out to meet the teenager.

"Hi! How have you been?" she asked, pleased to see Helen.

"I think, now, I could use some help with babysitting!"

Lorna was thrilled. She needed the money, and she would rather work for Helen than anyone else; she adored Helen. Helen arranged for her to come by on the first Monday of the Winter Semester and told Lorna exactly where the apartment was. Lorna declared that it was close to her home, and that she could probably see Helen's house from her own.

Lorna showed up at six on Monday, in her school clothes, and for the first time, Helen saw her out of her drugstore uniform. She was absolutely stunning: her hair was somewhere between auburn and a rich mahogany, she had an almost perfect heart-shaped face, with beautiful brown eyes, a beautiful figure, with impossibly shapely legs which she showed off by wearing a very short skirt and matching hose. She wore expensive clothes, and Helen began to believe that most of her earnings went to her clothes.

Without much prompting, Lorna took over cleaning up the baby, and helping Gena to get ready, she helped Helen prepare breakfast, and in no time, everyone was ready to leave the house. Lalitha ran off to catch her bus, and Helen strapped Allie to her back, and waved Lorna and Gena off to Gena's school.

Helen had arranged for one of her friends to look after Allie for her first class period, after which an undergrad would take over. So a relay team looked after Allie when her mother was busy, and the rest of the time Helen and Allie spent walking around, and occasionally sitting down at the coffee shop so that Helen could prepare for the next class.

Lorna

Soon, Lorna was a fixture at the Nordstrom home. One day, Becky came by, and was introduced to Lorna, and after several weeks, asked Helen whether it would be all right if she took Lorna out.

"Oh, sure," said Helen, blushing; "you didn't have to ask _me!_ She just babysits for us!"

Gradually, Becky and Lorna became an item. But Lorna spent more time at Helen's, just because she loved the girls, and little Allie brought out some fierce mothering instinct in Lorna, and it was difficult to keep her spending most of the money she earned helping with the kids, on presents for Allie and Gena.

Once Lorna realized that Helen was an active concert soloist, and she had seen the closet containing Helen's concert gowns, she became indignant. "There's a lot of perspiration stain on this one ... Look, the lining is coming unstitched ... Miss Helen, you're going to show skin through this seam, here! Man, they don't make these like they used to."

"Just Helen, Lorna. I'm not _that_ old."

"Okay, Helen ... oh, look! You've ripped the hem of this one! Oh, what a cheap piece of work this is! We would never look at something this cheap at the Ballet school!"

"Well, I'm not a dancer, Lorna; just leave it alone."

"Lorna thinks you need an assistant for your wardrobe, Helen."

"My _wardrobe?"_ Helen wondered what it could mean. "I'm only one person, Becky; I'm not a ballet company!"

Helen could just imagine Becky shrug. "Well ... if she's interested in keeping an eye on what you wear to a concert, I'd say you should let her."

Lorna was just interested in clothing of all sorts. It was not just an obsession with _fashion_ ; she loved quality clothing, and had an eagle eye for bad construction. Every seam had to be enclosed, every thread had to be tied off; good clothes had to be dry-cleaned before the perspiration stains could set. Helen, it appeared, had a lot to learn about clothes. In addition to the fact that Lorna was obsessed with clothing quality, her relationship with Becky was strained by the fact that Lorna's family was poor, and Becky was the only child of a full professor at an Ivy League university and a lawyer, and worked for a wealthy owner of a large corporation. Lorna never came out and said so in so many words, but Becky, with unexpected sensitivity, had realized that Lorna would like to be able to pay when they went out for meals at least _some_ of the time.

So Lorna was hired on as wardrobe-mistress to Helen Nordstrom Inc., and set out to make Helen the best-dressed woman in the classical music performance world. In addition to managing the gowns Helen wore on stage, she took over every piece of clothing Helen wore, and after a brief battle, was allowed to discard some of the really cheap clothing in Helen's closet (to Goodwill, as they both agreed), and gradually replace them with better-made, better-quality clothing, still within the limits of what made sense to be worn by a graduate student, surrounded by other impoverished graduate students.

In addition, Lorna asked to accompany Helen when traveling to concerts. Lalitha could no longer do it, and Helen took Allie along whenever possible, and Lalitha could help with Allie. And now, Lorna insisted on dressing Helen as well. That way, she said, she could make sure the clothes were handled carefully.

Roma Ricci

In January, a flamboyant pianist arrived at the university. Her name was Roma Ricci, and though word spread that she was the greatest thing among modern women piano players, nobody had ever heard her play, and the students generally gave her the cold shoulder. For several months, just because she knew that her fellow-students were waiting to criticize her playing, Roma only practiced in private, and only glared at her classmates. She had a bad attitude, and argued with all her professors, but she sat in on one of Martha's classes, and even handed in homework, which Martha told Helen in confidence was actually quite thoughtful and good.

Now Helen was no slouch at the piano, and one day she had been asked to sight-read a particularly difficult accompaniment for something new the choir was doing, and Helen had managed beautifully. It so happened that Roma had been sent for, and had been late. Nobody had really expected her to come to help out with an accompaniment, but she had come anyway, only to find Helen playing instead.

"You are quite good!" she said afterwards, and Helen had smiled and graciously accepted the endorsement. "They were saying, 'Helen is a violinist'! Of course, I know there is one violinist _Helen_ , but now there is two? You are another violinist with the name Helen?"

Helen frowned. "I _am_ Helen Nordstrom; there could be any number of other Helen's playing violin out there; _I_ wouldn't know!"

"You are the Helen Nordstrom?"

Helen grinned and nodded. "Violin, and now piano, also?" Helen kept grinning, and nodded again.

"I take it you can't play the violin?" Helen asked her, tongue in cheek.

Roma grinned back, and soon Roma felt that she had at least one friend on campus. Helen was less suspicious of her than the others, for obvious reasons, but had kept her distance.

From that time onward, Roma's face always broke into a smile when she met Helen anywhere, and after a while, one of the Japanese girls made friends with her, and the hostility between Roma and the other graduate students gradually dissipated. But Roma was a tall girl, as tall as Helen, perhaps a little taller, with powerful shoulders and arms, and thick, straight dark hair, beautifully trimmed at a little below shoulder level. She had compelling hazel eyes, a strong nose, and chiseled lips, and she was definitely easy on the eyes. Helen found herself lusting for Roma, but not so much that she felt unable to resist it.

Roma, on the other hand, clearly found Helen very attractive. She confessed this attraction one day while they were walking home from classes, with Allie in a sling on Helen's back. "Not because you are beautiful, Helen. Beauty is not important, you know?" Helen nodded solemnly, a twinkle in her eye, but Roma was off on her manifesto, and did not see the smile. "It is the mind," she said, tapping her own forehead. "You have a sexy mind. It sometimes makes me wet inside, you know!"

"I'll try to keep it under control," said Helen. "Meanwhile, you should wear a tampon, or something!"

"You make fun, Helen, but you know, life is too short to ..." she gestured with her hands, while she thought of how to explain, "... too short to stay away from beautiful people. If you say, Roma, I want to be with you, I will take you to my place, you know, and give you a wonderful experience!"

"Roma, I have somebody," Helen said, quietly. "I'm grateful, anyway!"

Roman came to a dead halt, and turned to face Helen, her eyes wide. (Helen hated this, because they blocked the pathway, and attracted so much attention.)

"You have someone? A lover?" Helen nodded. "Who?" demanded Roma, her eyes flashing. "This one's father?" she asked, indicating Allie, who was gazing thoughtfully at Roma from over Helen's shoulder.

Helen gently urged Roma onwards, and she began to resume walking. She placed her hand over Helen's hand in a simple affectionate touch. Helen sighed; Roma behaved like an affectionate larger-than-life god. Under different circumstances, Helen realized, they could easily have been lovers, or had an affair; Roma was very pleasant company, once you got over the big gestures. And she was smart; it was easy to be fooled into thinking that Roma was a sort of musical muscle head.

The Lesbian Bar

Roma had discovered a lesbian bar. Not that I am a lesbian, you know, she had told Helen. But lesbian girls listen when you talk, instead of just talking nonsense. Helen had agreed, not knowing exactly what to say. She knew lesbians of all sorts, but not so many as to be able to generalize. Now Roma wanted to show Helen the place, and Helen was curious.

It turned out to be quite a nice place, and Roma's friends were an interesting bunch. They were delighted to meet Helen, whom they had known to be one of them through the grapevine. Helen did not emphasize her sexual preference simply because she did not want to be known as _the lesbian violinist_ , instead of just a violinist who happened to be a lesbian.

Somehow, a week or so earlier, Helen had found herself helping one of her undergraduate music majors with an advanced mathematics course she happened to be taking —this was not uncommon, and was one of the things Helen loved about Penn: kids took all sorts of unexpected courses— and one of the women at the lesbian bar happened to be a teaching assistant in math. Helen got to talking with her, and discovered that she had lots of admirers among the math graduate students, one of whom had been from Helen's college in Ohio.

Helen got into the habit of dropping in once a week at the bar, usually on Tuesdays, and usually with Roma. Roma kept pestering her to go to bed with her, but it was a lighthearted running joke rather than a serious invitation, and Helen took it in the spirit in which it was offered. One day, Helen found out that one of the math faculty had suffered a stroke, and was unable to continue a certain evening class.

"I love that stuff," Helen had said, "I wish I could help!"

"Help?"

Helen was embarrassed. She had taken several mathematics classes as an undergraduate, and remembered all of it. She loved it almost as much as music and art, but obviously had too much on her hands to pursue her mathematics and computer science interests. She tried to explain.

"I bet they'd let you teach it, under the supervision of Dr Edwards!"

Helen shook her head; it sounded like far too much work.

But the mathematics department contacted her, and the charming fellow who was in charge of the undergraduate scheduling began to pressure her. "You live in the city, don't you?" Helen nodded. "I know it's a lot of trouble traveling home at night," he began, but Helen forgot herself and said that was no big deal. "It's $2500, you know!"

Helen's eyes widened. She was paid significantly more for a single concert. But this income, together with the prospect of teaching mathematics, was a little hard to resist. This fellow had been teaching the course himself, but he had young children (just like Helen), and lived far away, in Hershey. He pleaded with Helen to teach just one class, for which he would pay her a few hundred dollars. That would give him an idea of how well she would do. He promised to take care of all the other aspects of the course: grading, setting tests, and so on.

Of course Helen taught that single guest lecture, and completely blew away both the professor and the class. They loved the way she presented the material, the pace, the interaction, the boardwork, the humor, the effortless tone of Helen's presentation. So Helen found herself being paid adjunct professor rates for teaching an intermediate-level course in mathematics.

## Roma's Concert

One day, Roma agreed to give a concert. Helen canvassed all the music graduate students, to ask them to attend. Roma appeared to a fairly well-packed house, wearing black tights, white tie and tails. She looked fabulous, with her thick, straight hair tightly braided, and tied off with a neat black satin bow. She adjusted her seat, and took her place at the keyboard of the enormous fourteen-foot concert Steinway grand.

There followed half an hour of amazing piano pyrotechnics, which left the skeptical grad students stunned, and the rest of the audience completely ravished. Roma was perspiring profusely, and as she bowed and acknowledged the applause, she reached for the towel being extended to her by a polite recital hall aide, and remarked to the audience in her (by now somewhat toned down) Italian accent, that she was sweating. "It is a lot of work," she couldn't help mentioning, since from the time she had set foot in the US, she had been told that talent mattered little; sheer hard work counted for much more. This, of course, was diametrically opposite to what she had been taught all her life, but she felt obliged to pay lip service to the stated ideal.

There was a five minute break, and Roma came back, this time wearing just the tuxedo shirt front and the tights, and a sash around her waist, in the style of a cummerbund. The second half was beautiful lyrical pieces; single, stand-alone salon pieces which were still classics of the repertoire, which left the audience swooning. Helen had Gena and Alison with her, and Gena was utterly captivated by the charismatic pianist, and Allie watched and listened with as much concentration as a year-old could be expected to have.

By placing the calmer pieces at the end, Roma had avoided the confusion of a hysterical audience mobbing her. There was enthusiastic applause, several curtain-calls, a simple encore of a popular piano classic, and the show was over.

When Helen met Roma on the following Tuesday, Roma wanted to know how Helen had thought it had gone, and Helen had sincerely said that it had been wonderful. "You are destined for great things," she said, and Roma had to believe that Helen meant it.

The semester wound on, until Passion Week, when Helen and the Impromptu had planned together to present a selection of choral music and arias from the St Matthew Passion. They did not have the forces to present the entire work as intended, so it had to be small in scale.

Because a couple of the choruses required a small group of children's voices, they auditioned from among the kids in Gena's school, and Gena was among those selected. She had a lovely, pure, clear, accurate soprano that blended beautifully, and as the performance day came near and Helen rehearsed the group, supplemented with a small portative organ that Becky had bought for them, it became clear that the recital hall in which they usually performed, situated at the Friends' School, was just too tiny, though its acoustics were wonderful. But Lorna had noticed a church building up for sale some distance away, and began pushing for Helen and the Impromptu to purchase it. The religious group that owned it was pleased that it would be used for music, and Helen was presently the new owner of a church.

Their recital items sounded wonderful in the new church. It had no installed organ, but their little portative organ sounded great when placed in the alcove that the previous organ had occupied.

The day came, and Helen conducted the first piece: the great opening chorus, which sounded brilliant. Then, handing over the podium to a guest conductor, Helen sang the lovely first soprano aria, _Blute nur,_ and the audience was left in no doubt that Helen's reputation as an interpreter of J. S. Bach was well-deserved. Helen was absolutely a lyric soprano, but this piece was full of emotion, and Helen sang it with emotion, but with restraint.

Helen had hoped to be allowed to sit out the great contralto aria, _Erbarme Dich_ , which featured a gorgeous violin _obbligato_ , but when everyone heard the solo played by the concertmaster, there had been an awkward silence, and he himself had asked Helen to play it. She played it seated, nicely understated, but it was a gorgeous piece of writing, and Helen made the violin weep with the contralto, and it was wonderful.

There were just a couple more solos and chorales, and then the fabulous chorus that takes place at the end of the first half of the Passion, _O Mensch, bewein dein' Sündre gross_.

Unbeknownst to Helen, Roma had tagged along with some of her friends. Bach sacred music was most definitely not her thing, but when she heard that this was a chamber orchestra co-founded by Helen, she was determined to give her support. She was a loyal friend, and she had not forgotten that Helen had been warm and friendly towards her when she had no other friends on campus.

It took Roma far longer to get attuned to the music than it had for Helen to appreciate Roma's piano performance. Conditioned to regard _church music_ with a certain degree of impatience, Roma dutifully sat through the first minute or two of the opening chorus, determined to like it out of a sense of duty. But the inexorable logic of the work began to have its cumulative effect, and the final chord, inevitably less powerful than if it had been a larger choir and orchestra, still affected the audience strongly, and Roma with it.

For the first time, Roma heard Helen sing. Helen's fame as a singer had faded a great deal, and her fame as a conductor was still in the future. It was as a violinist that Helen was known. Still, it was clear that she was getting wonderful sounds from the modest group. But when she sang, with the great precision and phrasing that the orchestra had gotten accustomed to under Helen's leadership, Roma realized how great an all-round musician Helen was.

After it was all over, and Helen's friends, fellow-students, and faculty had come by to congratulate her, and ask whether there was a collecting bowl for voluntary contributions, and Helen had said no, but Lorna would be grateful to accept any donations on behalf of the orchestra and choir, and everyone had taken their leave but Roma, Helen was surrounded by her troops, and she conveyed to them that the praise had been generous. "I would like to do this every year, and who knows; perhaps we can make a disk, and sell it, and earn some money for better instruments!"

After a while, only Helen, Lalitha, the girls, Lorna, and Roma were left, and Helen could see that Roma needed to talk.

"Cherie," said Roma, "you are filled with music. You _are_ music!"

Helen smiled patiently. She understood to some extent the euphoria that Roma must be feeling. Hearing the _Matthäuspassion_ for the first time could be a stunning experience for anyone.

"It is wonderful music, Roma; it was a privilege to be the one to bring it to you!"

Roma's eyes brimmed with emotion. "Cherie," she said, in a voice barely above a whisper. "Can you read what is in my heart right now?"

Helen's smile faded, and her eyes were sad. "I love you too," she said, but Roma could hear the unsaid words: _but unfortunately, not in that way._ And _that way_ was most definitely how Roma wanted to be loved by Helen.

## The Dresser

At first, Helen was amused at the whole idea of having a _dresser_ travel with her. But Becky insisted that it was a good idea, and that in the long run, they would save on clothing expenses. So Lalitha stayed home with Gena; and Lorna, Allie and Helen went to concerts. The first one that they approached with this new traveling plan was in Charleston. They were booked into a wonderful old hotel midday on Friday, Lorna having taken the afternoon off from work. They had caught a plane in Philadelphia, and had been in Charleston a few hours later.

Allie was in great form, and Lorna managed the baby and all the luggage, while Helen managed the instruments. All went well, except that when dressing time came round, Lorna's touches began to be just a little more intimate than strictly necessary. Helen frowned and told Lorna that she could dress herself. Lorna apologized, and was a little more careful. The concert was a success; it was a piece that Helen knew thoroughly, and there were no surprises. Helen was beginning to earn the reputation of being one of the most satisfying performers of the Beethoven, the Brahms, and the Tchaikovsky violin concertos, in addition to all of Bach's violin concertos, and concertos featuring the violin with other instruments.

On their travels to concerts, Lorna's behavior towards Helen became steadily more affectionate. The problem was that they were not entirely unwelcome. Helen found Lorna's kittenish ways very attractive, and it was difficult to stave her off. Increasingly it was happening that when Lorna was a little more playful than Helen could stand, she could only stop it by grabbing Lorna and holding her tight.

"No, Lorna. Remember, you have a girlfriend. Okay?"

"Okay. Helen, I just like you; I'm just showing how I feel! Don't freak out for no reason!"

"I have reasons. I want to be loyal to Lalitha. It's hard for me not to start thinking crazy thoughts when you fool with my body. Just let me dress myself."

"What sorts of crazy thoughts?"

"Just stop, Lorna. Leave it alone."

The semester gradually wound to a close, and it was brilliantly successful, academically, for everyone; Helen's courses had gone very well indeed; she had been highly praised for her teaching and assisting in Martha's classes. More interestingly, Helen had been enthusiastically endorsed by the Mathematics Department for her mid-semester taking on of the responsibility for the class, and the original instructor, and the professor who had technically co-taught the course with her, and all the students had combined to given Helen amazingly great ratings for her teaching. "It's a lot easier to be a wonderful guest instructor than to be actually teach all the courses well for a whole semester," cautioned the professor with a smile, to moderate Helen's self-congratulations. "But we'll see. Because I'll be grading the final exams, we'll have a pretty objective estimate of how good you are!" Helen had nodded agreement; she knew this was true. But she had felt the kids were ready for the final, and it had really been an excellent group of students.

Once the finals had been graded, the supervisor wrote to Helen, saying that he had been impressed. None of the grades had been lower than a C, evidently rare in an undergraduate sophomore-level mathematics class.

Emotionally, however, the semester was deeply worrisome.

Lalitha had observed numerous instances where Lorna was too openly affectionate with Helen. She had wanted Helen to travel without Lorna, and leave Alison behind, but in the four concerts that had been scheduled after that, Helen had insisted on taking Lorna with her. She had been resentful to have been asked to keep Lorna at a greater distance. Lorna's adoration was something that made life more pleasant for Helen, and she was beginning to look forward to Lorna's affectionate touches, even if she pretended to scold her. Sometimes, in their hotel, Lorna would get into bed with her, and her touching would be something Helen looked forward to all evening. Still, they never engaged in sex.

Meanwhile, Roma kept up her steady emotional onslaught on Helen. She paid her pretty compliments, which she meant sincerely; she was always courteous and correct, almost _gentlemanly._

It was now summer, the University semester was over, but of course the work of a graduate student knows no season, and Gena still had a month more to go. The mathematics class had been a smashing success, and Helen truly appreciated the extra income, despite the fact that she was a millionaire, and did not actually need the money. Lalitha headed down to Baltimore to spend time with Suresh, and suddenly Helen found herself having to deal with Lorna's affectionate attentions all by herself. On a weekend, Lorna would spend practically the whole afternoon at Helen's apartment, and if Helen had been gardening, Lorna would help, taking every excuse to touch her, and would even get in the shower with her. Helen would laughingly ask her to let her shower alone, but it would be a half-hearted request, and it was an opportunity for Helen to surreptitiously study Lorna's utterly lovely body, and get salacious satisfaction in watching her depilate herself.

"You could be a celebrity model," Lorna would say. Helen would blush and demur. But presently Becky asked Helen whether she would take such an assignment. It would be an easy way of raising an enormous amount of money for very little work, and Helen's charities were constantly in need of more financial support.

More difficult was trying not to lust after Roma. The latter would accost Helen, and keep petitioning for a single night of bliss. Are you getting all the sex you need, she would ask Helen, and Helen would have to answer: yes. So from where is this interesting woman of yours? Roma would ask. From India, Helen would answer. What does she do all day, now that school is out?

"Don't concern yourself with such things, Roma. She is a very private person, and hates to be discussed behind her back."

Unlike Lorna, Roma did not touch Helen inappropriately. Being an Italian, Helen had assumed, she would be all warm and touchy-feely. But she was the soul of respectfulness.

After the university recessed for the summer, the Tuesday meetings at the lesbian bar continued. A lot of the girls seemed not to have any homes except in Philadelphia, and many of them took up more interesting avocations, since they were relieved of their teaching burdens. About half of them were couples, while the rest were still looking, and were, Helen had come to understand, very promiscuous, and it took a while for Helen to realize that they were no worse-behaved than Helen had been in her undergraduate days.

On Tuesdays, Gena usually went home with a friend after school, leaving Helen and Alison to work in Helen's office, where Helen could use the powerful Internet connection to work on the Bach manuscripts on the server in Ohio, or on her latest animated feature, when nobody else was around, or visit Martha, and describe to her how matters were proceeding. In the late afternoon she would drop Allie off at the apartment in which Becky and Lorna lived (Lorna was supposed to live at home, but she spent almost all her evenings and nights in Becky's apartment, especially if Helen dropped Alison off), and Helen would go with Roma to the bar.

One Tuesday, Roma and Helen had a piano play-off in a rehearsal room. It was a nice old piano, and Roma started off with a fabulous Scriabin piece that Helen really liked.

"I don't have a lot of music memorized," Helen said, but Roma was prepared. She had five collections of piano pieces by an enormous variety of composers, and Helen picked something fairly complex by Brahms, which she had played once before.

Roma was taken by surprise. Helen was competing with her on her own instrument. Helen's experience with the Romantic literature was still moderately limited; she had played the stormy Tchaikovsky concerto, but not really worked her way into a lot more than Beethoven piano works, which she loved dearly. But Helen could relate very well to Brahms, and did it justice.

It was Roma's turn, and she played a wonderful Liszt piece. Helen selected another Liszt piece, and struggled to play it from sight, but Roma was amazed anyway. It went on and on, until Roma had to concede that Helen could easily be a concert pianist, with very little preparation. Helen played a great deal of Bach for her, and Roma began to understand where Helen's technique was coming from. Bach was far from emotionless, if you knew where to look for the emotion.

Roma and Helen went into the bar, and in the euphoria of having succeeded in impressing the passionate Italian girl, who was easily five years her junior, Helen agreed to have an alcoholic drink. Helen never drank more than a small glass of wine, or coffee; that night she drank vodka. But they had been careful to encourage her to eat a couple of slices of pizza, so she wasn't inebriated right away, or really inebriated at all, but she did agree to go home with Roma, though she knew for certain that Roma would talk her into sleeping with her.

Roma had a piano in her apartment, and as soon as she went in, she could not resist pressing a key. Helen had not yet gotten a piano for her own apartment, though she and Lalitha had talked about it more than once. (There was a piano in the Little House in Ohio, which was all paid for.)

"Go ahead, play!" said Roma, and Helen sat down at the keyboard, and some lovely, soft Schubert came out of the beautifully tuned piano. This was a song Helen had often sung, with innocent, romantic thoughts, such as those of Hans Christian Andersen's gentler fairy tales. Helen sang, smiling up at Roma, and it was something between surrender, and a sweet invitation.

It began with a tender, gentle kiss, and then a more passionate kiss, and presently their clothes were off, and they were making more passionate love than Helen had ever experienced, and indeed Roma was amazed that Helen was so strong. Helen had been starved for sex for months; the sex she and Lalitha had shared in the winter had only whet her appetite for more, and more vigorous sex, and this was vigorous. Both women realized that they could not hurt the other, and they crushed their bodies together as if they were wrestling, breathing hard, grunting with the effort, and crying out aloud as their efforts were rewarded. Roma's was an attic apartment, on the fifth floor, but she gasped out that her downstairs neighbors were away. Roma taught Helen how it was possible to straddle one's sex partner to bring the most sensitive parts of each girl's sexual apparatus together, and then to pound them together until the shockingly intense stimulation almost drove them crazy.

"Helen, stop, I am too tired," groaned Roma, a satisfied grin on her face.

"Take a breather ..." gasped Helen, as she slowed down her pounding, "... and then I want to do some more!"

An hour after their wrestling had started, Roma had Helen under her, and was gazing into her eyes with a new respect. "You are strong," she said, running her hands over every inch of Helen's perspiring skin, "you have the body of a goddess!"

"You're beautiful, Roma; I guess I never told you that!"

Roma bent to kiss Helen. Helen loved the look in Roma's eyes, how lost she seemed to be. Helen was not quite so swept off her feet, but she greedily lapped up Roma's adoration. It was something to be adored by a girl who, herself, was such a beauty. Roma could have been a model for a beautiful sculpture, with her perfect complexion, her compelling eyes, her gorgeous hair, and her beautiful natural tan.

They had as many bouts of sex as they could squeeze in, until it was time for Helen to pick up Alison from Becky's apartment. Roma and Helen showered together, and Roma dried Helen's hair, and presently Helen was at Becky's apartment, picking up her baby. She thanked Lorna profusely, and headed for home.

Lalitha was home. She had brought Suresh with her, and had learned where Gena had been, and had had her dropped off as well, and was in a bad mood. Helen was in too great a state of euphoria to notice exactly how angry Lalitha was, but she knew she was in trouble.

For the sake of Suresh, Lalitha was patient. She had registered for summer courses, and had also signed Suresh up for various programs, once they began. Gena was pleased to have company at home, and for a while things were fine.

Helen and the Impromptu settled into the new performance venue, the Little Church, as they called it, and they began to give recitals every week. One week in July, they all headed up to Illinois, and had an unforgettable round of music and fun. There were bicycle trails the girls could ride, and Gena and Elly and Tommy rode around and around, with Little John, when he joined them later. Elly had taken up the viola, and Tommy the cello, and over the last year, they had become very good indeed.

## Baltimore

Lalitha was beginning to realize that Helen's sexual adventures were affecting her deeply. On one hand she had to keep defending Helen to Tom O'Malley, who had abandoned aiming his vicious attacks at Lalitha, except for the occasional outburst at supper. Katie was become a little more courageous at scowling down his harangues, going as far as to tell him that _it was enough._ On the other hand, Lalitha was beginning to believe that she was losing Helen. She was afraid to leave Philadelphia for fear that Helen would become too affectionate with Lorna, or with any number of other women who swooned over Helen. She was unwilling to neglect Suresh over the summer, because she neglected him most of the year anyway, but she had particularly neglected him this past winter semester. The boy was always happy to see his mother, but he was becoming less comfortable with showing his feelings, and Lalitha was puzzled by his reserve, which was more something he was learning from his classmates than something he felt strongly. It wasn't the thing to do, for an "adult male" of fourteen to wear his heart on his sleeve.

One evening, when Lalitha had believed that Tom, Suresh and Katie had gone in to church together to prepare the place for an event, hearing an unusual noise, she came upon Tom beating off in his office. Seeing Lalitha he cowered in embarrassment, but he was too exhausted, for whatever reason, to cover himself. Lalitha stood there, a mixture of embarrassment and, surprisingly, compassion freezing her to the spot. _What is the kindest thing to do,_ she thought to herself.

"My shame is complete," said Tom.

"Well ... we're both adults, Tom. It's not as if I'm a stranger to a man's ... anatomy, or whatever."

Tom raised his eyes to her, and his breathing slowed. He pulled his zipper closed, but it took a certain amount of struggle. He had put on weight, and ... his pants put up a fight.

"I'm sorry," said Lalitha, "I shouldn't have burst in. I did knock!"

Tom heaved himself to his feet, and stumbled forward, clutching at pieces of furniture to steady himself.

"Yes, you did," he admitted, still in a hoarse undertone. "I was too breathless ... to ... call out."

"Again, I'm sorry!"

Tom towered over her. "I have to beg forgiveness, too," he said, his voice finally clear.

"For what?" demanded Lalitha. Now that it seemed that she had him at a disadvantage, she was reluctant to press it.

Tom made a gesture of dismissal. He clung to the door-jamb. He clearly wanted to tell Lalitha something, and she waited patiently, her hands clasped tightly together in her nervousness.

"Do you know what it means, to lust over someone in your heart?"

Lalitha said that she did not know. Feeling a little braver, she suggested that it was something men did, and perhaps not women. He laughed, and then was serious, and dropped his gaze. Then he raised his eyes slowly to her. He glanced at the clock. "Katie will be back in half an hour." Lalitha nodded, frowning. "I have to work late tonight," he said, apropos of nothing. She nodded again. "I have been afflicted with ... a condition ... that makes it impossible to ... make love to Katie," he got out, with difficulty. "You understand?"

Lalitha nodded. This was becoming so embarrassing, she only wanted to escape.

On Saturday night, Lalitha was awake long after everyone else was asleep, and she was on the covered porch at the back, mulling over that strange encounter with the Reverend, when he appeared at the door, looking pale. She was startled, but recognizing him, she simply waited.

"Are you busy?" he asked, more courteous than he had been in two years.

"I'm just sitting here," said Lalitha.

If you could help me out, he said presently, I will be forever grateful.

Lalitha made love to him, as one would make love to an invalid. Unexpectedly, he was hard, and she was able to give him an orgasm, the first in more than a year, he said, after he had had time to recover.

It was the first time of many. Every Saturday, she would give him oral sex in the back porch, and the next day he would give such an inspired sermon, that the parish was completely baffled. They missed the dire predictions, and the fire and brimstone.

And then, Katie came to Lalitha, and told her that she had learned of what had transpired. Lalitha was astounded. She could barely look Katie in the eye, but she kept control of herself, and offered to leave with the boy. To her amazement, Katie informed her that no, she had been trying to summon up the courage to beg Lalitha to help relieve her husband's sexual impairment. "I knew, theoretically, how to, you know, go about it," she said, matter-of-fact-ly, though she spoke very softly, because Tom was in the house, and she was quite red in the face. But her pleasure at the satisfactory outcome overcame her embarrassment. "But I knew, because of how much more experienced you were, that ... well ... you could do it so much more easily!"

"He's _your_ husband, Katie. Why couldn't you ... tend to him?"

"But, you know perfectly well, the ordinary things just don't work!"

"This is the twentieth century, Katie. Everything is ordinary. It is so hard for me, because —I don't love him; and ... you _know_ I have —another lover!"

"But you _do_ love him, don't you?" Lalitha shook her head in bewilderment. "Not even a little, tiny bit?" Lalitha shook her head very decisively. She only had compassion on the man. She was happy for him that he had come to terms with what he had considered perversion. But Lalitha did not love him. Somehow, in Katie's eyes, this was problematic. According to the calculus of Katie's religion, if you did not love someone, having sex with them was sinful.

Suppressing a groan, Lalitha excused herself, and left the house, and began to walk, just to calm herself, and she succeeded. In the deteriorating wilderness of her life, with Helen beginning to lust after every woman she met, and Katie's mixed-up religious principles, and Tom's pathetic demands, the only lights were the children: Suresh, Gena, and most of all, little Alison. Without realizing it, Lalitha held her head, as if it were about to explode. A half hour later, she took some deep breaths, and turned back.

She was beginning to understand what Helen must have felt so long ago, when she had been turned away from Lalitha's home. She had told Helen, in her own language, _There is nothing for you here._ It wasn't exactly _nothing_ that Lalitha had left for herself, but it was nothing to enjoy, that was certain.

## Home again

Helen and Lalitha each returned home, equally unhappily. Within a few weeks, Lalitha received a phone call from Katie, telling her that Tom had passed away. Could Lalitha come back, because Katie was all alone with the little boy?

Lalitha led Helen to a private corner of the house, and said she had an obligation to Katie. She said that she wanted to break up with Helen; it was no longer working out for them. She looked heartbroken, and Helen was stunned. She was astounded to realize that she looked at the situation first from the point of view of how disruptive it would be: who would look after the kids? Only then had she turned to thinking about being left alone, without the woman who had been one of the greatest loves of her life. Her love affair with Lalitha had stretched over fifteen years, surmounting a dozen setbacks, and each of them had fought like mad to be reunited with the other. But once they had settled down together, Helen had found it impossible to be faithful to the Indian woman. What would Helen do without Lalitha?

But the latter did not give Helen an opportunity to try to negotiate. She quickly told Helen that the fault had to be shared between them. She said Helen was better able to look after the two girls, and Helen realized that it was fortunate; this was a divorce, but she was being offered full custody.

Lalitha packed her bag, and refusing Helen's offer of being driven out to Baltimore, took the bus as she always did, and Helen came back home from the bus station with the children, who were asking her what had happened, why had Ammah left them, and wouldn't she be coming back. Gena came round to Helen privately, and asked whether she, Gena, had been the cause of the breakup. Helen assured her that it was not; the lady with whom Suresh lived had suddenly lost her husband.

It was not too difficult to put the kids to bed; they had not yet quite realized the permanent nature of the change in their family. Helen walked through the house, trying to look at the positives. She was now free to 'date' anyone she pleased. In her mind, Lorna was still out of bounds, but Roma was waiting in the wings.

## Bachelor Days

Helen took her time letting her friends know that Lalitha had left her. It seemed such a defeat, and Lalitha was never such a big part of Helen's relationship with the rest of her world, and so it was easy to pretend that she had been a single mother all along. The Impromptu was aware that Lalitha was no longer playing the kettledrums, but they were seldom needed.

On Tuesday, Helen told Roma the news. Roma's pleasure temporarily helped improve Helen's dismal mood. Roma came home with Helen that night, and when she picked up the girls from Martha's home, Lorna met Roma for the first time, and Helen was amused to see how cold her smile was; Lorna did _not_ approve.

Lorna knew that Lalitha was gone, and had willingly taken over the care that Lalitha usually gave the girls. "I'm going to move in, Helen. This is just like we're traveling, only we have both girls ..."

"Lorna, no. That's not a good idea. I love Becky far too much to risk her happiness."

"What do you think is going to happen?"

"We'll start fooling around, Lorna, and that will be ... the beginning of the end!"

"Don't cheapen it by calling it 'fooling around,' Helen."

Helen looked Lorna in the eye, and said that there was nothing that would prevent it from being cheap.

"I love you, Helen! I hate to see you suffering!"

Helen couldn't stand it when Lorna started up this _I hate to see you suffering_ rhetoric. She reluctantly sent Lorna away, but the teenager insisted on finishing what she was doing: ironing Gena's and Allie's clothes, which was totally unnecessary, because they were all non-iron, tumble-dry clothes that Lorna herself had picked out. The provocative clothes Lorna wore all the time made Helen's mouth dry, but she was now accustomed to it, and thought of something else.

Roma was surprised to see Helen's humble home. She deplored the fact that there was no piano, and Gena deplored it with her. Alison asked to go to Roma, and Roma held out her arms to the little girl, and they studied each other.

Helen cooked a nice meal for Roma. She could not help wanting to make Roma feel admired and fussed over; if Roma was the one that she was destined to make a life with, Helen was satisfied. All the passion in her seemed to have gone, and despite her wandering eyes, there was still an instinct in her to create a comfortable home for the two little girls, and if Roma could fill the space that Lalitha had left vacant in their lives, Helen would be content. It seemed enough simply to be content.

Once or twice, in the days following Lalitha's departure, Helen had thought of Marsha, and Marika, and even Janet. It seemed crass to encourage Marika to leave Lisa and come live with Helen. It seemed equally mean to haul Janet all the way back to Philadelphia, leaving her job and her family. Helen just knew Marsha was out of the question; she couldn't imagine living the sort of public life that being Marsha's partner would entail. Most of all, Helen fantasized stealing Lorna away from Becky. That would make life so horribly complicated. But Lorna was just about sixteen, and Helen did not want to play games with such a young girl, especially since she was the apple of Becky's eye.

But now, Roma was in the house, and Helen danced attendance on her, and Gena poured her charm on her, and Allie was seducing her in her own way; it was as if the entire little Nordstrom family was courting Roma.

The two of them put the kids to bed, and Helen led Roma to her bedroom.

"The famous bedroom of the famous Helen!" smiled Roma.

"Please, hon ... don't make fun of me. I'm in ..."

"I know, I know," said Roma, at once repentant.

"No, listen. I'm responsible for the two girls, right?"

"I know, _mia cara_ , you don't have to explain!"

"No, listen. Please." Roma nodded, solemnly. "They need two parents. I want to find someone who can be ... a mother. I can't just be your lover, Roma."

"Helen, you're scaring me."

Helen smiled into her eyes, a loving, reassuring smile.

"There's nothing to be afraid of! I will be their mother when they're sick, or hungry, or when they need attention. I've learned how to do all that. But they need to have someone ... to look up to, to be an example, a second person they can talk to ... Think back on your own childhood, and try to remember how it worked!"

"I was brought up by my Papa," said Roma. "My mother left us when I was a baby." As they were talking, they had been undressing, and they had gone into the bathroom together, naked. "Helen, if you was my mother, I would be so better a person. Now, I have to use my brains, to be a good woman, you know? You only have to use your memory. I have to think: what do I do now? Like sight-reading. _You_ have it all memorized, in your head. You are _wonderful._ These girls are lucky. I hope they know that."

Not another word was said, because they made love right there in the bathroom, and all the way into bed, and made love for a long hour, before they began to talk again.

Helen opened up her heart, and let Roma inside, and let her see all that was there, and all that there _wasn't_ there, and Roma was more in love with her than she had believed she could ever be.

In the morning, while Helen and Roma were still in bed, Lorna let herself into the house, and began her usual housework. Roma was awake, heard the noises downstairs, and felt Helen tense up, and Helen had to explain who it was. Roma began to giggle, and Helen shook her head gravely. To make fun of Lorna would be too cruel, because she was so young, though she gave herself adult airs.

Lorna came up the stairs, and saw Helen in bed with Roma, and quickly closed the door and went to Gena's room. Helen pulled Roma to her fiercely, and kissed her passionately for a long minute, and felt Roma respond in kind. Then she pulled on her wrap, and with a worried smile, whispered to Roma that she had better check on what was going on.

Lorna was coming out with Gena, who greeted her foster mother with her usual bright smile and kiss. Lorna went in to pick up Allie, and to whisk her off to the toilet. The little tyke had been toilet trained earlier in the summer, and was happy to do her business for Lorna.

"Sorry for bursting in," said Lorna to Helen quietly, when they got back.

"It's okay," said Helen.

"So ... is this the rebound?" asked Lorna, archly.

"Now, Lorna, that was unnecessary. I'm taking precautions; I'm not going to get pregnant, or anything."

"Ha, ha."

## Michelle

A little later that Summer, Helen had to visit California for a week-long stint in another opera. Lorna had stayed behind, for various reasons. Helen had several friends in California, not least Lisa and Marika, and after Helen's rehearsals with the opera company, she visited with Marika and Lisa.

One day, she unexpectedly glanced at the newspaper, and saw a familiar face, and checked on the name in the article. It was a girl she had met that amazing summer twelve years earlier, when Lisa was recovering from her automobile crash, after extensive plastic surgery. Helen and Leila had been living on the outer banks of North Carolina, and met an interesting young woman of high-school age, who lived in her own beach house, with her dog Lucy. She had evidently become a high-fashion model, and was now working in California.

Helen found out her contact information with the help of Becky, who could find out anything, evidently. They arranged to meet right after opening night of the opera run, which evidently was an event of interest only to the classical music and opera community, and not widely publicized in the media, unlike Michelle's benefit modeling event.

When they finally met, both of them were startled, for different reasons. Helen's appearance had changed greatly since they had been young; Helen had grown an inch or two, and looked a lot less fragile. Michelle, on the other hand, had also grown taller, but her beauty had become more refined, and the girl-next-door charm that she had worn so carelessly was replaced by a more intense, conventional, hothouse sort of beauty that presumably allowed her to sell a lot of clothes. Michelle Smith was a very big name in modeling circles, which were almost completely removed from Helen's world. Since Helen had regained the major portion of her memory, her name was not as much of a household word as it had been briefly in her college days. Even then, Michelle had been unaware that of the two girls who had accidentally wandered into her private property, one was a budding celebrity.

Michelle had had a drinking problem, back when she was sixteen. She would drink herself oblivious, and Helen had stumbled on her on one of her rare sober moments. That very afternoon she had started to drink, but Helen, who had been somewhat of a goody-goody in regard to alcohol and substance abuse, had furiously tried to moderate the younger girl's consumption. The whole encounter was very vague in Michelle's memory, but she did remember Helen.

Promising to stay in touch, they parted. Helen had taken Alison with her, leaving Gena with Marika and Lisa, and Michelle had been awkward with the little girl, who had asked to go to Michelle, as she usually did to all Helen's friends. But Helen could see that, despite the awkwardness, Michelle was intrigued by the infant, and Helen was pleased.

The opera had been a runaway hit, and by the third night, the tickets had been sold out very early, and it was a packed night. The second week they had played to packed houses. It was a popular opera, and Helen got on the plane in a positive mood. But by the time the plane got to Philadelphia, she was back again in a state of depression.

She could imagine that Roma was too young to want the sort of domesticity that was coming naturally to Helen, and which she needed. She had all the hormones that a healthy young woman in her early thirties would have: she thought about sex a lot, and realized that it was at least in part her sexual drive that fueled her passion and her artistic creativity. But her instincts were more to seek out sympathetic women, and bring them home, and 'devour' them there, than to prowl around, hunting for excitement outside. Roma was all about looking for new bars and restaurants, going to plays, meeting new people, going to their homes. Those two nights of sex with Roma had been wonderful; with the Italian beauty, she did not have to be concerned with hurting her with her vigorous lovemaking. Roma was, if anything, more energetic and passionate than Helen. They had pretended to wrestle, to grind their crotches so fiercely together than Helen had been sore. At Helen's home, they had to be quiet. But at Roma's, that night, they had howled their excitement, and grunted and growled, and Helen could not remember her orgasms being ever so satisfying. She had vague memories of being quite an animal with Marsha, but the memories had been cloudy and vague, and Helen had begun to believe that they were figments of her imagination.

Becky and Lorna were at the airport to pick Helen up. This was the post-September 11th world, and Helen had completely missed the horror of that incident, and the nightmares that followed on. No one had remembered to inform her of those events until Martha, Becky and Lorna had talked about it one evening, completely stunning Helen. Anyway, Helen was always put off balance by airport security.

As soon as Helen and the girls had been dropped off, and Lorna had given Helen a parting kiss, while Becky looked on with a slightly embarrassed smile, Helen called Roma. Roma had acquired a lovely old Mercedes somehow, and presently it floated up, and Roma got out, fussed with the car for a few minutes, and came inside, and was wrapped in Helen's fierce embrace.

Helen was not as much of a hugger at this point as she was to become a few years later, and Roma was pleased and amused at the enthusiastic welcome.

"Have you eaten, Cara?" she asked. "The kids must be hungry, no?"

Helen looked in the refrigerator, which Lorna had lovingly stocked with everything they could need. Helen gave an exasperated sigh; she was losing control of her fridge along with a lot of other departments in her life, which Lorna was beginning to take over.

Roma was impatient. She was in the mood for pasta, she insisted, and began to organize the girls for a visit to a restaurant. They all got in Roma's spacious and elegant car, went to a new restaurant they had never been to, had a wonderful dinner, and came home. Helen and Roma retired to the basement, with Gena's approval, and began to make love on the sofa.

An hour or so later, Roma picked herself up, and asked Helen whether she minded if Roma went home. "Your little friend Lorna will be unhappy with me," she said, with a mischievous grin. Helen agreed with a sigh, and walked Roma to the door, where she gave her a long, tender parting kiss. "Oh Helen," Roma whispered, "you are destroying me!"

"Why?" asked Helen softly. She felt a deep sorrow, that she caused such worry and pain to her friends. Because she knew her weaknesses, she was beginning to believe that more misery flowed from her than joy and pleasure in life. At one time, everyone she met seemed to be happier and the better for having met her. Now ...

"Because I want you to be happy, my love, and I don't know ... whether, you know? ... Whether I can do it. I want to be so strong for you, but ... am I strong enough, that is the thing. I am still such a baby!"

Helen had reassured her and sent her off. She had a healthy respect for Roma's intelligence, and Roma had instinctively put her finger on the weakness in the Helen-Roma team. Roma needed mothering, which Helen was ready to give. Helen was beginning to feel her mothering instincts being reawakened by the passionate young musician. But Helen needed mothering too!

## Lorna Talks Turkey

As always, Lorna was washing the dishes and putting things away early the next morning. Helen felt the familiar impatience combined with that special sweetness that Lorna triggered in her heart. Soon Lorna was tripping up the stairs, and she was slipping into Helen's room. She knew Helen was awake, and she slipped off her shoes, and got in beside Helen.

"How are you doing?" she asked in a whisper, having given Helen a soft kiss on the lips.

"Fine!" said Helen, feeling as if she were an invalid, in hospital.

"Helen ... how is it going with Roma?"

Helen took a deep breath, and sighed. "Lorna — it's ... private, love! It isn't right to discuss..."

"I'm not asking for intimate details, Helen," said Lorna softly, giving her another kiss. The smile was gone, and Lorna's grey eyes were deeply distressed. "I ... I'm beginning to realize that ... I was the one who drove Lalitha away! Oh Helen ... I couldn't help myself ... this is the way I am, you see? When I love someone ... I can't keep my hands off them! I touch them, I kiss them ... it's just how I am, see? I want so much that you and Roma should be happy together, but ... I worry that Roma can't deal with the kids, and her own classes, and you! I don't want you for myself; not really. I want things to be right again, and I feel like I've ruined your life! It is so wrong, to ruin the life of someone you love so much! You have no idea how much I want you to be happy!"

And to Helen's amazement, tears poured from Lorna's eyes, and her face simply twisted up in an expression of such utter misery that Helen could no longer simply lie there and look at it. Lorna was sobbing, racked with her sobs.

Helen put her arms around Lorna, and Lorna's sobs became uncontrollable. Soon Gena was peeking in at the door, with Allie in her arms, and in seconds, the two girls were also crying. Lorna wiped her face with the tissues Helen handed her, and with the same pathetic expression on her face, reached out to the little girls. The idea of pretending that it was a minor upset had fleetingly crossed Helen's mind, but now Helen's eyes were full, and it seemed best to let the kids cry.

Numerous sad thoughts crossed Helen's mind: had she given up on Lalitha too soon? Had she turned too much of a blind eye to Lalitha's own problems? Had the love of Lorna and Roma for Helen hardened her heart towards Lalitha, who had put such great effort into putting Helen's life back together, and leaving her son behind, and coming to look after Helen's adopted children?

While Helen gradually braced herself to put one last massive effort into trying to find Lalitha and to reconciling their differences, Lorna and Gena were already planning such a mission. For two months Gena had been persistent, asking Helen whether it might not be the right thing to do to go find Lalitha, and see whether she was all right, or see whether she might not want to come back. In Gena's mind, Lalitha had just gotten very impatient with Helen's fooling around with other girls, as Gena tactfully termed it, but if they all went and asked her nicely, Gena was sure that they could persuade her to come back, especially if Helen promised to be good. Do you think you could be good, and be nicer to Ammah? It was not a time for prevarication, and Helen said, with a sigh, that she would try to do better. Gena was very firm that if Lalitha were to come back, Helen should not invite Roma back, to stay the night. That would be rude, she said, glancing briefly at Lorna. The message was clear: Gena was very aware, even at the tender age of thirteen, that Helen was being obnoxiously promiscuous. Helen conceded that sleepovers with Roma would probably be out of the question.

They all dressed in decent clothes, and got into the new Cherokee, and drove down to Maryland, which was several dozen miles, and parked it in a park-and-ride in suburban Baltimore, as close to where the O'Malley's lived as Lorna could figure out.

They took a cab to the address Lalitha had given Helen, and got out, and knocked on the door. An old woman came to the door, and was surprised to see them.

"We're looking for Lalitha," said Lorna, brightly.

"Oh." There was a long pause. "She doesn't live here any longer," said the woman.

"Do you have an address for her?"

"Er, yes. Just a minute, please."

Armed with the address, the little group headed out to find Lalitha and Suresh. It was around eight at night when they finally found the apartment building in an exceedingly seedy neighborhood, and rang the bell.

The Lalitha who opened the door to them was the same Lalitha, but so changed! She looked hunted; she was dressed in the same clothes, but they looked in need of laundering. The apartment was crowded, but clean and well lit, and there was the fragrance of Indian cooking that Helen loved so much, and Lorna had begun to appreciate, having been given the occasional meal in the Nordstrom home.

With Lalitha and Suresh, there was also a third person: a beautiful young thing, introduced as Trish, who seemed a teenager, but who Lalitha assured them with a smile, was a full-grown adult. She looked like a teenager, talked like a teenager —even more like a teenager than Gena, who actually _was_ one— and who was dressed perfectly neatly like an Indian girl, in an Indian-style home-sewn skirt and blouse.

"As you can see," said Lalitha, when they had all eaten a light Indian supper that had been proudly served by the young woman, "we are quite comfortable, and quite happy. Your concern is unnecessary!"

Once Helen and Lorna had seen the other young woman, they had realized that their mission was hopeless. Somehow, Lalitha had found a new partner, this child-woman, and there was no way they could tear Lalitha out of that home. The way Lalitha and Trish stood close together made Helen's heart burn with shame and jealousy, and envy. Lorna's shoulders were slumped in resignation, and Gena's expression also seemed to indicate that she knew their plan was futile.

Trish had laughed with pleasure on seeing Alison, and had begged to hold her. Alison went to anybody, and she was soon seated in Trish's lap, babbling to her, and there was a look of utter bliss on Trish's childlike face.

With great reluctance, the visitors dragged themselves away, and back home. Their trip back was made in silence, with Alison quietly sleeping in Lorna's lap in the back.

Helen tried to make a show of being cheerful for about a minute, but then gave it up. "Would you like a ride back home?" she asked Lorna, who would not meet her eyes. There was such an air of defeat on her beautiful face that Helen felt awful. She had regarded Lorna as a coquettish, superficial child. But there was more to her than mere flirtation and preoccupation with her looks. She had taken the failure of their mission as a personal defeat, and now the breakup of Helen's and Lalitha's family must have seemed to her as her responsibility entirely.

Lorna set out for her own home, across the railway tracks and up the hill. She had sent for her brother, who would meet her halfway; it was late. Evidently, she did not want to meet Becky just then.

Lorna had graduated from high school that summer. The semester began, and Lorna greatly moderated how demonstrative she was towards Helen. There was still love in her eyes, but she was careful, now that she realized that Gena observed her closely, and was old enough to tell inappropriate behavior.

Roma was attentive and patient with Helen, but Helen had abandoned trying to create a serious relationship between Roma and herself. Their friendship was firm and deep, and they talked over many delicate, personal issues together, and each woman tried hard to be mature and adult towards the other. It was an easy friendship, but Helen, at least, realized that it could not be so elastic as to be a committed sexual relationship. But every day Roma met Helen, and made sure to her own satisfaction that Helen was all right.

Helen's scholarship proceeded apace. Helen worked on a number of projects in addition, such as Nadia's little encyclopedia, and the little independent Bach Edition that Helen was preparing with the help of Nadia, Martha, and another professor in Helen's department whose specialty was Baroque choral music. Helen tutored for mathematics, and was an informal voice coach for a promising young soprano.

The Impromptu prepared to sing Bach's Mass in B minor, and Gena was auditioned once again to sing in the choir. Brass instruments had to be found and players conscripted, and slowly, over the fall, they prepared to perform this wonderful piece. None of the members of the choir or orchestra were full-time musicians; they were all amateurs, or at most music teachers. One glorious day in October, they would perform the work, and Marika and Lisa would come down to record it, and it would be the highpoint of their organization's existence. Meanwhile, Helen was accepting as many requests to perform as she could manage, which was about one a week, or two in the same city. Robin had been asked informally to inquire whether Helen's older child could accompany her, which meant that the inviting organization had to be able to finance Gena's travel arrangements as well as Helen's. At that time, the way things stood, many organizations had special arrangements with airlines to provide flights to their artists at a discount. Becky was negotiating deals with several major airlines to obtain the benefits of frequent-flyer miles for Helen, which would make travel for the entire little family easier. Lorna had voluntarily stopped pushing to accompany Helen everywhere, but about once a month, she went with Helen to a particularly important concert, where in Lorna's opinion Helen had to be impeccably turned out, and significantly toned down her affectionate behavior.

In late September, Michelle Smith E-mailed Helen, saying that she had a modeling assignment in Philadelphia, and would like to visit her. Very pleased, Helen invited her to stay with Helen in the Little Apartment, and Michelle said she would, after inquiring carefully how convenient it was to get to various parts of the City from Semple Street, which was where Helen and the girls lived.

Helen and the girls waited with great excitement for Michelle at the airport, and presently she appeared, accompanied by a lovely Collie!

"Her name is Lucy," said Michelle, and Gena and Allie were utterly ravished by the sweet-natured dog. Lucy hopped into the spacious back of the Cherokee, and they headed back to Semple in the best of spirits.

Michelle was dressed casually, and looked a lot more like the Michelle of old. Lucy was pleased with the little back yard of the apartment, and the proximity of a city park close by, where Michelle and Helen could go for long walks.

To cut a long story short, very quickly Helen's and Michelle's relationship became a physical one. Both of them remembered the other only vaguely, from a decade ago, but their personalities seemed to click somehow. Michelle was a very quiet person, and perhaps Helen did not feel as competitive as she probably felt with Roma. Their love-making was satisfying, but not very adventurous, and clearly Helen was able to satisfy Michelle far better than her previous lover, which had been a long time ago, and Michelle had gone cold turkey. Gena and Allie liked Michelle very much, though she wasn't anywhere near as exciting as either Lorna or Roma.

Michelle decided to make Philadelphia her headquarters. She could afford a far grander apartment than Helen's; as a matter of fact, so could Helen. But Helen was reluctant to escalate the rate at which she used up her savings, because she had only the income of a musician to look forward to, which was, to say the least, modest. But Michelle earned in the thousands every week, and she insisted that Helen should have a piano. "I think the girls should have a little piano, Helen, and take lessons. I mean, at least Gena."

Helen had to agree. She said Gena took violin lessons, when they remembered, and Gena had to bring out her violin to show Michelle how well she could play, and it was rather disappointing. Over the summer, she had been given lessons with Cindy, but she hadn't practiced.

There were several invitations for Helen to appear on Television, and she was interviewed at home, with the children, and gradually it seemed that Helen was becoming quite a celebrity. The B Minor Mass was performed as planned, and there were rave reviews. The brass had been exceptional, the singing had been fantastic, the choir had been fabulous, and the orchestra faultless.

The Media discovered that Helen had, at one time been the companion of Marsha Moore, the famous Hollywood movie star, and was now the companion of the famous runway and sportswear model, Michelle Smith. When Michelle was chosen to be on the cover of one of the biggest magazines in the US, there had been a small article on Michelle and Helen and the kids.

## Meanwhile, In Baltimore

When Lalitha had left Helen and gone back to live with Katie, she found the home startlingly altered. Without Tom's presence, however unpleasant when he was on one of his rants, the house was dull and dismal. Katie's pension was inexplicably minute, and Katie was working part-time for the central administration of their denomination, whose offices were in Baltimore. Katie was merely in her forties, but she was overweight, and looked ten years older. Lalitha tried her best to motivate her into becoming more active, and working as a volunteer in some local charity, but Katie was preoccupied with how cruelly life had treated her, and was a total loss. But Katie had helped Lalitha at great cost to herself, and Lalitha was a loyal woman, and felt obliged to be Katie's protector.

Lalitha found work in a drugstore, and was soon bringing in a certain amount of income, and their standard of living improved dramatically. Even Suresh helped, by washing cars, and mowing laws in the neighborhood.

A regular visitor at the drugstore was a little teenager, who always flirted with Lalitha when she came in for candy in the evenings.

"You shouldn't eat so much candy!" Lalitha scolded one day, with a smile.

"Hey, I bet you eat a lot of candy yourself, hon!"

Lalitha was startled to hear herself being called 'Hon', but she replied that she hardly ate candy at all.

"Then how come you're so sweet?" the little cutie had asked, tongue in cheek, and laughing, hurried away. From that day on, the flirting went on and on.

Lalitha had her own little laptop by now, and had learned the habit of surfing the web for pretty women from Helen. One day she was stunned to see her friend from the drugstore, in a nude pictorial. She had been fixed up to look like a little schoolgirl of about twelve, but her statistics showed that she was twenty-one.

She would most certainly be by the following day, Lalitha knew. She always came by on Friday afternoons. Lalitha wondered how it was that the girl was able to sell her photographs while she lived in a suburb in Baltimore.

The little pixie did come by, and accused Lalitha of looking at her funny, and Lalitha who had indeed been planning to challenge her about the so-called 'glamour' photos, was suddenly unable to formulate a question. And the young woman paid for her candy, and gave Lalitha a 'tip' of an additional five dollars. Lalitha stared at her open-mouthed, while she danced away in her tiny skirt.

Lalitha found it very hard to be so long without sex. Helen and she had had sex almost every night, until the last few weeks before Lalitha had come away. She missed the touching, the kissing, the feel of a warm body in bed with her. Increasingly she had turned to The Goddess, asking for guidance, but the Goddess only looked at her with pity.

She was passing by an Adult Store, when she felt the urge to go inside. She was stunned to find her tiny friend Trish behind the counter. Their eyes met, and after a spectacular blush, Trish, who was the one who bought candy at the drug store, hurried out to meet Lalitha, and to give her a big hug. She glanced behind her quickly, dimpled at Lalitha, and asked, "Can I help you find something?"

"I came to look for you," said Lalitha, the unexpected retort surprising her even as she said it.

"No, really: what're you doing here?"

"I ... just came in, on impulse," said Lalitha, becoming serious.

It was just eight O'clock, and evidently the end of little Trish's shift. She told Lalitha to wait, and hurried in and got her purse, and grabbed Lalitha by the hand, and hauled her out.

"You are the cutest thing I have ever seen!" she whispered to Lalitha fiercely, and declared that she was taking Lalitha home with her. Soon she led Lalitha into a sleazy apartment in a high-rise.

She told Lalitha her life story. She had taken up nude modeling right while still in high school, and dropped out to do it full time when her parents had split up, and the home had broken up. She was a lighthearted little thing, and she said that she had used up all her savings on candy, and she had a number of cavities to prove it. She had just taken the job at the Adult Bookstore, and was being paid less than minimum wage. She cheerfully declared that she was giving up the high-rise, to find something less expensive. She was animated as she babbled on and on, but there was a glow to her, an inner light which seemed inextinguishable. The dire circumstances in which she was should have made anyone sober, but just a couple of days ago, she had given Lalitha an enormous tip!

"How much is the rent for this place?" Lalitha asked.

"Four hundred! But the utilities are included, see? I can run the water and the heat as much as I want!"

"But if you're careful, you don't get any savings!"

"So I'm not careful! I keep all the lights on!"

"How much do you make, at the store?"

"$160 a week! I can make the rent, but ... I can't live on candy, you know."

It was the first serious thing she had said. Then she turned her cute blue eyes on Lalitha, and said, "I could go for you, you know. I really could. Like ... I _am!_ "

And she had made her move right there; she had slowly moved to touch her lips to Lalitha's lips, which had been ready for her. She put her arms around Lalitha, and kissed her twice more. "I think you should go with me," she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"You have folks?"

"I have a son."

"We could all three live together! I could like Indian food! I like Chinese," she said.

For Lalitha, it was difficult to untangle herself from Katie, but Katie did not seem a good prospect for rehabilitation. Katie was stubborn, and the Church was not doing its duty by her, because they seemed to know that Katie had other resources, namely Lalitha.

Lalitha and Trish had gone looking for apartments, and they had found a really clean apartment in a neighborhood that looked terrible, but was in fact quite quiet, and moderately safe. It was occupied mostly by immigrants, principally Chinese, and the landlord was Chinese as well, and took a good look at Lalitha, and gave her a good rate.

Lalitha, Trish and Suresh moved in, and Lalitha got Trish work at a Goodwill store. Trish dressed in Indian-style clothes, which she loved, and did her hair differently, and her perky, mischievous manner suited the clientele of Goodwill Industries just perfectly. They paid her a decent wage, and deducted Social Security and other taxes from her, and at last she had a chance of having a safety cushion when she was old enough to retire, or if she was disabled.

But tragedy struck. Though Trish and Lalitha shared a bed, Trish found young Suresh irresistible, and one day, while Lalitha was out of the house, Trish had allowed him, in fact encouraged him, in the throes of her passion, to have vaginal intercourse with her. Suresh was a beautiful boy, and only fifteen, and Trish was strikingly beautiful herself, and they both looked the same age, and Trish loved the boy. It was an accident waiting to happen.

Within days, Lalitha had learned of what had transpired. Trish was too innocent to keep a secret, and Suresh was too stunned by the whole experience to lie. Even as Trish confessed, the Goddess seemed to shine through her face, and Lalitha hung her head and accepted.

"What are you going to do?" Lalitha asked, gently. "Will you keep the baby?"

"I want to," said Trish, softly. "I want a baby bad, Lalitha. I want _his_ baby even worse. I'm going to have it."

Lalitha nodded, and indicated that she would help. "He's only fifteen, Trish. Do you want to destroy him?"

"I'm sorry!" sobbed Trish, and Lalitha knew it was sincere. But Trish could not hide that she was pleased to be pregnant with Suresh's baby.

## The Workshop

Lalitha worked hard, and managed to pay the rent, and they ate barely enough to stave off starvation. Trish needed nutrition, so Lalitha practically starved herself, so that Trish and Suresh could eat. Trish still shared Lalitha's bed, but Trish was earnestly affectionate to Suresh, and reminded him that he had responsibilities now; he was the Daddy of Trish's baby, who would be born in the summer.

Helen had been reminded of the Workshop in Ohio by news that Mr. Knowlden had passed away. (At the beginning of Helen's freshman year at college, Mr. Knowlden, a famous instrument-maker originally from Oregon, had been persuaded to set up a branch of his famous instrument factory on the campus of Helen's College. Helen had, quite by accident, been hired to help set up the workshop, and to supervise the first batch of music majors who had signed on to take a course in instrument-making. It was this that had begun Helen's amazing career as an instrumentalist. She had made herself a viola da gamba, and learned to play it, and begun a consort of viols with Mr. Knowlden and his wife, which had led to the Early Music Festival one summer, and Helen's appearance on national television.)

Without much difficulty, Helen was able to actually buy the home in which she lived, and an adjoining property on which a small house had stood, which had burned down and never been rebuilt. Becky had obtained a variance to build an instrument workshop there, and Helen and some friends from her Impromptu orchestra, and Lorna's two oldest brothers, had built the workshop over a couple of weekends. It had happened that a number of the newest members of the orchestra were rather minimally employed, and were willing to give the little instrument factory a try. Having been present at the inception of the Ohio operation, Helen had seen a lot of how Mr. Knowlden had got his workshop up and running, but of course she could not remember any of that at all. But she did remember how to make easy instruments such as recorders, and they got going slowly, using hand-lathes and only such power tools as would not make noise. The 500 square-foot factory had been heavily sound-proofed. It so happened that their organist, Anselm, was very good with fine woodworking, but of course he had to be shown every little detail. So now, Anselm and his father were full-time employees, and Helen had to spend a great deal of time supervising them, and putting in the work on the more complicated parts of the processes.

By the time Helen, Lalitha and the girls had moved to Philadelphia more than a year ago, Gena had shyly begun calling Helen _Mama_. What would you like me to call you? she had asked, when she had called her 'Miss Helen', and Helen had said, equally shyly, that she had called her own mother _Mama_ , and that was what Little Elly called Janet, and Tommy called Old Elly, or _Grelly_ , as they seemed to be doing now, an abbreviation for Grandma Elly. So _Mama_ was what Gena called Helen ever since, or at least for a couple of years, after which Helen was satisfied with being called Mom, but that was still in the future.

Gena had blossomed into a bright, friendly child, eager and interested in everything around her, happy to play basketball or tennis, or anything anybody wanted to play, full of energy and fun, quick of speech, but with beautiful diction, taken from her own sweet mother, and her adopted mother. Helen had reverted to a sort of halting speech right after the operation, and then begun to pick up the speech of her fellow construction workers, who were a mixture of Latino, Native American, and farm worker. As her memory returned, so did the precise speech of her college days, heavily influenced by the speech of her mother, and Janet and Old Elly, all of whom spoke slowly, but pronounced their words very carefully. Helen loved the two little girls very much, and every once in a while, set everything else aside and pondered her great fortune in having been given the care of two such exceptional children. The word _easy_ hardly began to describe how effortless they were to look after. Lorna, no less than Lalitha, loved them dearly as well; in fact, everyone Helen knew adored the girls.

Now, somehow after Michelle had joined the family, Helen's libido seemed to have taken a rest, and once more she was anxious that Gena and Allie should have the best of everything, even if not things that were above the reach of the average citizen. Gena was already enrolled in community swimming classes, though she could swim quite well, and a gymnastic class at a local youth center, where Gena made friends with typical Philadelphians of all races and origins, even though the Friends' School was wonderfully diverse in any case.

Gena delighted in relating stories about her classmates and their antics, and was becoming quite an adept mimic. She was not quite as outgoing and frighteningly clever as Little Elly, but clearly some of the characteristics of that interesting young lady had rubbed off on Gena every summer, when they spent several weeks together.

Helen found it difficult to refuse Gena anything, but thankfully Gena was restrained in asking for things. She was a voracious reader, and she was somewhat immoderate in asking for books and records whenever they were in the enormous local bookstore. Helen had to constantly remind her that many of the popular books she wanted to read were available at the library, which was, unfortunately, not one of their more frequent destinations, since the books Helen herself needed were not to be found in the local branch of the public library.

For all her energy, Gena was still a thoughtful child, and one day she approached Helen with the idea that it was time to go check on _Ammah_ , which was the word Lalitha had taught Gena to call her, which in turn was an informal word for 'mother' in Lalitha's dialect, used by children.

Gena's request had been triggered off by Michelle's insistence on leasing a small piano for the home. Helen had deplored the fact that they did not have a piano for two years, but had done nothing about it. Now Gena spent hours at it, playing her own little songs, and popular songs she heard over the radio, and struggling through the piano studies Helen set her to learn. She had said that Lalitha would have liked to see the new piano.

Michelle was in California for the weekend, and Helen had no obligations. She decided to get in the Cherokee with the kids, and drive down to Baltimore, which took about an hour and a half, and check on Lalitha.

They found the mood of the little family greatly altered. The family consisting of the two women and Suresh was now augmented by a beautiful little baby, who seemed to have the sniffles. Lalitha looked careworn, and Suresh looked dull and embarrassed, and Helen knew at once what had happened. Lalitha began a long, awkward explanation of the situation, and told Helen with dignified embarrassment, something only Lalitha could pull off, that it had been all her fault. Trish still looked cheerful, and smiled with her accustomed dimple, apparently quite comfortable with her decisions and actions, but it was clear that the infant's chief source of nourishment was Trish breast-feeding her, and Trish was looking painfully thin, except for her new, full breasts, which made her look just a little older: she looked sixteen, instead of thirteen.

"The Goddess has brought you here, Helen. We cannot survive like this; of course Trish can't work—I wouldn't let her work. And I am making less than $900 a month! We get food stamps and everything, but ..." she shook her head. She had begun working for the Goodwill store full time, when Trish had quit, but the pay was low. "Trish could look after the children, if Lorna doesn't need the money, you know? I could move back to Philly, we could find an apartment ..."

Helen felt both angry and sympathetic. She was perfectly willing to help the sad little family, but she could not believe what a mess Lalitha had got herself into. It appeared that Lalitha's ability rescue others from trouble was matched by her ability to get into worse trouble herself. Then Helen remembered the workshop.

"Lalitha, Mr. Knowlden died over the winter, did you know?"

"Knowlden! So sad ... I had forgotten all that. Oh, if he was alive, we could move to Ohio ..."

"But I've started a workshop in the vacant lot in back of the house, you know, on the alley?"

"Oh! Really? Helen, I could work for you in the workshop!"

For half an hour, Helen had to listen to Lalitha's explanations about how The Goddess worked in miraculous ways, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Gena was thrilled with the idea, and Suresh's eyes lit up. He had grown taller, and was looking a little more like a plausible husband to the tiny Trish, and he had the baby in his arms. It was a comic scene, but Helen felt ready to take them loosely under her wing. If she helped Lalitha find a decent apartment or house, and subsidized their food budget, she knew that Lalitha would do the rest. Half-starved, and preoccupied with keeping the young lovers away from each other to prevent any further pregnancies, and keeping Suresh at his studies, it had all been too much for Lalitha on top of full-time work.

All seven of them packed themselves into the Cherokee, which, for all its size was not a spacious vehicle. Suresh and Trish volunteered to hunker down in the cargo area, while Lalitha held the baby in the back seat, and Gena sat up front with her mother, grinning at the company.

They were welcomed with a great deal of barking by Lucy, who had been left behind. After the introductions were made, Trish was shown round the house, and they put together a quick meal, which was evidently greatly appreciated by the visitors. That night, they camped out at Semple, and on Monday, Becky began to look for a little home for them, with an affordable rent, and by the end of the week, they were moved in. Lalitha had already begun work at the workshop, and was far happier with the woodworking than she had been at her previous job.

As the warmer weather returned, life settled down into a comfortable routine. Helen left the workshop entirely to Lalitha, and presently Trish and Suresh put in a little time there, doing easier tasks, and Helen allowed them to get on the payroll, to increase the family income by a small fraction.

Luckily Anselm and the other workers got along well with the newcomers. Anselm was a wonderful fellow, and wanted to learn organ-building and repair, and when Lalitha suggested that he might like to learn to make a harpsichord, he was open to the idea.

The semester came to an end, and once again, Helen's academic work was in good shape. Lorna and Becky seemed to be happily settling into couplehood. Helen had given Becky a big raise, and they had rented an office in a nice new building about a half mile from where Helen's apartment was situated. Helen's investments were doing well once again, and Becky had acquired a radio station, to Helen's amazement. Becky explained that, because stock investments were often at the mercy of the stock market, it made more sense to diversify into less vulnerable investments. Oil companies and armament manufacturers were doing really well, she pointed out, but Helen put her foot down. They could continue to do well without Helen's participation, was the short version of _that_ conversation.

Michelle and Helen, too, settled down to a comfortable relationship. Helen felt protective of Michelle in a way that she had not felt for most other girls she had come to love. Michelle was a sweet, undemanding presence in the house, and of course, she was beautiful. No matter what she did, she was beautiful, and Helen loved to feast her eyes on her. This was in contrast to the earth-child she had once been; she had loved to go about stark naked in the fenced-in compound of her property in the Carolinas. Her family was from New England, but Michelle had refused to live at home, and had lived on the beach by herself. When Helen had first met her, she had just gotten a painful skin condition, and Helen had taken pity on her, and helped treat the rash successfully, and the alcoholism not quite as successfully. But now, a decade later, Michelle was completely dry.

Roma earned her Master's degree, and signed on to be a concert artist, and a part-time music teacher. Her father refused to visit the US, so Roma made a much-postponed visit back to Berlin, where her father now lived, before she began her concert tour.

Helen had earned an A.M. in music by the end of the winter semester, and was now qualified to teach undergraduate courses, but the vast majority of undergraduate music courses were still taught by permanent full-time faculty.

## A sort of couple

"I guess we're sort of a couple, now," said Michelle, when they were in bed one night.

Helen was surprised. "Haven't we been a couple for a while?"

"I assumed that ... well, that you had, you know, unresolved feelings for ... lots of girls."

"Michelle, there isn't anyone else at the moment." At any given moment, Helen could easily have unresolved feelings for a score of women, but she had hoped that Michelle understood that Helen was now far more at peace than she had been in a long while. Michelle was like a cooling balm, and Helen was thriving in the sweetness and tranquility that Michelle created for her. But it didn't sound like much of a compliment to tell her that she made life comfortable for Helen. "I should tell you more often that ... I enjoy having you in my life ... and I'm happier now than I have been in many years."

"Don't you have just a little thing for Lalitha?"

"Well, sure. I will, for a long time."

"Yeah; she's that sort of person, I guess. How about ... Lorna?"

Helen shook her head. "She's off limits. So are—a lot of other girls I have, you know, been with."

"Like ..."

"No, don't. I don't want to go there. I want pictures of you all over the house, so that I never have to think about others."

Michelle caressed Helen's face. "You know why I love you, don't you?" It was the first time Michelle had actually said she loved Helen.

"No, why?"

In the end, she did not tell Helen. She suddenly realized that it would be tactless to enumerate Helen's good points; she wanted to be Helen's lover, not just a fan. Anyway, Michelle could not imagine leaving Helen and going back to her solitary existence. There were great advantages in being with Helen, not least being the two little girls Gena and Alison. Those two illuminated Helen's personality, and made it understandable in a way that Helen could not yet realize.

But the peaceful existence of Helen and Michelle, the kids and Lucy was not to continue for very long, through no fault of any of them. But that story has little or nothing to do with Lalitha, so this part ends here.

The End.

## Author's Notes

(These notes were originally intended to be read before the story itself, but I thought I would put them away down here, so that the typical reader would not get intimidated with the sheer numbers of people who were involved with Helen's story!)

This story covers a period of twelve years. It is subtitled "The Lost Years" simply because I had lost most pages of the manuscript, and am reconstructing it some seventeen years after it was first written. (Some pages have resurfaced since these words were written.)

_Helen,_ in its entirety is, by far, the longest piece of writing I have accomplished so far. I started writing it on paper: blank paper, divided into two columns, front and back, and written in the tiniest possible handwriting, to save paper! I'm a very private person _now_ , but at that time I was a closet writer of the worst kind; I did not want _anyone_ to suspect in the slightest that I was indulging in creative writing. A year or two after the writing was underway, to my great embarrassment a friend of mine happened upon a page or two that I had failed to hide away, and, to my surprise, liked it very much, and encouraged me to write more. The following year, I bought my first computer, and faced the monumental task of transcribing some 1200 pages of manuscript into _WordPerfect_ , which was, at that time, my software of preference. Just about the time I came to this episode, I had gotten a little too embarrassed at the fantastic storyline, and decided to write something completely different ( _Alexandra_ ), which could be safely read by my friends, and abandoned the Helen transcription project entirely.

I wrote most of _Alexandra_ , and then took up other projects, all of them very much less ambitious than _Helen_ , to while away the winter hours. Somehow, the later episodes of Helen got put into the computer, but this most important section seems to have got left out. No, wait: I _did_ manage to type them in into several files, but I think I passworded them, being paranoid at the time. I think I either forgot the password of the file containing this material, or the file was put on a floppy disk, and then got lost. Something like that. (Isn't it the truth, that the stories of our lives are almost more fascinating than the fiction we write?)

Because I'm trying to fill in the gaps quickly, rather than trying to write fiction that is highly readable, this story is going to look more like a report than a novel or short story. There's going to be little dialog, for which I apologize, and whenever we come across a character who needs a little background, I will put the story on pause, and describe the history of the character concerned.

I know this part of the story is very melodramatic, which is probably why it wound up lost: I was embarrassed by it. But it serves as important background for several very pivotal characters, such as Helen's adopted children Gena and Allie, and Lalitha, who lurks in every part of the story like some mysterious force of nature!

The story continues in _Helen On the Run_ — _The Lost Years,_ which is still under preparation.

Kay Hemlock Brown
