Annabelle Osbourne Wright (now just Osbourne, again) gazed up the lane, sighing as she settled her rump into the worn padding on the glider seat. Her mother had sighed that same way as, each evening after supper dishes were done, she had lowered her own rump into the same worn spot and rested her legs on the chunk of log placed just-so -- there to be a table or stool.

    The log had been replaced several times over the years - Momma preferred pristine bark and smooth surfaces on the cut sides - and Nan guessed by the rain-roughened top and scraggly litter of mulch at the base that this piece was about due. How sad that it wouldn't be.

    She scratched the places where her nylons had molded ridges into her skin during the funeral and burial, and rubbed the soles of her feet on the obliging footrest. Had this been the same log from her last visit home?

    Momma had listened to her - as she always had - without comment but the rocking of the log had given away her inner turmoil. She had closed her eyes then and listened to the crickets sck-reaking in the woods, gliding and rocking her legs.

    "A baby needs a father, Nana-billy," she'd finally said, leaving out the list of questions she must have had about blame - or about the wisdom (or stupidity) of getting knocked-up while her marriage got knocked-down - and jumped unerringly to the most important issue.

    "He says he'll be there. I think he will."

    Her Momma had nodded, "Yes, a good man..." She'd stopped the glider and looked up at the house, where the 'good man' sat in the kitchen playing checkers with Donny. "Just the wrong one for you, I think."

    Nan stood and wandered to the lane. Daddy had always kept the tire gullies filled with gravel and sand until the Alzheimer's had stolen him away. A baggie, with cookie crumbs clinging to the zipper, lay in the grass. Habit forced her to gather up the trash but the squat down was easier than finding the way back up to her feet.

    On a whim, she went to her knees in the median and wrote her name in the sandy border. Behind her, the screen door squeaked and she wondered which man had come looking for her.

    "I'll be there, Nan. Same as with Ben," Martin said from the deepening shadows. He slowed, but didn't stop, on his way to the top of the rise where the lane met the road. His cell phone worked up there and he'd taken the walk several times that afternoon. Oh well, she would have liked Kate if the circumstances had been different. If Benny had to have a stepmother, why not one that Nan trusted? Who better to trust than Benny's preschool teacher?

    "I know, Martin," she said to the back of his jacket. But things do change, she thought. Kate might change him. How could she keep him in Ben's life if Martin chose to go on without him? Now Donny, too? The enormity of the burden forced another sigh - almost a moan of pain - from her tight chest.

    From the bathroom, she could hear Aunt Betty singing 'Rubber Ducky' and, if she listened closely, Ben's soprano lisp joining in with greater confidence with each repetition... Her father's sister only knew the one verse.

    Another slam of the screen and Donny ambled across the porch, stopping on the top step to rub his hair into its customary dishevelment. She waited until his eyes wandered her direction and smiled as his cherubic face split into a broad grin.

    "Nana-billy!" he rumbled, as happy to see her as ever and as if he hadn't just seen her ten minutes before.

    "Ozzy Osborne, you is the man!" she said. He laughed and fished the sunglasses with the small round lenses from his shirt pocket. Placing them on his nose and taking a breath, he transformed for a second and resembled the rock star completely. Uncanny how Donny could do that... If only for the moment, it was something extraordinary to see his impersonations. He carefully replaced the glasses in the case, before attempting to navigate the stairs. The glider caught his attention.

    "I keep thinking that's where she is."

    "I know... Are you okay?" she asked, carefully. He'd cried all night and burst into tears frequently throughout the service.

    He sniffed and spit before replying, "No. But Momma is, so I will be brave."

    Donny squatted down in the sand and, with extreme concentration, read her name.

    "You usta do this when you was a little girl," he said.

    "I did?" Nan was continuously surprised when Donny remembered things she couldn't. She'd always felt like the big sister, though he was five years older.

    He pursed his lips - she hated when he did that. It was the only time he looked disabled - retarded. He laboriously traced his own name in the sand.

    Nan laughed. "When did you learn that?"

    He glanced up and smiled. "You know."

    She remembered now. She liked to play teacher and Donny was always willing to be the student and, if she didn't ask too much, was a good one. She could almost feel the summer sun beating on her back and how it shimmered off the bright sand. Eight years old? Donny would have been thirteen and already helping out at the diner where Momma worked. A man could always earn his keep if he knew how to wash dishes, she'd said. Nan suspected that giving Donny any skills made Momma feel better about his chances to get along in life. Hadn't she trusted scatter-brained Nan to take care of him?

    The splash of wet sand interrupted her memories. "Oh Donny," she whispered and gathered him into her embrace. "Momma's with the angels now. With Dad again. And you will be with Benny and me - and Martin." Donny liked Martin, always had. Martin, the 'good man', had always liked Donny, the eternal child. Whatever Martin and she had done wrong in their relationship hadn't changed that.

    "Yep... But..." he choked out. "I don't know how to be somewhere not here."

    "It's not too hard. You just go. It's who you're with that's important."

    She saw doubt in his eyes and, with equal parts desperation and inspiration (the thought occurred to her that sometimes they might be the same thing, after all), she scooped up the sand in which their names were written and funneled it into the plastic bag.

    "Here. Take it with us. No matter where you put it, it will still be sand... This sand." She hugged him again, and then put him at arms' length. "Just as you will always be you. No matter where you are. We will always be we."

    Martin came back down the lane with a smile behind his eyes. Yes, he was in love. She examined the realization and found less grief than she expected... Almost a hope that if he could then she might.

    He squatted beside Donny and looked at the bag of sand. From the gully he picked up a shiny piece of quartz and added it, carefully zippering the plastic.

    "Don't want the dirt to get lonely," he said. "Are you two okay?"

    Donny, though forever a child, often sounded like an old man. "You know, Marty? I think we're fixing to be." He sniffed and pointed at his chest.

    "Cuz, I'm always going to be me."

    "I'm glad," Martin said.

    "And we will always be we," Donny said, tucking the bag of home in his jeans.

    Martin met Nan's eyes, promising without words that some things - for a 'good man', anyway - don't change, and said, "Yes, we will."