In the morning, the Wrights went to the Congregational Church. Reverend Osgood delivered a sermon on expectations and arrogance and how these get in the way of belief and faith and hope and love. At one point the congregation recited, "We are ready to pray and think and rejoice. We are burdened by excess baggage as we travel the roads you send us down. Too often we wish to be served rather than to serve. After the service, Wallace Barrow seemed genuinely lighthearted, taking Neil aside to whisper in his ear, "Carla Spagnoli called my wife. I know what's going on. People are of all kinds. I tried to warn you. That Planning Committee was all your idea." His wife Candyce walked up, holding snooty Carla Spagnoli's hand. "Good morning," Neil said politely, even as he waved to the approaching town postmaster, James Copperstown, smiling huge as moonshine.

The next day was Patriot's Day -- a holiday in Massachusetts. Neil stayed home. Minna went in to work at the Mill Wheel Restaurant -- her last day there. Monday evening was lovely. Minna and Mark were in front of the apartment, planting flowers. Neil was reluctant to depart. He went over to one of Camperdene's old folks' homes for a gathering of the Camperdene Historical Society. Ben Mulvane spoke about his old neighborhoods and his father and his brother Joe who were so close that when his brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor his father died, followed by his brother a month later.

On Tuesday, the Planning Committee met again. Ben Mulvane read his minutes for the previous meeting, prefacing his report with thanks to Reggie Barrow, Chairman of the House Committee and to his father Wallace Barrow, Chairman of the Executive Committee.

"The Planning Process Committee has met four times. There was discussion, and questions were raised regarding the .Master Plan submitted by the museum curator. The results of these meetings are being submitted herewith for action. The understanding of our responsibilities is that we were to consider the needs and the direction for growth for both the adult and youth departments. However the specifics for their implementation were then to be carried out by the appropriate committees. With the presentation of Mission Statements, Collection Development Guidelines, and Suggestions for Action that have been attached and have been approved by this committee, we feel we have completed the task for which this committee was established."

Mid-way through this meeting, Carla Spagnoli telephoned the Barrow household. Reginald couldn't make it, but the father would be right over. Wallace Barrow, just back from his Rotary Club meeting, showed up in a flannel shirt so rich in its blueness it looked like it could light up in darkness. "Just back from the Rotary," he informed the committee merrily. "Just changed my shirt."

Carla, speaking for the Committtee, asked Wallace if, having submitted its report, this committee had not now discharged its duties.

"Carla," Wallace said. "You're asking me what I can't tell you. The Executive Committee will be meeting Thursday. I'll ask the committee if this committee ought to be disbanded or not. Each of you will receive a letter, saying whether or not this committee will be disbanded or kept intact. I can't tell you. You'll be getting a letter."

That night, back home after the meeting, Neil went quietly over to Minna, horizontal on the couch reading Herman Hesse's Unterm Rad. Laying himself down on the floor parallel to her, he asked if he could interrupt her reading long enough to ask how she was doing these days. She said, "I'm pregnant." She did not lift her eyes from the page.

In the morning, Neil announced the news to little Mark, still lighthearted in the aftermath of having had his cast removed a few days before. "You're going to have a little sister or brother."

Mark responded at once, smiling: "Sister."

"What will be her name?" Minna asked.

"Jillian," Mark said.

Glorious, sunny springtime weather. Minna had planted a splendid array of flowers out front of the Wright's apartment. The first buds of April were coming up green and beautiful. Minna told Neil she had not been feeling very well. She told him, dispassionately, that it really wasn't so much that she had morning sickness as it is that she had morning-afternoon-evening sickness. Minna said she'd been feeling sick generally. She was, she said -- homesick. "Neil," she announced, "I'm going to go to Germany -- for a month."

This did not sit well with him.

That night, the museum's House Committee met. Reggie Barrow and Captain Cunningham.discussed the eventual installation of "energy-savers" -- new lighting and the disposal of the old, oversized basement water heater, replacing it with a new and smaller one. They may as well have said the museum was to be torn down, paved over, and a parking lot put in. Neil wasn't paying much attention.

At the next meeting of the Executive Committee of the Museum Association, procrastination on these issues -- the new lighting in the adult area, the disposal of the old, oversized basement water heater, and the replacement of it with a new and smaller one -- was unanimously approved. Then the strangest thing happened. The Committe approved a request Neil had made, which had been set on a back burner -- way back. Now they were knocking him out of his chair with news of their approving a Special Collection at the library, "The Art of the Book in Camperdene."

That same evening, the Friends of the Museum held their Annual Meeting downstairs. Neil ran in and announced to local bookbinder Nick Wentworth, the president of the Friends group, that the special collection, The Art of the Book in Camperdene, was going forward. He promptly closed out the meeting while Neil closed the museum, then the two went together to Greene's Corner Grocery and got some potato salad and ale and walked to Borden Street, to his shop, Cock's Crow Bindery, to celebrate.

They repeated the celebration the following evening as well, and Neil got a good night's sleep and woke up at 10:00 on Saturday and showered and shaved and went to the Lutheran Church for their "White Elephant Sale and Luncheon" where he chatted with Rudy, a colorful local character who'd also lived in Montana and Switzerland. He'd already met Neil's wife and son. He knew all there was to know about the Association's antiquarian holdings. He wondered what had become of stuff no one was now able to account for anymore. He'd seen the stuff before it had been missing, before he'd up and gone west to Montana.

Later that afternoon, Neil headed over to the museum. He took the phone book in hand. As had already happened once before, he again managed to dial up Walter Barrow in error, intending to call Captain Cuningham. So he ended up explaining to Wallace Barrow the idea he'd intended to share with the Captain.

Says Barrow: "Listen here, young man. Get your mind off of the museum. You've got too much energy. You have to learn to just kick around, waste time, you know, just go out shopping with the wife -- go to a mall and shop around and forget the rest and be with your family."

Neil knew he was right on that count, and he told him so. He reached the Captain later in the day, asking if he, as head of the Historical Commission, would speak at the museum, talking about the history of Camperdene, some historic town buildings, the Museum Association's current efforts to organize, preserve, and make accessible its collections, and to introduce the new special collection, The Art of the Book in Camperdene. The Captain okay'd this. He said, by the way, that his wife was going to be out that evening, and he'd probably be spending his evening at the library.

That afternoon, Neil drove his wife and son to Springfield, where they got on a bus going to Boston, to Logan Airport, to board their plane going to Germany.

On Monday and Tuesday, Neil attended an arts and sciences museums conference, then went to the Regional Council Meeting of the Massachusetts Museums Association, then a Camperdene Chamber of Commerce Luncheon, followed by an Executive Meeting of The Museum of the Year 1912 Board of Trustees, after which came a meeting with the director of the public library, followed by their attending together the Council on Aging Special Forum "Elder Concerns," then the Friends of the Museum Book Sale, the Garden Club's annual Plant, Food, and Tag Sale on the Museum's front lawn, and then the Veteran's Day Parade, in which he joined, wearing a red shirt and suspenders, waving a straw hat to the cheering crowd.

It was a glorious springtime. The trees filled in explosively, obscuring the view to the pond out back of the house. From Germany, Minna sent an ultrasound printout made at the time of her amniocentesis test. She'd seen the baby on the ultrasound scanner screen. The doctor had got his amniotic fluid samples. Neil got an ultrasound snapshot of the baby growing in her -- a girl.

They were staying at Minna's mother's house. She had not been well. Alzheimer's, apparently. She seemed healthy, still strong, but she believed Prince Charles had moved in with her, and so forth. Having been a somber, sullen person most her life, she was now, in her old age, jolly and silly and fun. Minna reported Mark was enjoying his jolly old Oma very much.

Neil's heart ached when he saw the pictures of Mark and Minna all around the house. He fantasized about Minna -- the two sitting at a table, staring into each other's eyes, very much in love -- not a fight in recent memory.

That week, Neil helped the Camperdene Public Library director put together a temporary watercolor exhibit with three accompanying workshops and also helped her organize an area "Disaster Preparedness" workshop, "The Fine Art of Dealing With Disaster" (The Camperdene Daily Journal touted it thus: "Thirty area librarians and museum workers watched grinning, some grimacing, yesterday afternoon as Camperdene's Museum of the Year 1912 Curator Neil Wright focused a stream of water on a heap of photographs, furniture, fine art, and books. Before the hosedown, some cardboard was set on fire and the folks practiced using fire extinguishers and setting up pumps. A crew and truck from the Camperdene Fire Department came by and shot some water around. The idea was to impress everyone with just how much water one hose can deliver in a short time. Then there was an object removal drill. Human chains were formed and the groups saw how quickly they could get art works and books out of the building. Neil displayed two milk crates full of frosty books, and showed how to wrap them in freezer-paper so they wouldn't all congeal. A de-briefing centered on two key issues: The importance of having one person in charge and also of having a good working relationship with the fire department. Once the fire department arrives on the scene, the group was reminded, they own the building. 'Over my dead body,' joked Museum Association President Wallace Barrow of the Barrow Funeral Home, directly across the street from the library.")

Susan Seymour-Stanton organized "A Salute to Museum-going Children." Within two days, Carla Spagnoli was calling again furious: "I want to know why I did not receive an invitation."

"To?" Neil asked.

"Don't give me that!" she barked. "The reception."

"Reception?"

"Who sent out the invitations?"

"Invitations?"

"Don't give me that. I didn't I receive an invitation and I think I should have got an invitation. You are in trouble. I will see to that."

Veronica Pillsbury had just come in prior to Spagnoli's call. Now she saw Neil holding the phone away from his ear, and she heard the caller squawking.

"Carla," Neil asked, would you like to speak with Veronica Pillsbury?"

"No," Spagnoli said. Then she changed her mind. "Yes. Put her on."

Neil looked pleadingly at Veronica Pillsbury who, with obvious reservations, took the phone. She told Neil, after she got off the phone, that Carla was furious with her -- and Neil -- for not inviting her to the "Salute to Museum-going Children."

Before heading home, Neil phoned Wallace Barrow to ask for five minutes of his time. He went over to the mortuary. Barrow met him at the office door with beads of sweat on his forehead and an oriental fan in his hand. He led Neil down a hall to the cool, dark funeral parlor. "I hope you don't mind a dead body in the room," he says, gesturing Neil toward a chair. A white-haired old lady was laid to rest, encircled by flowers, on a broad-topped oak bureau. Neil sat.

Barrow asked him, would he care to know something helpful to know as concerned Carla Spagnoli? Neil thought on it. Barrow barged right on, whispering. "She tips 'em in."

Neil was looking over at the body at the bier.

"Did you hear me?" Barrow whispered. "I said, she tips 'em in." He was gesturing, with his right hand, the gusty downing of a tall drink. "She is known to take in a little from time to time."

As Neil departed the funeral home, Wheel was saying, "You have to learn how to deal with women."