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Show Woodworth/72 went away to school, all three of them had taken out paints and played painter. Remember? Megan got oil paint in her hair, and had to wash it out with turpentine. All our clothes had to be thrown away. The place where you were going to paint a mural on the wall had to be re-painted, and the rest of the room didn't match the color. Mom said she only spanked you because you were a ring-leader, and starting to get wild. You wouldn't talk to anyone for three days, not even me. You wouldn't even let me in your room, and it was worse than if I had been spanked, too. I even went and told Mom that it was really all my fault. That it had been all my idea, and that I should be spanked, too. I tried to do things that would be worse than you, but they weren't interested in punishing me, I guess. They never said anything about any of the things that I did. I even thought of giving you a note saying that you could hit me, if you wanted, to make up for us not getting spanked. But Megan said that then you would want to hit her, too, and she didn't think it was fair. Later, when she and Rachael would spend afternoons painting in her room, Marty went to see if the paintings and the paint tubes were still there. But the closet was empty, except for the cardboard box that her father had kept the Santa Claus suit in, and the smell of mothballs. "How come you stopped writing?" she asks. "Well, I met your father. Tfen I left college. And then, Jake came. And the rest of you. There just wasn't time any more." Ruth pushes her wine glass across the table, and Ned fills it for |