8:9) Hope O'Keeffe 02-SEP-97 10:36

She wonders at the different worlds. She has been this weekend in the world of a family, 66 names of children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren painted on a wooden box made from an old hutch cabinet, a box of 94-year old ashes buried by a family with stories and songs. They'd left the shovel leaning against the boxwood, scooping dirt into the grave with bare hands, a last gift. All the stories are true, but they aren't all the stories, actually, and afterwards the cousins sit until 4 in the morning telling the rest in those soft working class Boston accents. She craves them now, those accents she tried to hard to lose, folding around her like an overwashed comforter, tucked about sleeping babies on the couch. Instead there is the blinking cursor and the ringing phone, and outside the window the last of the summer tourists, sharing the Washington sidewalks with lawyers and bureaucrats and bagladies and t-shirt vendors, 3 for $10.