What difference does it make?" he asked.

"It makes a lot of difference. Who won makes a lot ofdifference."

"What?"

"Who won. Mama or that other woman."

"Well, that's the--"

"I know." She turned the lamp around so that it wouldn't shine inCarol's eyes and sat down on the foot of the bed. "It's an awful thing towonder. And none of my business, anyway. But it's important to know, forall kinds of reasons."

He began searching through his crumpled cigarette pack for thelast cigarette, not looking at her.

"Here, take mine," she said.

"Not menthol."

"They won't kill you."

She threw the pack at him; it fell on the floor in front of himand he picked it up and leaned back against the bureau.

"Two weeks before he died," Joanne said, "he was at home. I knowhe was. Jenny put it just beautifully, in this letter she wrote me. Shesaid, 'You'll be happy to know Daddy has got back from his trip'--'trip';that's an interesting choice of words--'and he's living at home now.' Now,where was he when he died? Still at home?"

"At Lili Belle's," Ben Joe said.

"At-- Oh." She shook her head. "Lately I've stopped thinking abouther by her name," she said. "What with Gram calling her 'Another's House'all the time."

"Well, he didn't mean to go and die there," said Ben Joe."He'd just been drinking a little, is all. Went out to get ice cubes andthen forgot which home he was supposed to be going back to. Mom explainedthat to Lili Belle."

"Mom explained it to Lili Belle?"

"Well, yes. It was her that Lili Belle called soon as he died. Hegot to Lili Belle's with a pain in his chest and died a little after. SoLili Belle called Mom, and Mom came to explain how it was our house he'dreally intented going back to and not hers; just a mistake. And Lili Bellehadn't really won after all."

"Looks like to me she had."