An odd event last week. Every Thursday I take Mary, my mother who has come to live with us, to her hairdresser's, where she gets a cut and rinse. it is an important ritual for her. She likes being fussed over, and it is about the only chance she gets to talk to people without me being around. I oblige her by splitting for the 45 minutes the haircut takes.

And sometimes, when it is time to come back and pick her up, I bring my son Jon with us, and we go out to lunch. That way Mary gets a chance to show off her haircut in a restaurant while the hair is still right. And Jon gets to eat some food.

We have become the three wandering beggermen, cruising Saint Paul for a place that Mary likes (sit-down service, American cuisine, older clientele) and Jon likes (pizza, deli, and Chinese buffets). Invariably I wind up making the decision, and invariably it tilts more in Mary's direction than Jon's, because she usually pays. But he still recognizes that a free lunch is a good deal, so he accompanies.

On this day, however, Mary suddenly turns to him and asks, "Why don't you like me, Jon? What have I done to keep you from liking me?"

You could have heard a pin drop.

"What do you mean, grandma? I like you," Jon replies. He is guarded. He knows a line has been crossed and we all stand in no man's land.

"Well, you never talk to me when you see me in the house. All you would have to do is say how are you, or how's the weather."

"But, I never talk to anybody. Geez ..." John stares into his ice water.

Donning my referee's stripes, I intervene.

"Jon's right, mom. It's a miracle that he even talks to us. We have to work really hard to keep up with Jon. He's never going to be a big gabber."

I go in a little further. "And, I suppose it's all our faults. We're a funny family. We don't do much small talk. The kids never tolerated us asking how school was when they got home. It's like we have no stomach for everyday things.

"I suppose they get that from Rachel and me. We're hard driving types: 'Dont bother me unless you have something important to say.' I think it must be hard to live with people like us."

My mother batted her eyelids at me. "You've been fine," she says. (That gives you an insight into our relationship right there. I can do no wrong, even when I'm doing lots wrong. Everyone else, look out! It's a safe place to be, but I feel like I'm cheating.)

"Thanks, but I'll be honest, I feel bad I don't feel the luxury to sit and chat for ninety minutes every day with you.  I want to do it for you, so you don't feel lonely. But I've got a head full of my own thoughts, and work I have to do.  Some days it's hard."

I can feel the crisis subsiding. The unspoken fact is that Mary has challenged us as to why we don't like her more. She has always been a powerfully social person, with lots of friends.  She probably assumed, when she moved in with us, that she would continue in that role. But she doesn't really know anyone in Saint Paul, after eight months. So no one besides us likes her at all. She's lonely, unsatisfied, and unsure of herself.

Rachel and Mary are not the same sort of person. They have goodwill for one another, but it is seldom that they glom onto one another in an avid way. It seems they have to be comparing their pasts to make any kind of spark.

And so the summer slips away. Mary needs more to do, and is healthier here than we envisioned she would be. She wants to engage with people ... but is a little timid, too. She wants to finish her grand opus, the genealogical survey of the magnificent family. The struggle, the heartache, the oceans and miles of wandering.

And that family is now just the three of us, sitting in a cafe in Minnesota, chasing meatballs with our forks.