The family's internal relations sank lower, although no outright war existed. Norm continued to see his girl, now referred to as "Tracy," while Mom and Dad continued to wonder and worry as each date seemed to end at a later hour. I merely continued to go to school and do my chores on Saturday. As I dusted Norm's room, I noticed greeting cards which he had received from Tracy, the softly romantic kind that I dreamed over at the drug store. Love, Tracy...her signature was a hurried scrawl, the letters a combination of vertical lines and rigid points. I picked up each card and dusted the dresser, carefully replacing them in their orderly march across the old piece of furniture. A spare pair of Norm's glasses rested on the vanity. I took off my glasses and placed his on my face. Pulling aside the curtain, I gazed at the woods below, blinking to counteract the strength of his glasses, I could see like an eagle! Norm's eyes were still worse than mine, but mine were going fast. With each child, eyesight grew progressively poorer in our family. I knew I was doomed. Distraught, I took off the glasses and moved to the other side of the vanity. A furry ball wearing a horned helmet and brandishing a wooden club met my eyes, and I picked up the Nordic figure with a smile. I figured that it was a gift from Tracy but I asked Norm anyway. "Yeh...," he admitted with a grin. "She likes to think of me as a Viking." Upon the celebration of Norm's birthday he received a beautifully tailored shirt from Tracy. She was a gifted seamstress, fitting shirts to Norm's muscular frame in a way that could not be equalled. Such specialization and effort made me certain that she wanted to snare Norm. Aside from occasional, subtle teasing, I did not burden Norm with a parcel of inquiries. If the relationship was as "serious" (or, "sincere," a word which I prefer) as it seemed, Tracy would soon have to make an appearance. So it was that one evening, when Mom happened to be gone, Norm brought Tracy to meet us. She was thin, well-proportioned and attractive, and quite unlike my mental meanderings. Her personality was pleasantly outgoing, yet not overbearing. I liked her immediately; she made a good "first impression." Mom finally met Tracy during a family rendezvous at my sister's home. We no longer had to subsist upon fragments of unsubstantial suppositions; Tracy was a person, not a figment of one's imagination. The introduction helped to mask the tensions within our home, yet something remained amiss which corroded the trust between my parents and Norm. He battled for freedom; as is often the case, however, the conflicts were internal, waged between who he was and who he wanted to be in an uncertain world.