Mrs. Sarah Atkins was in the room with us. With a burst of energy that seemed to come from nowhere, Miss Margurette leaned over and looked up at Miss Sarah. With a look of almost childish plotting on her face, she asked, “See if there’s any water in that jug, honey.” She grabbed a pillbox and shook it. It was empty. She frowned, threw her head back on the pillow, and yelled: “Viola! I said, Bring my medicine!”

After a minute I heard the front screen door banging like a shotgun and the approaching bare feet of Viola. She stood there with a look of accusation on her face, not looking at either Miss Sarah or me. “Ain’t there none in that bottle?”

“If there was would I a called you?”

Viola teetered back into an annoyed stance. She wore a faded burgundy dress that rode high on her hips. Sweat beaded on her forehead and rolled down the side of her neck, and there was a beer in her hand.

“And then there’s them two others I’m supposed to take now. And I needs some water too.”

“All right.” This time she looked at me. There was something akin to contempt in her leer. But I was used to it by then. Viola Honeyblue Stone gave everyone that look. But my being a minister and a Greene didn’t make things any better.

“Oh, Viola.” Viola gave her mother a barely audible groan. “Bring me a beer instead.”

A wicked smile crossed Viola’s face. It was a smirk, really. She looked directly at me. There was a pause as if she were waiting for me to respond, perhaps to chide Miss Margurette­—­especially on a Sunday.

But the old lady turned to me and Miss Sarah, saying, “Now you all want something to drink?” As if to say without saying, she didn’t give a damn who was sitting there. She was going to drink what she felt like drinking even if the good Lord himself was seated there.

Miss Sarah fidgeted a bit at my side. There was a thirsty and expectant look about her mouth. She glanced my way, then cast her eyes down only to look up to Miss Margurette with a new and manufactured concern: “Now, Margie. You reckon you ought to be drinking such in your condition?”

Miss Margurette threw back her head in a laugh punctuated by a wracking cough. “Child, the way I look at it, it don’t make no difference if I drinks piss-weak orange juice or gut-rottening stumphole liquor. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”

“Go ahead, Miss Sarah.” I was trying to be as straightforward and nonauthoritarian as I could—as if I had any authority in that room. “If you want to, just go on ahead. Ain’t no harm.”