Miss Caroline was the queen of the room, no doubt about it. Andy and Portia were standing to the right of the bed, and they looked both worried and uneasy as Bill ushered me in. I noticed the absence of Portia’s husband, Glen. A middle-aged African-American woman was sitting in a chair to the left of the bed. She was wearing the bright, loose pants and cheerful tunic that nurses favored now. The pattern made her look as though she worked on a pediatric ward. However, in a room decorated in subdued peach and cream, the splash of color was welcome. The nurse was thin and tall, and wore an incredible wig that reminded me of a movie Cleopatra. She nodded to us as we came closer to the bed. Caroline Bellefleur, who looked like the steel magnolia she was, lay propped up on a dozen pillows in the four-poster bed. There were shadows of exhaustion under her old eyes, and her hands curled in wrinkled claws on the bedspread. But there was still a flicker of interest in her eyes as she looked at us.

“Miss Stackhouse, Mr. Compton, I haven’t seen you since the big wedding,” she said with an obvious effort. Her voice was thin as paper.

“That was a beautiful occasion, Mrs. Bellefleur,” Bill said with an almost equal effort. I only nodded. This was not my conversation to have.

“Please take a seat,” the old woman said, and Bill pulled a chair up closer to her bed. I sat a couple of feet back.

“Looks like that Bible is too big for me to handle now,” the ancient lady said, with a smile. “It was so nice of you to bring it over. I have sure been wanting to see it. Has it been in your attic? I know we don’t have much connection with the Comptons, but I sure wanted to find that old book. Halleigh was nice enough to do some checking for me.”

“As a matter of fact, this book was on my coffee table,” Bill said gently. “Mrs. Bellefleur—Caroline—my second child was a daughter, Sarah Isabelle.”

“Oh my goodness,” said Miss Caroline, to indicate she was listening. She didn’t seem to know where this was headed, but she was definitely attentive.

“Though I didn’t learn this until I read the family page in this Bible after I returned to Bon Temps, my daughter Sarah had four children, though one baby was born dead.”

“That happened so often back then,” she said.

I glanced over at the Bellefleur grandchildren. Portia and Andy weren’t happy that Bill was here, not at all, but they were listening, too. They hadn’t spared a glance for me, which was actually just fine. Though they were puzzled by Bill’s presence, the focus of their thoughts was the woman who had raised them and the visible fact that she was fading away.