“Let me talk to your dad. See what their plans are.” Ginny checked her watch again. Fred always wanted to eat at noon, a holdover from his growing up on the farm. The tears made her sniff.

“We’ll make cookies after we eat?” Addy asked.

“Yes. Take Spook with you.”

“Maybe he wants to stay back.”

“We’ll see.” Spook had been staying close beside her much of the time. As if he was still grieving too.

Addy called, “Come on, Spook, let’s go to the barn.”

Spook wagged his tail but, instead of scrambling up, looked to Ginny.

“It’s okay, boy, you go with Addy.” He looked from Addy to Ginny. She nodded and said, “It’s okay, you go.”

Addy slapped her thigh and pushed open the door. When she leaped off the steps, Spook leaped with her.

In the kitchen, Ginny opened the refrigerator. Amalia had made lime Jell-O with cottage cheese. Probably to keep the cottage cheese from going bad. The idea of grilled tuna sandwiches made her nod. She pulled out the mayo, sweet hamburger pickles, and half an onion in a plastic storage bag. A couple cans of tuna from the pantry and she set to fixing it. As she drained the tuna at the sink, she paused to watch two hummingbirds at the feeder hanging from the eaves. The feeder was full; again, it had to be thanks to Amalia. Things had not suffered around here due to this faithful friend. Tears of gratitude didn’t feel a whole lot different than those of grief, but they stopped a lot sooner and didn’t leave her feeling as beat up as a washer tub at the end of the cycle.

She chopped the onion fine and added it to the tuna and mayo, then the pickles not so fine. She found a loaf of bread in the freezer and laid the slices out on the counter. Three pairs would be enough. How would she ever learn to cook for one? She remembered their early years, the difficulty of learning to cook for two rather than for six like at her home. While her mother and father both worked, she, the eldest, and the other kids did the small farming chores, mostly 4-H animals. Now her parents were milking three cows, had three steers in the pasture, Duroc hogs for another brother’s project, and her chickens. Shame they all lived so far away now. Actually, she was the one who’d moved when she married Fred.

She set out the griddle and turned the dial once she heard their voices.

“Grandma, can we eat out on the deck?”

“Of course. Come get a cloth to wash the table off.”

“What do you want me to do?” Amalia turned the cold faucet on and dumped a load of leaf lettuce in to wash. “The radishes are wormy but they still taste good.”