She slapped at one as it landed on her Grandma Tates patio chair. She didnt want to kill it, just scare it away. It went flittering off in search of someone elses blood. As she watched it go flying out over Grandma Tates acre and a half of back yard, the back door that connected the patio to the kitchen opened up.

Florence Tate came out carrying a pitcher of sweet tea and two large glasses. She was seventy-three, looked closer to sixty, and carried herself like a forty-year-old. Today, she was wearing a sun hat that Rachel knew looked ridiculous, but Grandma Tate somehow made it look fashionable. She poured them each a glass of tea, wedges of lemon and rapidly melting ice swirling around inside the pitcher as she poured.

We can do dinner later, Florence said. I figure I may as well get the whole danged mess over with. No sense in putting it off now, is it?

Grandma Tate never had been one for beating around the bush, or, as she had always called it, pussyfooting. Yet, for a while there, Rachel had nearly forgotten the whole reason for coming down. Grandma Tate had called last week with a cryptic message, letting her know there was something she needed to say but not over the phone. And when you had elderly loved ones, such a message was never truly a positive thing.

Well, Ive only been here for fifteen minutes, Rachel said. And in that time, I was guided out to the patio and am now being comforted with what I can assume is some exceptionally sweet tea. That, plus you referring to it as a mess is sort of freaking me out.

Florence waved this away as she sat down in the patio chair next to Rachel. There you go, going all FBI on me. She chuckled and let out a sigh. When she looked at Rachel, there was a hint of sadness in her eyes, slightly blunted by the shadow of the sun hat falling over her brow. Over the course of the past three months or so, Ive been going back and forth to the doctor, she went on. As of two weeks ago, I officially have breast cancer.

The suddenness of the way she said it struck Rachel in an odd way. Shed known something bad was coming and shed also known that Grandma Tate would be blunt about it. But this was a whole new level. It was so disarming that Rachel almost missed the heaviness and seriousness of the news.