“Can’t say that I have. But I know Delta General is the best hospital for miles around.”

“Yes. I’m glad Alma and Bobby Joe are there and they’re getting the best care available. But they still need us to keep them company, fetch things, read to them. . . .” She trailed off.

“Us?”

“Me and Parr. Bobby Joe’s older brother.”

“Oh yeah. Heard of him.”

Jackie’s tone was neutral. Mary Beth hoped she would say more, but Jackie didn’t. Stillwaters, the expensive restaurant where she was hostess, was the kind of place where men brought women they wanted to impress, not a family type eatery.

“Anyway, Mary Beth, you can’t do everything. I doubt anyone’s expecting so much of you. There are aides and volunteers around, right?”

“Sometimes. Not always right when you need them. I don’t want Bobby Joe to have to wait for a pillow to prop his leg or to get left in some hallway when he’s waiting for an X-ray. And there are things that the aides can’t handle.”

“Like what?”

Mary Beth was reluctant to get into it. But it was a relief to talk freely to someone who wasn’t a family member.

“Like . . . well, when Bobby Joe was unconscious for so long, all I could think was what if he wakes up screaming? I felt like I had to be there all the time. If he had a nightmare or didn’t know where he was, I didn’t want him seeing a stranger’s face when he came out of it.”

Jackie considered that possibility. “Oh. Hadn’t thought of that. But he isn’t under sedation anymore, right?”

“No.”

Jackie lifted herself out of the hot water and wrapped a giant towel around her entire body, knotting it at the top so it wouldn’t slip. “Quit sloshing around. Let’s go get a rubdown.”

Mary Beth hoisted herself up and accepted the towel Jackie held out, covering herself. “Looking forward to that.”

Jackie wasn’t likely to ask pointed questions with two masseuses there to listen in. She reached down to the small tray where Mary Beth had put both diamond rings and the necklace with the strawberry ruby. Jackie glanced at the jewelry and focused on the pendant. “That’s a pretty little thing. Where’d you get that?”

“It was a gift.”

She hoped Jackie would assume that Bobby Joe had given it to her. She was relieved when Jackie seemed to lose interest.

Mary Beth kept everything on the tray, which she held as her friend collected the personal items she’d brought into the hot tub room—among them, a smartphone. Jackie was never without it. “Give me a sec. I have to text the other hostess. Cherry and I were planning to swap shifts.”

She tapped the screen, humming. “Cherry knows Parr from back in the day.”

“Oh?”