“About Brickell—I didn’t make any plans for the summer.” Mary Beth kept her tone neutral. “How long were you thinking of staying?”

“A few days. Maybe more if you like it there.” The hopeful expression in Alma’s eyes and her beaming smile got to Mary Beth. “You don’t have to run back and care for my son, you know. It’d do him good to not take you for granted.”

Mary Beth managed a semi-smile in return. Alma was right about that.

“Then let’s go,” Mary Beth said.

“Right now?”

“How about as soon as we pack?”

Alma rose stiffly. “Yes. Oh, I do love running away. And it serves Howard right for ditching me for another darn Braves game.”

“We can leave a note for him and call Bobby Joe from the road.”

The prospect of getting away quickened Alma’s careful steps. She was almost out of the room when she turned to Mary Beth and winked. “They’ll survive.”

The drive from Iminga was uneventful. Mary Beth rolled down her window, enjoying the sultry breeze that floated over endless fields to reach them, bringing the green scent of growing crops. It sure was a change from Iminga.

Alma had talked a blue streak for the first half of the trip and not just to Mary Beth. She’d video-chatted with her niece Eve Ross and cooed at the sleeping baby girl in her arms.

Mary Beth kept her eyes on the road but she’d been happy to listen in and say hello to the Rosses. Alma had wrapped it up when the baby fell asleep, and then she worked her way through her contacts list, chatting briefly with pals who were glad to hear that she was well enough to undertake a short journey.

The last ten miles had been phone free. The reception wasn’t too great this far out in the country.

Mary Beth glanced over at Alma, whose eyes were closed.

“You might want to wake up. I think we’re almost there.”

“If you insist.” Alma yawned and looked out the window.

“Am I right?” Mary Beth asked.

“I do believe you are, according to that road marker. It just looks different, that’s all.”

“How long has it been since you went back?”

“Mercy. Let me think. I don’t know exactly. Quite a while. Slow down. That’s the driveway.”

Mary Beth slowed almost to a stop to take the right turn into it, following its meanders and bumping gently over the unpaved parts.

“Yikes. These ruts are deep. How’s your back?”

“Doesn’t hurt a bit,” Alma said. “But I wouldn’t want to do this in the dark. You’d end up in the trees.”

As Alma had promised, Sheila’s house was really in the country, though technically within the township of Brickell.