Mary Beth felt a surge of happiness. Being alone, exploring a new place, not having a schedule was exactly what she needed right now.

She went back inside and made herself a quick breakfast of eggs and toast. Before she sat down to eat it, she turned on the kitchen radio and tuned in to a country station. There was Faith Hill singing about being a Mississippi girl.

“You and me both,” Mary Beth said.

She ate in contented solitude, mentally planning her day. The garden first, before it got too hot. Then a hose-off, followed by a jump in the pool. Then she would change and saunter out to the hammock like a queen, a bug swatter for a scepter.

She deliberately didn’t look at her phone.

There were only coffee cups and saucers in the sink, besides the single plate and cutlery that she added when she was done. Mary Beth pulled off her rings before she did the washing up. When she dried her hands, she didn’t put the rings back on.

Garden dirt didn’t go with diamonds. She was fed up with Bobby Joe, but that didn’t mean she wanted to insult him, even in absentia.

Mary Beth went out and down the path, stopping at the stump. There was also a can of bug spray, which she hadn’t seen from the porch. The cool spray tickled her bare legs and midriff, but it was worth it not to be eaten alive. She slipped the yellow clogs onto her bare feet.

The garden was only twenty feet from the house but the trees hid it well. It was enormous and rather unkempt. A profusion of tangled vines climbed one fence and made it sag. Small green and yellow squash hung under the sprawling leaves, and the bigger ones lay in the dirt, next to staked tomatoes that looked ripe enough to burst. The lettuce was a mess, mostly brown and withered from the heat. The tall, dark green leaves of collards could take it. A narrow brick walkway separated the vegetables from a cutting garden in riotous bloom. She recognized the flowers from the vase.

Mary Beth took a basket from the fence and opened the gate. She waded in, picking whatever looked good and ripe, from vegetables to berries, hoping she wouldn’t have to fight that possum for the garden’s bounty. But they were nocturnal, she reminded herself. That furry feeling by her ankle was only a thick-stemmed vine of some sort, reaching out to grab her and eat her alive.

The basket was brimming with goodies in only minutes. Mary Beth went out the way she’d come in, pausing at the fence to look behind her. She could swear there was no trace of her footsteps, as if the luxuriant garden had closed ranks against the intruder. Nature had a way of running rampant in the Mississippi climate.