Lola smiled at the memories before she said, “Well, for God’s sake, Cady, I’m not exactly eager to go either, but that’s not my decision to make. Are you going to write my memoirs for me? It’s around sixty-five million.”

“Dollars?” Cady gasped, her jaw dropping.

“So, are you going to write my memoirs or not?”

Cady nodded. “If you want me to.” She tried to absorb the news that she’d inherit sixty-five million.

“You’ll have to quit that safe, boring job of yours and devote all your time to me. Well, not all your time. I want you to continue working on your dissertation. Are you willing to do that? It also means you’ll have to get out and about, and it damn well means you’re going to have to start to live.”

A gamut of emotions swirled through Cady’s head. Was she willing to do all that? Could she do as Lola asked? “Yes. Yes, I’ll do that. I’ll fax my resignation today. But I really don’t know much about writing memoirs. Writing memoirs and writing a dissertation are two different things. In case you’re interested, mine is about fear in the works of Joseph Conrad and I’m having a hard time with it. We can talk about that some other time, Lola.

“When would you like to get started?” Cady asked with a smile.

“You learned to be a technical writer, so I don’t think you’ll have a bit of trouble. Tomorrow if you’re up to it. I think I’m going to take a little nap now. Ask Mandy to show you where all my scrapbooks are. I know they’re someplace in the library. I haven’t looked at them in years. You might want to familiarize yourself with the contents before we start tomorrow. Have you gone to the pond yet, Cady?”

“No. I have to work up to that, Lola.”

“Have you gone by your old house?”

“No. I have to work up to that, too.”

“How about the cemetery where the boy is buried?”

“I don’t know if I can ever go there, Lola. I wish you’d let me call you Grandmother. Calling you Lola sounds so disrespectful. Maybe I’ll…go there one of these days. Then again, maybe I won’t.”

“Are you going to call your old friends?” Lola yawned elaborately.

“I thought about it but…maybe later on. There’s no hurry. I’ll go down to the library and let you take your nap now. Do you want Atlas to stay with you?”

“That would be nice,” Lola said, closing her eyes.

“Stay with Lola, Atlas. I’m going down to the library. Come and get me if she wakes up.”

The big dog squirmed closer to the frail woman. Cady swore the shepherd nodded in agreement.

The library had the look of Winston Churchill’s personal library. She had seen a picture of it in a book when she was in college. Cady pulled out the leather chair behind the desk and sat down. The rich scent of leather permeated the air. Her gaze swept the room. A frown built between her brows as she stared at the wall-to-wall shelves of books. Lola couldn’t sit still long enough to read a book. She just knew the spines had never been broken on any of the books. To test her judgment, she got up and walked over to what appeared to be a shelf of recent best-sellers. She pulled out books at random. All of them looked like they had just come from a bookstore. Even the leather-bound classics looked new and unread. So, who were the books for? She decided they were just for looks.