I drove to the center of town, where Christmas lights shaped like holly and snowflakes hung from all the lampposts. Parked in the lot for the Cape Fear Bank and Trust, a few blocks from the waterfront.

“Meg!” Anita Jackson, behind the counter, waved me forward. “You coming back to work today?”

A joke. She asked the same question every time I came in.

“Not today,” I said, smiling the way I always did.

“Too bad. We miss you around here,” Anita said. “How’s that handsome coach of yours?”

Three years since John left Caswell High, and he was still “Coach” in town. The time would come when folks wouldn’t see him that way anymore. I would miss it, I realized.

So would he.

“He’s fine.” I swallowed. “We’re all fine.”

“So, what can I do for you today?”

I plopped my mom bag down on the divider. “I need to make a deposit to my mother’s account. For the farm. Can you look up the number for me?”

“Sure thing. How’s Abby doing?”

“Oh, you know. She has her good days and bad days.” Yesterday she didn’t want to get out of bed. Or even sit up in bed. Too much pain, the nurses said. Because of the fall? Or something else? “I’m going to go see her today.”

Anita nodded. “It’s a process. When my mother had her hip replacement . . .”

I half listened, making vague, sympathetic noises while I checked my phone. Nothing from Jo.

She’d sounded so happy when she called yesterday. I should have been more understanding. I should have asked more questions. At least I could have called her back.

Well. Something else to put on the list.

Anita peered at me over the top of her glasses, waiting for a reply.

I flushed. “Excuse me?”

“Did you want this to go to the equity line of credit?” Anita asked.

“No.” What line of credit? “Regular checking. The farm account.” I couldn’t pay Hannah in cash, as if she were babysitting.

“I’m only asking because the payment on the equity loan was due three weeks ago,” Anita said. “This would just about cover it.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Your mother’s loan payment. It’s overdue.”

I stared at her.

“We sent a notice,” Anita said.

I thought of the mail, piling up at the house. “She’s been sick.”

“Honey, I know,” Anita said. “There’s a grace period, of course. Fifteen days. But she’s a week past that now.”

My mind stumbled. There must be some mistake. I had set up lines of credit for a lot of farmers to buy equipment or see them through unexpected expenses, a lean season or a bad year. But if my mother had ever applied for a bank loan, I would know.

Unless . . . Unease wriggled inside me, like the fuzzy worm at the core of an apple. Unless she’d done it since I left the bank.

Three years ago.

I took a calming breath. Obviously, my parents had to make adjustments when my father left active duty. Whatever salary he drew from his nonprofit could not equal his military pay. Three years ago, he had moved his ministry out of the church basement and into its current storefront location. The rent couldn’t be that much. But . . .