Miss Hannah set a plate of cookies—homemade, chocolate chip—on the table. I eyed the plate. I’d always done my best to follow my mother’s rule, No snacks before mealtime. But some days required chocolate. Or vodka, my sister Jo’s voice said in my head.

I got up to wash my hands. Took a cookie. “Thank you.”

“So what did the doctors say today?” Miss Hannah asked.

The crumbs caught in my throat. “Mom’s biopsy results are back. She has a bone infection.” “Osteomyelitis,” the orthopedist said. I’d made him spell the word twice so I could look it up later. For the first few minutes all I’d really heard were the words he didn’t say, Not cancer, not cancer, not cancer, beating over and over in my brain.

“An infection,” Miss Hannah repeated.

I nodded. “From when she cut herself moving the paddock this summer? Apparently the bacteria traveled through her bloodstream and got into her spine.”

“So what are they going to do?” Miss Hannah said.

“Well.” I swallowed. “They put a port in her arm. For her antibiotics? But it takes, like, four hours for her to get all her medication through the IV, and she’s still in a lot of pain. The doctor says that at some point she might be able to get the drugs as an outpatient. But until she can manage basic daily activities on her own, they want her to go to rehab.” Four to six weeks, the orthopedist said. Through Christmas. The lump in my throat developed spikes like a seedpod from a sweet gum tree.

“Well, that’s a blessing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Abby needs somebody to take care of her. Lord knows your father can’t do it.” Miss Hannah stirred her coffee vigorously. “Bless his heart.”

I blinked. To the patriotic folks of Bunyan, our father was a hero. A saint. All the church ladies had a crush on him, so handsome, tall, and lean, his thick chestnut hair going to gray, his high-bridged nose, his rather thin mouth. Jo looked like him, though nobody ever called her beautiful. I took after our mother.

What would Momma say?

“He’s never had to,” I said. Defending him, the way she would have.

“Well, that’s the truth. That man can’t find the coffeepot without your mother.”

A spurt of laughter escaped me. Granted, Hannah had never been a member of Daddy’s congregation. She taught Sunday school at Greater Zion Baptist Church on the other side of town.

“He’s been eating at the hospital most nights,” I said.

“Cafeteria food.” Hannah sniffed. “I’ll make him my Brunswick stew.”

In birth, death, sickness, and natural disasters, any Southern woman worth her salt showed up at her neighbors’ with a sympathy dish. With Daddy being a former minister and all, the poultry offerings were piling up: chicken and rice, chicken chili, chicken breasts with broccoli and cream of celery soup.

“I’m sure he’d love that,” I said.

“Anything I can do, honey. You know that.”

“Thanks.” I cleared my throat. “Actually, I came to ask your advice. I’ve been helping out at the farm since Momma’s in the hospital. But . . . Well. Daddy’s so busy now, and I’ve got the twins. I can’t do it all myself.”