“But because they’ve never lived as a human being, never laughed or cried or been surprised, never been beaten down by life, they are fundamentally inhuman…or maybe unhuman would be a better way to put it…I don’t know…but because they’re like they are, I don’t see how it’s possible for them to have genuine sympathy for the everyday human condition. My sitting here crying right now, you holding my hand, how much we love each other, how much we miss a child that was never born…none of this makes a damn bit of difference to the soul of my daughter. She’s an angel now, and the angels, they have more important things to concern themselves with than an unmarried girl with the blues.”

Henrietta stared at her for several seconds, then squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I can’t say I agree with everything you say, hon—I mean, I think every Heavenly soul cares about the people they left behind, even them ones they didn’t live long enough to meet—but I think you’re right about the angel part. Don’t that make you feel even a little bit better?”

“Not really, no.” Then she saw the hurt in her mother’s eyes and felt guilty; here the woman was, probably so tired she could barely stand, and she was trying to make her daughter feel better, and all her daughter could do was throw it back in her face. No wonder the woman hardly smiled anymore.

Lucy forced a smile onto her face. “I didn’t mean that, Mom. This is helping a lot. I really appreciate you listening to me.”

“You’re my flesh and blood, hon, of course I’m gonna to listen to you. I love you more than anything.”

The tears she’d been holding back since her mother had come into the kitchen finally began flowing from Lucy’s eyes. “I love you too, Mom. I really do.” She leaned forward into Henrietta’s embrace.

“You’re going find yourself a good man someday soon,” said Henrietta, “and you’re going to be real happy, and you’re going to make me a grandmother—and I’ll have you know that last one’s an order, because I plan on being a breathtaking grandmother who’ll spoil them kids rotten. And just so you know, I expect you to give me at least two, a boy and a girl. You want to give me more than that, well…that’d be all right, too. The more the merrier.”

“Say that when it comes time to change the diapers.”

Henrietta laughed. “I’m a world-class diaper-changer, hon. When you was a baby, I could change your diaper in less than a minute—and that was using cloth diapers and safety pins. These disposable diapers they been comin’ out with, them ones with the tape—hell, twenty seconds, tops. And that’s including having to wipe off the baby and use baby powder.”

Lucy laughed. “Think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

Henrietta kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Just wait ‘til you see me in action. You’ll eat your words.”

“Eat what words? I never said I doubted you.”