David Anthony is so precious. I wish I were there. The picture is great, but I want to hold him. He doesn’t look much like Fay and May, does he? All that dark hair. All they had was a little fuzz. And of course he’s a lot larger than they were, those beautiful tiny girls. Philip says he looks like Uncle Philip, his grandaddy. We’ve been trying to figure out if we have children what kin they will be to David Anthony since both of us are Debbie’s first cousins. Confusing, isn’t it? And nice.

I love you,

Haley

PS. Tell Aunt Sister I just saw Virgil Stuckey on CNN. He reminds me of somebody I know, but I can’t put my finger on exactly who. Snake handlers? Lord!

PPS. How’s Luke?

E-MAIL

FROM: MAMA

TO: HALEY

SUBJECT: BROTHER LAMONT

Darling,

David Anthony is now Brother. We should have known.

Love,

Mama

It’s icy here today. Not like Warsaw, but Birmingham icy. The worst kind.

I hit the send button, rubbed Muffin between her ears, and looked out at the mist, ice motes suspended in the air. In a couple of hours, Betsy Mahall would be burying her sister Susan. On such a morning.

I clicked on the WHITE PAGES and typed in TERRY MAHALL in STEELE, ALABAMA. The message came back that there was no such person listed. I typed in TERRENCE and the number and address came up. So easy. And to think I had lived for sixty years without a computer.

“Betsy?” I said when she answered. “This is Patricia Anne Hollowell. I just wanted you to know that I’m thinking about you this morning.”

“Mrs. Hollowell. Oh, Mrs. Hollowell, thank you so much.” A pause and then a long breath. “Everything’s icy up here. Terry thinks we ought to put it off. It’s a graveside service. But I don’t want to. It’s like I’m caught somewhere and so is Susan.”

“Then do what you need to do.”

“I need to put her to rest.”

“I know you do. And you’re in my thoughts.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hollowell. Thank you for calling. I appreciate it more than you know.”

I hung up and looked out of the window until Fred called saying he was safe.

Chapter Eleven

Chapter
Eleven

At the age of thirty-nine, Richard Nelson, Luke and Virginia’s only child, is a handsome man. Especially, Mary Alice says, since they tacked his ears to his head. Every time she says it, I get a painful vision of a hammer and upholstery tacks. The truth was that Richard’s ears did stick out so far when he was a child, that light would shine through them, and our kids were under threats of painful punishment if they called him “Dumbo,” which I’m sure they sneaked around and did.