It was freezing in the house. There was a package of matches on the mantel advertising the Homestead Inn in Nashville. I took it and squatted down to light the space heater, something I hadn’t done in a long time. I turned on the gas cautiously, held the match to the heater, and Pow!, I was sitting on my butt with my heart racing. Damn dangerous things. Made you appreciate central heating.

I scrambled up and replaced the matches beside a wedding picture, a thin young groom with a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead (I swear he looked like James Dean). He was wearing a black tux at least two sizes too large and, arm around his bride’s waist, he was looking down lovingly at her, a plump girl in a simple white satin wedding gown. On top of her teased blond hair was a circlet of flowers.

Holden “Monk” Crawford and his wife. It had to be. And the other wedding picture was of their son Ethan and his wife Susan. The poses were startlingly similar, with Ethan looking down lovingly at Susan. She had worn her mother-in-law’s dress, I realized, a dress that had been scaled down a couple of sizes to fit Susan’s smaller body. On her head was an identical circlet of flowers, but it lay against smooth red hair. Ethan’s tux was identical to his father’s, too. But he was a much larger man and filled it out.

Between these two pictures were smaller ones, family picnics, graduations, Ethan as a child. Ethan holding a baby. Ethan and Susan sitting before a Christmas tree, Susan holding a baby and Ethan with a toddler in his lap.

Mary Alice had come up behind me and was looking over my shoulder.

“This is sad,” she said.

I nodded.

“Put your hands up,” a man’s voice demanded.

Our hands shot up into the air.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“We’re friends,” Mary Alice stammered. “We come in peace.”

A burst of laughter. “We come in peace? You hear that, Mama? These folks been watching too many of those Dances with Wolves movies.”

We turned around cautiously to see a large bearded man dressed in overalls and a denim jacket. On his head was a ratty brown felt hat. Beside him was the ancient woman I had seen on TV, the woman who had been dipping snuff.

“You can put your arms down,” she said, still laughing. “Bertie’s teasing you.” She waddled arthritically over to a chair, bent her knees, and fell more than sat. “But just what the hell are you doing here?”

We looked at Bertie. He nodded, and we put our hands down.

“Sorry I don’t have a peace pipe,” he grinned.

“You hush, Bertie,” his mother said. “Let them answer.”

Sister and I looked at each other. I answered.