Sunlight flooded the room. Thank the Lord this bedroom faced south and could be counted on to be bright on a sunny day. Rainy or overcast days depressed May. They always had, but more so now with no home, no garden, no children she could turn to for support, especially James. She had loved James. After Edward, she loved James the most. She tried not to, but she still, in her heart, blamed his brother Vince for the accident that killed James. Vince had been driving drunk. When the policeman came to the door with the news, she’d prayed it was Vince who had been killed, not James, and she’d gone just about out of her mind when they told her it was her James, her Jamie.

Vince always drank too much, and Billie encouraged him, shared beer with him when the boy was only four years old. She had warned him, but what did her warnings, or anything she had ever said, count with Billie? James’s death was as much Billie’s fault as Vince’s. Even now, thinking about it, May doubled over and clutched her stomach. Oh, God, forgive me. Who am I to decide who lives or dies? But why my James, my dear good boy? Tears flooded her eyes. Stop this. Stop right this minute.

May grabbed her bag and headed for the car, but her thoughts lingered with her children. Her daughters were decent young women, married too young, with kids. I wish I’d been closer to them. I never was. Never could find what to say to them. And yet she missed them. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t. James had been unplanned and unwanted until they laid him in her arms. Don’t start that again. I gotta meet Amelia with a smile on my face and not red puffy eyes.

At the coffee shop, Amelia’s eyes feasted on exotic cakes and pastries displayed behind the slanted-glass wall of the high counter. She decided on a Danish pastry and a café au lait as May arrived and came to stand beside her.

“It all looks so yummy, doesn’t it?” Amelia said.

May hardly saw the shelves of goodies. “Sure does. I’m gonna have a plain coffee with some cream and lots of sugar.”

They found a table close to the window. The coffee shop hummed with chatter. Two women pushed strollers into the shop, selected food and drink, and settled into a table at the back. Laughter spiraled up from a table of four well-groomed older women, and May envied their casual interaction and the implied intimacy of friendship.

“Well, May, what’s on your mind?” Amelia’s soft voice drew May back to the business at hand. May’s heart raced, and her face grew warm. The coffee shop seemed suddenly inappropriate and way too noisy for what she wanted to say.