“Butterman just asked me to let the three of you know, and that’s all I’m doing. Hunt is not my responsibility.”

Junior was silent a little too long. Emma knew immediately what he was thinking, and it made her mad.

“Don’t go getting a conscience at this late date,” she said. “You were fine with it fifteen years ago, and you will still, by God, be fine with it now. Tell Ray about the reading. I’ll tell Birdie.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will. Calm down,” Junior muttered.

“Calm down? Really?” Emma snapped, then hung up in his ear.

She was in a mood now and didn’t want to go to the funeral home in this state, so she went to the kitchen, popped a coffee pod into her coffee maker and pressed Start. She needed food in her stomach before she faced this day, so she put a couple of frozen waffles in the toaster.

Gordon had gone to Granny’s Country Kitchen to hang out with the other guys who were home from work today. They had time to kill before all the football games began, and for a while, Emma had the house to herself. If she was lucky, Gordon would go to his buddy’s house and watch the games on the new 65-inch HDTV they had given themselves for Christmas. It’s all Gordon had talked about since he found out, and she knew he wouldn’t be happy until they had one, too. Men were such babies. It didn’t occur to her that women were no different. They just had a different set of wants.

Her waffles popped up. Her coffee was done. So she took them to the table and ate in silence, thinking about the upcoming funeral. Thinking about Hunt being back in their lives. She didn’t know where he’d been, but it had changed him. He looked hard—even grim. All she knew was that she didn’t want to stir anything up again, because this Hunt Knox wouldn’t run.

* * *

Birdie had just finished payroll and hit Send, routing the money into the employees’ respective bank accounts via direct deposits. It felt good to know she would not be the cause of anyone suffering a financial hardship—even if only for a day. But now she wasn’t thinking of numbers anymore. She was thinking of Mama again.

She’d been the baby and was still living at home when Ray finally moved out, leaving her and Mama home alone, and she stayed until she turned twenty-one. On the morning of her twenty-first birthday, her mama had come in to wake her up with her special birthday breakfast—a jelly doughnut.

Birdie closed her eyes, still remembering that morning as if it had been yesterday, and her mama’s sweet voice as she woke her up.