Asher can see the moment of recognition in his son’s eyes (this is serious), and then Justin sits up on the edge of the bed, pulls on his shorts, shoves his feet into his Chucks, glancing around the room.

“Where’s Shady?”

“He ran out as soon as I came in,” Asher says. The dog had darted past him as if he knew what was happening. “Come on, buddy!”

When Justin gets to the living room Evona is leaning in the front door. She’s been crying and her face looks like it’s been scrubbed clean with a rough washrag, her eyes pink, her cheeks rosy. When she sees Justin she turns her face away.

“What is it?” Justin asks but nobody answers him.

“Just go,” she says, trying to control her mouth and making her words sound like two big bubbles breaking on the air.

Asher holds on to the door frame for a moment, too.

“I can’t just leave you like this,” he says to Evona. “With all of this to tend—”

“Go,” she says, firm and hard, pushing him away, pretending to be mean about it so he will listen. She’s strong Evona again, the Evona that Asher knows, the Evona who walks with determination even if she’s just crossing the yard to tend to some flowers. “Now. They’ll be here any minute.”

“Who?” Justin yells this, stopping in the yard.

Asher leans over from behind and he has a hold of Justin’s elbows. There is no other way to do this. “Bell’s passed away—” His voice against Justin’s ear.

Something in Justin’s face changes, squares, hardens.

“—she passed before the ambulance could get here and now Evona thinks the police might come. So we have to go. We have to get out of here right now. We’ll be able to come back.”

“But I’ll never ever see her again!” Justin cries out.

Asher put his hands out toward him, as if knowing what he would do, and he does: Justin runs. He runs to the cottage to see her.

“No, Justin! You can’t!” Asher hollers.

Justin stops on the porch when Asher manages to grab hold of his wrist. He can’t let him go in there and see her lying dead like that. But when Justin turns to face him there is something strong and magnificent about the way he looks up at Asher and Evona.

“I’ve always been losing somebody. Roscoe, and you”—he says directly to Asher—“but you never thought about that, did you?”

I did, I did know, Asher wants to say to him, a prayer, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“I used to sit up all night, missing you,” he says. “And then I lost Granny. And Mom. Tennessee and the woods and the ridge and the river. And I’m gonna lose you sometime soon, again, ain’t I? You know I am.”