“Of course I’m helping her!” Bessie said indignantly. “That’s what neighbors do, when a person lets them. But Miss Hamer has alienated everyone else on Camellia Street over the years. I’m not a friend, I’m just the only one left—aside from DessaRae, of course—who will have anything to do with her. And that’s only because she and I go back a long, long way.” She pressed her lips together and looked away. And then, quite unexpectedly and entirely without intending to, she added, “And because of her brother.”

“Her brother?” Verna asked, looking puzzled.

A bright yellow butterfly lit on the clipped green grass at Bessie’s feet, fluttered its delicate wings for a moment, then flew away, dancing on the light breeze. Wishing she hadn’t spoken, Bessie straightened her shoulders and clasped her fingers in her lap.

“Anyway, the current situation is pretty straightforward,” she said, not answering Verna’s question. “Miss Hamer hasn’t been able to manage without help since the beginning of summer. She’s not bedridden yet, but nearly. DessaRae’s back finally got so bad that she couldn’t lift the old lady the way she used to, or get her into her chair or onto the chamber pot. So Doc Roberts finally put his foot down and said that Dessa Rae could do the cooking and light work, but that somebody else was going to have to do the heavy lifting. He suggested one or two ladies he knew were available, but they didn’t want to live in—and they wanted to be paid.” She chuckled drily. “And since Miss Hamer is so hard to get along with, they wanted to be paid quite a lot. One of them asked for twenty cents an hour.”

“Ah,” Verna said thoughtfully.

“Exactly,” Bessie replied. “Miss Hamer has plenty of money—in fact, she’s got more than all the rest of us put together. Some people say that she keeps it under her mattress, because she doesn’t trust Mr. Johnson at the bank.”

“I can understand that,” Liz muttered.

“But however much she’s got,” Bessie went on, “she doesn’t like to spend it. So that’s why Nona Jean is here. A few weeks ago, out of the blue, she wrote to her aunt from Chicago. Said she was wanting to come back to Alabama and wondered whether Miss Hamer could help her get a job and find a place to live.”

“Out of the blue,” Verna repeated in a meaningful tone. “It sounds as if they hadn’t been in contact over the years. Is that right?”