“Honey, she didn’t have a telephone.” Sally sat down beside her. “I tried to buy her a simple one, but she wouldn’t have it.”

“She lived the way she wanted.” Lily took a place on the other side of her daughter. “It was her time to go, and now she’s with her brothers and her parents.”

“She didn’t like any of them, except her mother.” Holly took the handkerchief from her mother and wiped her face with it. “Granny Hayes said her mother was an angel for putting up with her daddy. She said he was a hard man that demanded a lot from his wife and daughter.”

They were still sitting there fifteen minutes later when Dr. Greene pulled in beside Sally’s van. He nodded at them, went inside, and came back out in just a few seconds. “She probably went in her sleep last night. Rigor has come and gone. Should I call the undertaker?”

Sally told him what Granny Hayes had set out.

“Well, then, you should abide by her wishes. Let me know if you need me for anything else. I’ll get a death certificate ready and file it since she didn’t want to go to the funeral home.”

“I can’t leave her,” Holly said. “She was my friend.”

“Is it all right if we go inside now?” Sally asked Dr. Greene.

“Don’t see why not. She was a strange little bird. I only saw her once about a month ago. She’d never been to a doctor in her life,” he said, “but she marched into my office without an appointment. She wouldn’t go for tests, but I was pretty sure from her coloring and what she told me about her symptoms that she had pancreatic cancer. I told her if she didn’t get treatment, she probably wouldn’t make it six weeks. She told me she’d lived a long life and lived it the way she wanted, and she wasn’t doing anything but getting her affairs in order. She put you”—he nodded toward Sally—“down as her emergency contact person and gave us permission to tell you anything about her condition if you asked.”

“I’ll go right now and get that letter. Then I’ll tell the cemetery folks what we need to do,” Sally said. “I’ve never been in charge of anything like this, so I’m flying blind.”

Dr. Greene patted her on the shoulder as he started down the stairs. “I’m sure Granny Hayes has it all lined up from A to Z. She might have been an odd duck, but she took care of her own business.”

Sally got to her feet. “Y’all can go inside where it’s warmer.”