“I also told you that I’m not talking about it,” Flynn said. “We have to do this job of quilting together. It’s a joint effort, like the one we have with the house. If I’m not there to buffer, y’all will argue more than you’ll work. And Nanny Lucy has raised my curiosity about that hope chest. Is that the thing that sat at the end of her bed?”

“Yes,” Nessa answered. “Grandpa had their neighbor make it for her for their first-anniversary present. I’ve always thought that was the sweetest thing.”

“D. J. Devereaux made it? I never knew that.” April grabbed the last onion ring.

“I remember him,” Flynn said. “He used to come to Thanksgiving dinner at Nanny Lucy’s. I only got to be there a couple of times after my mother died and I went to live with Dad, but before that, Mama and I went to Nanny Lucy’s almost every year for that holiday. According to Mama, Nanny Lucy had high hopes that my dad would settle down when he got married and had a son, and she was so disappointed when he didn’t that she washed her hands of him. But she was always nice to Mama even if she was an ex-daughter-in-law.”

“I liked Aunt Gabby,” Nessa said. “She was always sweet to me.”

“Me too.” April nodded. “Is this the Jackson that’s keeping the hope chest hostage? I wonder what the D stands for.”

“D. J. died a while back,” Flynn said. “Nanny was all broken up about it when I called her to wish her a happy birthday. She said his nephew Jackson had taken over the custom furniture business. I suppose that’s the person with the hope chest and the key to open it.”

Nessa remembered her grandmother talking about Jackson coming to live with D. J. about five years before. Since she was never there except for a couple of days in the summer, she’d never met the nephew—or was he a great-nephew?

“His name was Dow Jackson Devereaux,” Nessa explained. “I asked Nanny Lucy about it when D. J. passed away. D. J. and his brother both started out in law and had a firm together in the beginning. But the business about drove D. J. crazy, so he left it and began to do woodwork. Jackson’s father is James Edward, and he named his son after his brother. So now we have the second Dow Jackson Devereaux. He got tired of lawyer stuff, too, and just like his uncle he turned to woodworking.”

“I remember D. J. being very quiet but having kind eyes,” April said. “So he was D. J., and the nephew is Jackson. I wonder if the brother, James, ever regrets naming his son after D. J. Kind of marked him, didn’t it?”

“Maybe so,” Nessa answered.