“Bless your heart, darlin’.” Vivien beamed. “It’s good to feel better, but this sister of mine is dragging me off tomorrow on another mini vacation.” Vivien went straight to the dogs’ side of the room and took a half-grown Chihuahua out of a cage. She carried him over to the rocking chair and held him up on her chest like a baby. “This is kind of like a hospital nursery with a bunch of unclaimed babies that need love. And speaking of babies”—Vivien rubbed the little dog’s fur as she talked—“April, you look so much like your mother that it’s uncanny.”

“Thank you.” April grinned. “I just wish she would have lived, so I could have known her. When I was a little girl, I used to pretend that she and I were sitting beside each other at the waterfall. I would talk to her as if she was really there. Then when I was having really rough times as an adult, I’d do the same. It kind of brought me comfort.”

Stella patted her on the shoulder. “I believe that the spirits of those who have passed can come back and help us when we need them. There’s a reason for everything, and most usually it all falls right into place when we look back on it. I was there right after your mama gave birth to you. She loved you so much. I could see it in her eyes.” Stella took a step back. “And now we’ve got to talk about something else or I’m going to start bawlin’ like a baby. I hear that we’re inspecting the quilt tomorrow. What did you kids learn while you were working on it?”

“To talk to each other, and that it’s made from scraps of material that Nanny Lucy used to make clothes for us when Nessa and Flynn came to visit in the summer,” April answered. “Did y’all know about the picture she had on the back of the quilt?”

Stella smiled and nodded as she got a puppy out of a cage and kissed him on the nose. “We did. We saw a place that could take a picture and fix it like that, and when we told her about it, she wanted that one of her and you kids the last time you were all home together put on the back. When did you find it?”

“When we were taking it out of the frame.” April still got misty eyed just thinking about how much the picture meant to all of them.

“Stella told me you girls even made Flynn sew on the quilt.” Vivien giggled.

April finished cleaning another cage, put the kitten back into it, and then moved on down to the next one. “Of course we did. Nanny Lucy taught us all three the goose and gander law.”