“Everything I own is dirty,” April said, “so I’m starting a load of laundry at least to get stuff rinsed. I already checked, and we’re about out of detergent, so I put it on the list. We’ll need to go by the bank and cash the check the lawyer gave me so I can pay my third of whatever we buy today.” She left the door to the garage open and was back in a couple of minutes.

“I’ll cover the grocery bill this week. You can get it next time we go.” Nessa opened the refrigerator to find it totally empty. “I wonder who did this,” she said as she moved on to the pantry, “and this.”

“What?” April sat down at the table and picked up the pen to make notes.

“Cleaned out everything. The pantry has a few cans of food, but the flour and sugar canisters are empty. There’s nothing in the fridge,” Nessa answered.

“Kind of like us,” April muttered. “We’re empty, and hoping that we—”

“All of us are bringing baggage to Blossom,” Nessa butted in before her cousin could finish. Sometimes the way to help was called tough love. April didn’t need mollycoddling, as Nanny Lucy used to call it when one of them thought they needed babying. She needed to realize she wasn’t the only one who had lived through hard knocks. “You aren’t the only one with dirty laundry. I brought a load with me, too—both real and otherwise.”

“Moving on, then.” April set her mouth in a firm line. “I’ve written down milk and bread.”

Flynn came through the still-open garage door with a frown on his face. “I saw a mouse up there and got to wondering about Waylon. There’s no way a mouse would dare show his beady little eyes in this house if that old tomcat was still alive. Did Nanny Lucy tell either of you that he’d died?”

“Last time I talked to her, she said her third Waylon cat was celebrating his fifth birthday. That would have been a week before Christmas,” Nessa answered.

“She called him Waylon the Third,” April said. “Remember the summer that Waylon Sr. died?”

“Oh, yes—we were eight years old,” Flynn said. “We had the funeral for him out under the pecan tree in the backyard, right?”

“Nanny Lucy wanted to put him in a plastic trash bag and throw him in the dumpster,” April said, “but Nessa started to cry, and she caved in and let us bury him. I’m telling you, girl, she always did like you the best.”