“We brought you a couple of biscuits stuffed with bacon and eggs,” Nessa said.

“And hot coffee.” April held up Nanny Lucy’s old silver thermos. “How did things go with you and Uncle Matthew?”

Flynn sat up and took the offered paper plate from Nessa. “He says I can’t change. That I’ll always be like him where women are concerned. It’s been years since I’ve been around him and Uncle Isaac at the same time. I knew they didn’t get along, but that was like . . .”—he paused—“pure black hatred filling the house.”

“The difference between you both is that you want to change, and he doesn’t.” Nessa drew her knees up to her chin and looped her arms around them. “My dad blames Uncle Matthew for all the bad moods that Nanny Lucy must’ve had most of her life. Your dad must blame mine for being Nanny Lucy’s favorite because he was so religious. What a mess.”

“I can’t even imagine how life was for my mother,” April said. “That was one helluva morning. I’m glad those uncles don’t live close enough to drop in very often.”

“Talk about baggage,” Flynn said.

“Compared to them, we’ve got very little,” Nessa said.

“Way I figure it is that we have to come back to the root of our problems, and that’s the only way to get rid of them,” April whispered. “Your fathers don’t want to get rid of theirs, so they’re letting them fester and ruin any hope of a relationship between them.”

“Amen to that.” Flynn bit into the first biscuit and remembered his mother making him biscuits just like these to bring along on their trip to Blossom. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he was a grown man, and according to his father, men did not cry.

“To hell with it.” He let the tears loose and didn’t even flinch when they dripped from his jaw onto his shirt, leaving wet spots.

He held his free hand to his cheek, remembering the first time he’d busted a knuckle in the oil field, when he had shed tears. His father had rocked his jaw when he slapped him with an open palm and said, “Men don’t bawl like babies, and women hate weakness.”

April laid a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right? Talk to us.”

“No, I’m not,” Flynn answered. “Mama made this same kind of biscuits for me on the last morning that we came to Blossom. She hugged me and said she’d see me in two weeks. The next time I saw her, she was in her casket, and Nanny Lucy turned me over to my dad. Nothing was ever the same in my life again.”

“That’s a tough memory,” Nessa volunteered.