“You ever been married?”

“No.”

“So, you didn’t ever marry Maya’s daddy?” Ava asked. “I mean, I’m not judging you if you didn’t. Come to think of it, I’ve got two kids and I thank God for ’em every day, but I wish now that I hadn’t married either of their daddies.”

Letty glanced over at Maya, who was busily digging through a bin of bed linens.

“Actually, Maya is my niece,” Letty said quietly, letting her guard down just a little.

“Look, Letty,” Maya said, holding up a flowered purple and yellow polyester bedspread. “For Ellie’s bed.”

“Ellie? So you’ve got two kids?” Ava asked, looking confused.

“No. Ellie is Maya’s best friend. The stuffed elephant.”

“Oh.” Ava smiled at Maya, then turned back to Letty, her voice just above a whisper. “Where are her parents?”

“Deceased,” Letty said sadly. This was not exactly a lie. After all, Tanya was dead and Evan was dead as far as she was concerned.

“Sorry,” Ava said. She was about to say something else when her hip buzzed. She grabbed her phone from the back pocket of her jeans.

“Oh Lord. Sorry. That’s my electrician saying he’s on his way. I’m gonna leave you to it then. Just put stuff in the dumpster right by where you’re parked. When you’re ready for cleaning supplies come on back to the office and I’ll give you one of the housekeeping carts. Okay?”

“Thanks,” Letty said.

When Ava was gone she looked around the room and sighed. “Where do I even start?”

She heard Mimi’s voice in her ear. “The only way to begin is to just dig in.”

Letty and Tanya had spent two summers during their troublesome teen years with her mother’s parents, Mimi and BopBop, on their farm in Indiana, this while Terri was in the honeymoon phase of life with her third husband, Bobby Ray Braithwaite.

Eventually, and to absolutely nobody’s surprise, the marriage imploded, and after BopBop’s stroke and subsequent death, their summer sojourns ended and they’d moved back down to a seedy mobile home park in Tennessee, where Terri had taken possession of Bobby Ray’s double-wide. Mimi had driven them down to Knoxville in BopBop’s Chevy Impala, helped move them into the trailer, filled the refrigerator and cupboard with groceries, then, reluctantly, two days later, returned to the farm.

“You girls look after each other, y’hear?” Mimi had said, wrapping an arm around each of the sisters. “Your mama, bless her heart, it’s all she can do to take care of herself, so it’s gonna be up to you, Letty, to look after Tanya. And Tanya, you listen to what Letty tells you. Promise me that, okay?”