“Well, we’ve got time.” Mitzi flipped the rearview mirror around and applied fresh bright-red lipstick to match the dress she’d chosen to wear that morning. “No need in getting in a hurry since we’ll have a long wait anyway.”

“But we might as well go on in and get our name on the list. There’s your dad parking right beside us,” Fanny Lou said. “When he and your mama married, I didn’t think I was going to like him, but he was so good to my daughter that I came to love him like a son. I hope you find a man as good as he is someday.”

“Me, too, Granny.” Graham’s image flashed through her mind.

Harry was out of his truck and tapping on the window before Mitzi put her lipstick away. She opened the door, and he said, “Let’s go on inside.”

He ran his fingers through his thin gray hair and cleaned his glasses on a snowy white handkerchief. “Danged things fog up when I get out of the truck in the heat. Boy, Wanda was on a rampage, wasn’t she? I thought I might have to step between her and Fanny Lou.”

“One more hateful word out of her mouth and they’d have had to bring out the mop and cleaners, because I was ready to knock the shit out of her,” Fanny Lou said as she got out of the van.

Mitzi slid out of the driver’s seat and looped her arm in her father’s. “I never thought I’d be taller than you. When I was a little girl, you were ten feet tall.”

“You can thank me for that.” Fanny Lou wore a bright-red pantsuit that morning and her white cowboy boots with gold tips on the toes. Her red hair was twisted up and held with a big clip that sported stones of every color.

Mitzi pulled her grandmother close with her other arm, and the three of them walked down the wide sidewalk together. “We match today, Granny.”

“If I’d gotten the memo, I would have worn a red tie instead of this bolo,” Harry chuckled.

“We’ll have to remember to keep you in the loop,” Fanny Lou teased.

Harry’s face went from happy to serious in the blink of an eye. “I was sorry to hear about Jody and Lyle, but I might’ve helped Fanny Lou if she’d tied into that woman. I might not agree with Lyle and Jody’s lifestyle, but they seemed happy. I’m right glad she’s stayin’ with you and Paula, though. That’ll be good for her.”

They entered the café together, and Harry raised his voice above the noise of a full house to tell the waitress they needed a table for five.

“Be at least half an hour,” she said.

“Mitzi!” someone yelled from the middle of the room.