At the center of the table sits a plate heaped with chicken shallow-fried to a peppered gold. I’ve watched Ruby make that chicken a thousand times and never once use more than salt, pepper, flour, and Crisco. With those four ingredients she creates a flavor and texture that Harland Sanders couldn’t touch with his best pressure cooker. I snatch up a wing and take a bite of white meat. Crispy outside and moist within, it bursts in my mouth with intoxicating familiarity.

“Go slap your daddy’s hand!” Ruby cries, and Annie quickly obeys. “Ya’ll sit down and eat proper. I’ll get the iced tea.”

“I’ll get the tea,” Mom says, heading for the kitchen before Ruby can start. “Make your plate, Ruby. Tonight you’re a guest.”

Our family says grace only at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then almost as a formality. But with Ruby present, no one dares reach for a fork.

“Would you like to return thanks, Ruby?” Dad asks.

The old woman shakes her head, her eyes shining with mischief. “I wish you’d do it, Dr. Cage. You give a fine blessing.”

Thirty-eight years of practicing medicine has stripped my father of the stern religious carapace grafted onto him in the Baptist churches of his youth. But when pressed, he can deliver a blessing that vies with the longest-winded of deacons for flowery language and detail. He seems about to deliver one of these, with tongue-in-cheek overtones added for my benefit, but my mother halts him with a touch of her hand. She bows her head, and everyone at the table follows suit.

“Father,” she says, “it’s been far too long since we’ve given thanks to you in this house. Tonight we thank you for the return of our son, who has been away too long. We give thanks for Anna Louise Cage, our beautiful grandchild, and pray that we may bring her as much happiness as she brings to us each day.” She pauses, a brief caesura that focuses everyone’s concentration. “We also commend the soul of Sarah Louise Cage to your care, and pray that she abides in thy grace forever.”

I take Annie’s hand under the table and squeeze it.

“We don’t pretend to understand death here,” Mom continues softly. “We ask only that you let this young family heal, and be reconciled to their loss. This is a house of love, and we humbly ask grace in thy name’s sake. Amen.”