Peanut had fallen asleep in bed with the remote in his hand. Ruby slipped it from his fingers, turned off the television and the lights, and crawled into bed.

The moment she did, he rolled over and slid an arm across her waist without opening his eyes.

“I love you, too,” Ruby whispered, and then got teary, thinking of how Barb Holland must feel tonight in bed all alone.

* * *

Lovey did her last walk-through in the café, making sure all the appliances in the kitchen had been cleaned and turned off, and checking to make sure the back door was locked. Then she retraced her steps through the dining room, turning off lights as she went.

She paused in the doorway and looked back at the empty tables and chairs, picked up the deposit bag on the way out, and locked the front door as she left.

One more stop and then home, she thought as she got in her car and headed to the bank. The stray tomcat she always fed there was sitting beneath the night deposit, patiently waiting for its supper.

“Good evening, you ratty old thing,” she said, and tossed out the little piece of ham she’d fished out of the garbage for him.

He grabbed it and ran into the shadows as she put the money bag in the night deposit, then headed to Ruby’s little cottage.

Lovey was grateful for the quiet as she let herself in. It was already almost 11:00 p.m., and Granny’s would be open by 6:00 a.m., which meant the kitchen crew showed up for work around four thirty, and she always arrived to open up.

Even though her injuries had healed, she was having to pace herself to get through a day. It was as if her body had worked so hard to keep her from dying that there wasn’t as much left of her as there used to be.

“First thing is a nice, hot shower and then into a nightgown and bed,” Lovey said.

She went into the bathroom and turned on the water to let it get hot, then began undressing. The water was steamy by the time she got in, and she stood beneath the spray, letting the jets massage out the aches and pains of the day.

A short while later, she was in her nightgown, walking through the house, checking locks here just as she’d done at the café. She took a bottle of water back to the bedroom, put it on the nightstand, then pulled back the covers. After stacking some pillows behind her back so she could watch a little TV, she got into bed and opened the water to take a drink.

She’d long since gotten over feeling sorry for herself that she was living on her own. She’d tried marriage more than once and, after her last husband died, had given up on the institution altogether. Some people were meant for marriage, and some weren’t.

Lovey had been fine on her own when she was living in her own house, but she was a little lonesome here. She thought it was because she was surrounded by other people’s things.