“I expect so.”

“They love you very much.”

“I know that.” Lucille turned her head toward her. “It’s a comfort.”

“I’m going to miss you,” Mamaw said in a broken voice.

“I know that, too,” Lucille said. “But I’ll be watching over you, same as always.”

“It won’t be the same. Who will give me what-for after you’re gone? You’re the only one who keeps me in line.”

Lucille laughed lightly in the dark. “Oh, I ’spect them girls will carry on.”

Mamaw sighed. “I expect you’re right.”

Mamaw and Lucille could hear the sounds of the three women talking in the living room.

“I worry about them,” Mamaw said softly.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Harper seems so alone. She carries such a burden of expectations from her family. Her mother . . . How will she ever find what she wants to do? Or find a husband who can measure up to the James standards?”

“You worry about Harper?” Lucille huffed. “Why, she’s the one I’m least worried about.”

“Why do you say that?”

“First off, she’s the youngest. Only twenty-eight. What cause have you to worry if she finds herself a fella or not? She’s got plenty of time.”

“In my time, most young women were married by twenty-eight,” Mamaw said primly.

“Well, that time is long, long gone. Second, she’s rich as Croesus. Or her mama is. That child don’t need to find no husband or no job to live. And live proud.” She jerked her chin, emphasizing that point. “I never got married on account I never wanted no man to tell me what to do. I like living on my own. Who’s to say Harper don’t feel the same way?” A grin eased across Lucille’s face. “If I had money like Harper. Lord . . .” She rolled her eyes and grinned.

“What would you do?” Mamaw said, curious.

“What wouldn’t I do?”

The women laughed together in the manner of old friends, comfortable in the bond of their decades-long friendship.

“You don’t need to worry about our Dora, neither,” Lucille added.

“Don’t I? She still has so many decisions to make. The divorce isn’t final . . . if there’s even going to be a divorce.”

“Oh, there’ll be a divorce.”

“What do you know?” Mamaw asked.

“Can’t say. Just that it ain’t Calhoun Tupper she’s dreaming of no more.”

Mamaw half smiled, having come to the same conclusion.

“It’s that other one I lose sleep over.” Lucille wagged her head.

“Carson . . .”

“What we gonna do with that girl?”

“I don’t know,” Mamaw confessed. She was very afraid for Carson.

“I thought we got her on the road to mend. Now this baby. What’s become of her young man? I ain’t seen him come by in a while.”

“Blake? I heard she’s broken it off.”

“Lord have mercy. She runnin’ from another one?”

Mamaw sighed. “She needs us now more than ever.”

“She needs you,” Lucille amended. “I’m not going to be here.”

“Don’t say that! Of course you will.”

Lucille didn’t reply.

“Thank heavens she stopped drinking,” Mamaw mused. “To think if she’d been drinking when she conceived that baby. It’s a small miracle. Poor girl has her father’s curse and I’m proud of how hard she’s trying. But she can’t drink a drop while she’s carrying.”

“Is she even gonna have the baby?” Lucille asked.

“Of course she’ll have it.”

“Best to just wait and see what happens.” She gave Mamaw a long look. “No meddlin’.”

“I have a right to worry.”

“Worry, yes. Meddle, no.”

“Stop giving me the eye, you old banty hen.”

Lucille just cackled a laugh in response.

“We raise our girls to grow up to be strong and independent women,” Mamaw said in a more serious tone. “And they are. But Lord, I’m embarrassed to admit I still think of them as my little girls. I want to see them all settled. Married. Am I too old-fashioned? The girls think I am . . .”

“You and me, we’re from another era. Things are different now. These girls want more, expect more, even demand more. Who’s to say being married is the answer? Look at Dora! She done everything right. Got married at a tender age to a respectable man in that fancy wedding you and Mr. Edward paid for. She moved into a big house, had a child. Marched to the tune y’all been singing since she was born. And now what?”

Mamaw was silent.

“I’ll tell you what,” Lucille said. “Our girl Dora’s pickin’ herself off the floor, straightenin’ her shoulders, and startin’ anew. She’s settin’ a good example for her younger sisters. I’m so proud of her my buttons are poppin’ off my chest.”

Mamaw reached out and grasped Lucille’s hand. “Thank you, Lucille. I needed to hear that. See? That’s what I mean,” she said with a sniff. “You’re my best friend. What am I going to do without you?”

“You gonna get older and wiser. That’s the way of things.” She paused. “We had fun tonight, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Mamaw said with a whisper of a smile.

“That summer wind was blowin’ but we danced. You needs to remember tonight, Marietta. When the hard times come, just dance.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dora sat cross-legged beside Harper on the four-poster brass bed. The storm and the late hour had brought a chill and dampness, and they were wrapped in blankets. She let her gaze wander over the changes in her bedroom—the petal-pink-and-white wallpaper, the brass-and-mirrored vanity, the Aubusson rug. The physical changes of the room reflected Dora’s taste and were an outward sign of the changes that had taken place within herself this summer.

And for her sisters, as well. Harper’s room was more serene and classic. Carson’s was lowcountry, more shabby chic. In giving them rooms of their own, Mamaw had offered each granddaughter a safe haven at Sea Breeze from the storms they each faced.