Harper finished, “And it’s signed, Granny Annie.”

“Can we do this?” Tawny asked.

“We might be down to four, but it’s still better than three elderly people,” Brook said.

“We are strong. Granny said so and she never lied to us,” Dana said.

“Except about Uncle Zed bein’ our grandpa.” Harper laid the letter down on the table. “And then it wasn’t actually a lie. If we’d known to ask her outright, she might have told us.”

Dana’s head moved from side to side. “No, she wouldn’t have, because she promised Zed that she’d never tell and she was in love with him. Today is his birthday. We were going to have a surprise party for him tonight.”

“Don’t you wish they could have been young in this day?” Brook sighed. “But it’s just titles. I couldn’t have loved them any more than I did and I don’t think they would have loved us any more than they did. And I bet he got his birthday wish, Mama. He’s with Granny Annie today.”

“What do we do now?” Dana asked.

“We’ll go to the funeral home and make arrangements to cremate Uncle Zed.” Harper folded the letter and gently put it back in the envelope. “I’ll put this in the safe with the other papers.”

Dana pushed back her chair. “I found out a couple of days ago that we can get service when we get across the bridge. So I’ve got a charged phone. If y’all want to use it to make any calls on the way to the funeral home, you are welcome to it.”

“You’d better call the school, Mama. I need to be here today,” Brook said.

“Yes, you do. And you can call Johnny. I’m sure under the circumstances the principal will let you talk to him.”

Tawny popped her palm against her forehead. “All the times when I’ve gone to the bank, it never dawned on me that I could use my cell phone when I was away from here. I need to let Nick know what’s going on, because he’d planned to come by at lunch today.”

“Me neither, when I went into town for supplies,” Harper groaned. “I’ll take you up on that offer, so I can tell Wyatt, too.”

“But let’s don’t change things here, okay?” Tawny said.

Harper laid her hand in the middle of the table. Tawny covered it with hers, and Brook and Dana did the same.

“By the joining of hands, we agree to keep this place as it is and run it as long as we can,” Harper said.

“Amen,” the other three said in unison.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Clancy sisters, along with Brook, hit the floor running Mother’s Day morning and didn’t slow down until they closed up the café and store. The cabins had been full all weekend, so there was cleaning and laundry. Harper had worried for days about the chicken and dressing dinner she’d prepared from Zed’s recipes, but everyone had declared that he must’ve left part of himself behind in her, because it was as good as it had always been.

Now it was eight o’clock. In a half an hour the sun would be sliding down past the horizon. It was time for that journey to the big rock. Tawny didn’t want to go. It was the final step, and she wasn’t sure she could bear to tell her grandmother and Zed goodbye for good. She gripped the handle of the chair on her porch so tightly that her knuckles ached, but she couldn’t make herself rise up. Not until Nick parked his old work truck in front of her cabin and held out his hand. She put hers in his and it gave her the strength to go down the steps.

Dana appeared from the store with the wooden box in her arms. Payton’s arm was around her shoulders. Brook and Johnny were right behind them, and Johnny had Brook’s hand tucked into his. Before they crossed the gravel, Wyatt and Harper came out of her cabin, his arm around her waist.

“We can do this. Remember, we are strong.” Tawny didn’t know if she was encouraging her sisters and niece or herself—maybe it was a little of both.

It was a solemn walk all the way to the big rock where Annie loved to sit in the evenings and fish with Zed. Tawny had gone out there the day before with her cell phone and found one spot on the very edge of the rock where she could hold her phone up to the sky and get service, so she’d tucked it into her hip pocket, hoping that she could find the spot that day.

When they arrived Dana stopped at the place where Granny Annie always sat. “I don’t have anything planned because she didn’t leave us instructions. I guess this is for our own closure.”

“She said we might sing a song,” Tawny said.

“I know you have one ready,” Brook said. “But I think she’d like this one.” She started an old familiar gospel tune, and the others joined in. “Some glad morning when this life is over.”

When the last notes of “I’ll Fly Away” had drifted out over the lake, Brook said, “Happy Mother’s Day, Granny. I love you and I love Uncle Zed. I’m glad that you can be together forever this way.”

Dana opened the lid of the box. “From ashes to ashes.”

Tawny handed her phone to Nick, who carried it to the spot she’d marked with an old piece of concrete chalk the girls had used as children. He touched a button and Jamey Johnson’s deep voice filled the air as he sang “Lead Me Home.” When the lyrics said that his new life began with death, Tawny said them out loud as she brought out a fistful of gray ashes and scattered them on the still waters of the lake.