“It isn’t money that girl needs,” she said, tracing a yellowed thumbnail through the sweat on her tea glass. “She needs someone who’s going to be there for her. Even when Honey was alive, she didn’t have that.”

“She’s lucky to have you,” Christy-Lynn said feebly.

Rhetta glanced up from her glass, pain etched in the lines on either side of her mouth. “But for how long?”

It was Christy-Lynn’s turn to avert her gaze. It was the elephant in the room, after all. The question about what would happen to Iris when Rhetta was no longer able to care for her.

“Been thinking about it a lot since your last visit,” Rhetta said heavily.

“And?”

“And nothing.” Her lower lip began to quiver. “She’s a handful, poor thing, between not talking and not sleeping. It’s not her fault, but when you get to be my age, it’s a lot to manage.”

Without thinking, Christy-Lynn reached for Rhetta’s hand. “That’s why you need to take the check, Rhetta. You could get some help in, maybe find a counselor to help Iris cope with everything that’s happened. Things would be easier for you both.”

“Who would I get around here?”

“Maybe there are people at the county who could help or at least suggest someone you could hire. A kind of home health aide.”

A look of horror rippled over Rhetta’s weathered countenance. “Just what I need, a bunch of government do-gooders knowing I’m too old to take care of my own. Next thing I know, they’ll be swooping in to take her. I’m not saying it won’t come to that someday. It may well. But I’ll be dead when it does, and it will be . . . out of my hands.”

Christy-Lynn fought back a shudder. She was right. Old, infirm, and living well below the poverty line, Rhetta Rawlings wouldn’t be anyone’s idea of an ideal guardian, kin or not.

“Maybe Ray could put out a few feelers at church for someone to help with meals, laundry, that kind of thing.”

Rhetta snorted. “He doesn’t even want me bringing her to church. As far as he’s concerned, Honey’s already brought enough shame to the Rawlings name—as if a Rawlings ever amounted to anything in this town.”

Christy-Lynn experienced a fresh wave of disgust for Ray Rawlings. “He doesn’t want his niece going to church?”

“Not his church, no. Says he doesn’t need me sticking Honey’s brat in everyone’s faces, reminding his congregation what she was. His own sister—” Her voice broke. She looked down at her glass.

“Rhetta, that’s terrible.”

She blinked hard as she turned to stare out the kitchen window. “I used to think he’d change his mind, that his heart would soften toward Iris in time, but it hasn’t. And it won’t. He means what he says.” She shook her head, eyes closing briefly. “So where does that leave Iris?”

“I don’t know, Rhetta. I wish I did. But at least take the check. It won’t solve everything, but it’ll help you get by until you figure things out. And before you say it, this isn’t charity. It’s hers or should have been. Plus a whole lot more. Please, say you’ll take it.”

The tears that had been trembling on Rhetta’s lower lashes finally spilled over. “Mrs. Ludlow . . .” Something like a cough escaped her as she dropped her head into her hands. “I don’t know how . . . your astonishing kindness . . .”

Christy-Lynn slid a hand across the table, capturing both of Rhetta’s, her fingers gnarled and startlingly fragile. “Please don’t cry, Rhetta. We’ll find someone to help you look after Iris. I promise. And you need to call me Christy-Lynn.”

Something, some sound or bit of movement, seeped into Christy-Lynn’s awareness. She peered over her shoulder and saw Iris hovering in the doorway, eyes glued to the women holding hands across the tiny kitchen table.

Rhetta noticed her too and quickly mopped her eyes. “Iris, baby, I didn’t hear you come in. Do you need some juice?”

Iris stood there a moment with her hands behind her back, as if she were trying to puzzle something out. Finally she inched forward, hesitant but clearly determined on some course of action.

“What is it, Iris?” Rhetta asked, clearly mystified by her great-granddaughter’s behavior. “What have you got there?”

Iris didn’t answer. Instead, she took another halting step, then whipped a sheet of paper from behind her back and held it out to Christy-Lynn. “Pink fishes are my favorite too,” she blurted in lispy toddlerese, before scurrying from the kitchen.

Rhetta sat speechless, a hand pressed to her mouth as she stared at the messy pink Nemo her great-granddaughter had just bestowed on Christy-Lynn. “Six words,” she said quietly, counting them off on gnarled fingers. “That’s the most she’s said at a stretch in I don’t know how long.”

Christy-Lynn wasn’t sure how to respond, or how to process the unfamiliar wave of emotion she had just experienced. “She was just mimicking me,” she told Rhetta sheepishly. “Because I told her I like pink fish.”

Rhetta was smiling, the first genuine smile Christy-Lynn had ever seen cross her face. “She likes you.”

“She was just being sweet. She doesn’t even know me.”

“Oh, I think she does.” There was a strange gravity to Rhetta’s words, an unsettling weight that made Christy-Lynn go very still. “Children know things, like who’s kind and who’s not, who’s genuine and who’s not. She knows exactly who you are, Christy-Lynn.” Rhetta’s voice fractured again, and she cleared her throat. “We both do.”