“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Christy-Lynn said, eyeing her dubiously.

“Maybe not, but it needs doing.”

In the back seat, Iris sat clutching her teddy, her tiny brow knitted in confusion. Rhetta pulled open the door and held out a hand. “Come on, baby girl. There’s something Nonny needs to show you.”

Iris scrambled from her car seat and took Rhetta’s hand. Christy-Lynn felt awkward suddenly and hung back, content to watch from a distance. But Iris had other ideas, thrusting a tiny hand at her.

“Come too.”

Christy-Lynn swallowed her protest. When a three-year-old held out her hand, you took it.

They walked about twenty yards, over crackling dead leaves and sun-bleached weeds, to a small marker tucked back near the corner of the fence. The headstone was a plain one, the simple slab of granite glaringly new beside its dingy neighbors. The inscription was plain, conspicuous in its lack of endearments.

HONEY ROSE RAWLINGS

11/19/91–11/19/16

Christy-Lynn stared at the dates with a pang of realization. “She died on her birthday.”

Rhetta nodded, her weathered face somber. “Twenty-five.” She reached out then, grasping the top of the headstone, though whether out of grief or a need for support Christy-Lynn couldn’t say. “I saw her a few days before. She said Stephen was taking her somewhere special. Foolish girl.”

The heartache behind the words was unmistakable, but her eyes were surprisingly dry as she turned to Iris. “Come here, baby. I want to talk to you about your mama.”

Christy-Lynn took several steps back as Iris moved to Rhetta’s side, giving them some space. It was hard to imagine feeling more out of place than she did at that moment. She had never considered where Stephen’s lover might be buried or what her funeral might have been like, that somewhere in the world family and friends might have mourned her.

Except no one really had.

Her thoughts drifted to Stephen’s memorial, to the call she had received about how to proceed in light of the fact that almost no one had shown up—including her. Apparently, both Honey and Stephen had departed the world uncelebrated and unmourned.

A bit of movement suddenly caught her eye. She glanced up to find Rhetta back at her side, her cheeks blanched of color and slick with tears.

“She understands now, I think,” Rhetta said hoarsely. “She knows her mama isn’t coming back.”

Christy-Lynn nodded, not sure how to respond. She turned to look at Iris, still standing in front of Honey’s grave, her blonde head lowered. The sight made her throat go tight. “Is she going to be all right?”

Rhetta sighed, a rattling, phlegmy sound. “I hope so. I told her she could talk to Honey anytime she wanted, that all she had to do was talk to the angels, and they’d make sure her mama could hear her. That’s what she’s doing now—talking to the angels. Would you stay with her? I said she could stay as long as she needs to, but I’m afraid this trip has taken it out of me.”

“Can you make it back to the car on your own?”

“I’ll be fine. Just . . . stay with her.”

She watched as Rhetta picked her way through the weeds on her way back to the Rover, already fumbling in her dress pocket for the pack of cigarettes she kept there. Christy-Lynn didn’t realize Iris was approaching until she felt the air stir behind her.

“Mama’s with the angels,” she lisped softly. “She’s not coming back.”

“No,” Christy-Lynn managed thickly. “She isn’t.”

Iris said nothing for a time, looking up thoughtfully with one eye squinted. And then, before Christy-Lynn realized what was happening, Iris’s hand had stolen into hers, fingers small and slight weaving with her own.

“Nonny says you’re my angel. She says Mama sent you.”

Christy-Lynn stared down at Stephen’s daughter, so beautiful and sad, and could think of nothing to say. It was the longest string of words she’d ever heard her speak, and she felt each one like a knife. She wasn’t an angel. Not Iris’s or anyone else’s. But how did she say that to a child? To this child, who’d just been told otherwise?

She looked away quickly, clearing her throat. “I should take you home now. And then I have to go home myself.”

Iris’s chin began to quiver. “Will you come back?”

“Yes, in a few weeks.”

“Promise?”

Christy-Lynn swallowed past the jagged place in her throat as she stared at their entwined fingers and remembered Rhetta’s words. She never knows who’s coming back and who’s not.

“Yes, honey. I promise.”

FORTY

Tolstoy made a beeline for Christy-Lynn the moment she stepped through the door, squalling balefully in what she suspected was a scolding for leaving him for two days. She abandoned her bags and bent to pick him up, snuggling him against her cheek. It was nice having someone to come home to, even if that someone did have four legs and a tail.

He protested when she put him down and nearly tripped her twice as she made her way to the kitchen. As she rounded the corner, she felt something soft and squishy beneath her shoe. A tentative inspection revealed a gray felt mouse with a feather for a tail—obviously a present from Wade. There was another under the kitchen table and a third lodged under the fridge door. She gathered them up and deposited them at Tolstoy’s feet.