“Sure, but you have to get it yourself. I’m already sitting down.” Lily wasn’t sure if she chose that moment to stop waiting on her daughter to teach her to be independent, or if maybe she was a little jealous of all the love that Granny Hayes was getting that afternoon.

“Yes, ma’am.” Holly jumped up. “Anyone else want some?”

“Not me,” Mack said.

“Not me,” Braden echoed. “What did you have for dinner? Did you have to kill a chicken for that woman to cook before you could eat?”

“She made an oven stew and sliced a loaf of bread that she made yesterday. We had a peach upside-down cake for dessert. It was really good, and I ate two bowls, but I love Mama’s cobbler,” Holly said.

“You don’t have to butter me up,” Lily told her. “I’ll think about the kitten business and give you an answer when they’re old enough to leave their mama.”

“Thank you.” Holly nodded.

Everyone settled down to drink their hot chocolate. After they’d finished, Braden started The Beverly Hillbillies movie again.

When the goats had been tended to that evening and supper was over, the kids went to their rooms to do the last bit of their homework. Mack brought out his briefcase, took out a sheaf of papers, and laid them on the kitchen table.

“Anything I can help you with?” Lily asked.

“No, but thanks,” he replied. “It’s just the forms for the youth livestock show. I always go over them to be sure the kids have gotten them all done right. That way they don’t get disqualified.”

“Then I’ll see you at breakfast,” she said. “I’m going up to help Holly with her history project before bedtime.”

Mack laid his pen down and looked up at her. “I don’t want to influence you, but I don’t mind cats or dogs. I thought about getting one or the other, but I didn’t want to ask you if it was all right. I mean, after all, you’ve given me the use of your home, even with all the furniture. It seemed a little much to ask if I could bring pets in the house, too.”

“I always had cats when I was growing up,” Lily told him. “There’s at least three buried out there under the pecan tree in the backyard. Smokey, Fuzzy, and Amos were their names. Amos died after I went to college, and Daddy buried him for me. The thing is, what if this job doesn’t work out? What if we all do have to move back to Austin at the end of the school year? We can’t have pets in our apartment in the city, and it would devastate the kids to have to leave them behind.”

“I’ve been meanin’ to talk to you about that.” Mack looked uncomfortable. “If that should happen, will you sell me this place? And if you do decide to move back, and the kids can’t have their pets in the city, I’ll be glad to adopt them.”

“I guess we’ll have to see what the future holds, but if I decide to sell the property, you’ll definitely have first chance at it.” She laid a hand on his shoulder. “And thanks for the offer to take on whatever pets the kids might have. I appreciate that.”

She removed her hand and headed out of the room. When she got to the staircase, she looked at it to see if it was as red as it felt. It wasn’t, so she held it to her face and was surprised to find that it was actually quite cool and not on fire at all.

She checked on Braden and found him reading another Harry Potter book. “You need to get your bath, brush your teeth, and be ready for sleep at nine thirty. You can read until ten; then it’s lights out.”

“I used to get to watch videos on my tablet until midnight,” he grumbled.

“That was before you got into trouble.” She closed the door, got the journal from her bedroom, and went across the hall to Holly’s room.

Her daughter was busy flipping through hangers on her clothes rack. “Would you like to have a closet?”

“Yes, I would, but it’s all right if Mack can’t build it until after spring break. Granny Hayes has a rack just like this. She said that she was born in that cabin, and she’ll die in it, and that she likes being able to see all her clothes without having to open a door,” Holly answered. “I’m trying to find something to match my new earrings for tomorrow. What do you think of this?” She held up a blue shirt.

Lily was taken aback at being asked for her opinion. “Looks great. Wear your denim jacket with it and you’ll be beautiful.”

“Nope.” Holly held up her pink jacket. “I made the earrings with pink and blue feathers so it would look good with this combination. I just don’t know if this shade of blue matches the earrings right.”

So much for getting excited about her opinion, Lily thought. “It looks great. Lights out at nine thirty, but we’ve got time to work on your history project if you want to.”

“Yes!” Holly pumped her fist in the air. “I got all my notes written up, and I’m ready for the next entry. I hope it’s about Matilda, still. I like her, but I wish she’d leave her husband, like you did Daddy. I love him because he’s my dad, but sometimes I don’t like him so much now that I’m old enough to know what he did. Are all men like that, Mama?”

“No, honey, they aren’t,” Lily answered as she opened the journal. “There are good men out there in the world. When you get ready to date or get married, I hope you find a really good one.”

“I will, Mama.” Holly laid a hand on Lily’s shoulder.

Lily sat still, hoping that maybe it would turn into a hug, but Holly removed it and picked up her notebook.

“And if he’s a cheater like Rayford and Daddy, then I’ll shoot him,” Holly said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“That would just put you in prison,” Lily told her.

“Nope, it wouldn’t. Mack will help me bury the body where no one will ever find it. Now, read me the next entry, Mama,” Holly said.

“This is new territory for me, too. I haven’t read this part because I wanted to share it with you.” Lily opened the journal and began to read to Holly, just like she did when her daughter was a little girl.

Matilda Smith Medford Massey, May 1875: What a difference five years makes in the life of a woman. I was so depressed after I lost my son that I vowed I’d never write in this journal again. I still remember the feel of his tiny body. Rayford left me for one of his women—who knows which one. To tell the truth, I was relieved to have him out of my life, but I have to admit that he did have the decency to leave the area and move to Maine. The kids and I moved in with Henry and his wife, poor Pansy, who died the next year. We decided to go back home to Vicksburg and see if we still had rights to our land. We did, and the house was still standing. As I stood there looking at the place, the yard in shambles, Mama’s rosebushes hidden by weeds, tears ran down my face. We had a house, but the home we’d grown up in wasn’t there. That might not make sense, but it’s the way I felt. No matter, we were glad to find it still there and know that it belonged to us. There was no furniture left, so we slept on the floor for a week until we could get some ticking sewn into mattresses and stuffed with hay. Tears turned into joy with each tiny step forward we took. I’ll never forget that first night that we went to sleep on something other than the hard floor. I thought I could never be happier than that moment, but I was so wrong. This journal and a trunk full of our clothing is all we brought to our old plantation with us. I almost left the journal behind because I didn’t want to read any more about Mama’s heartbreaks, but I just couldn’t.