“We’ll see about that,” she told him as she took the snowball to the kitchen, put it in a plastic bag, and stuck it in the freezer. “Roses and candlelight dinners can’t compare to a million perfect snowflakes.”

He followed her and sat down at the table. “I’m glad that you like it.”

“Mama, I’m freezing.” Holly rushed into the kitchen. “Will you please, please make us some hot chocolate, and then can we read more in the journal?”

“Sure thing.” Lily got out a pan.

“So tell me more about this journal. I know you and Holly have been reading it for a school project?” Mack opened the refrigerator and handed her the milk, then brought out the sugar bin and cocoa from the pantry.

“I’ll show it to you while they have their chocolate,” Lily said.

She’d just poured up two mugs of hot chocolate when Braden came through the back door. “Now that’s good timin’,” he said as he removed his coat and hat.

“Y’all help yourselves to more if you want it,” Lily said. “I made extra. Mack and I are going upstairs to see the journal.”

“What’s that?” Braden asked.

“I’ll explain to him,” Holly offered.

Lily told Mack about it as she climbed the stairs with him right behind her. “I found it in the secretary. It’s all handwritten and the first pages are really brittle. It probably belongs in a museum somewhere. At first I couldn’t understand why Mama had the thing. I sure didn’t recognize the first person who wrote in it—name of Ophelia Smith. She started writing in it during the Civil War.” She took it out and laid it on the bed.

“Good grief, Lily!” He stepped back and stared at the leather-bound book. “That thing really should be in a museum.”

“Maybe, but Holly should have it next, so it’ll kind of be up to her what to do with it when I’m gone.” She carefully closed the journal.

“That’s really impressive that you’ve got something like that,” Mack said.

“Mama, are you ready to read yet?” Holly yelled from the foyer.

“Yes, I am,” Lily hollered, and then looked at Mack. “We’re reading an entry at a time for her history paper. Her assignment is to write about someone in her family.”

“Well, it’s amazing,” Mack said. “I should go now and let y’all get on with the lesson. We wouldn’t want our daughter to get bad grades on a history assignment.”

It wasn’t until he’d passed Holly on the stairs that she realized he’d said our daughter, not your daughter. Somehow, it sounded kind of nice.

Holly brought her notebooks and spread them out on the bed like she always did, and then looked up at her mother. Lily sat down and opened the journal.

“Look, Mama, the new page isn’t as yellow as the ones Ophelia wrote on,” Holly noticed.

“Darlin’ girl, more than half a century has passed since we first started reading,” Lily told her.

Just like that, she thought, in a twinkling of an eye, or rather in the time in Comfort, history had been changed. Lily’s breath caught in her chest when she saw that a new person had started writing.

“Rachel O’Riley Callahan, August 1920,” Lily said.

“But I wanted to hear more about Jenny,” Holly moaned.

“Evidently, it’s been passed down,” Lily said, and then went on:

Mama gave me this journal last week. I’ve chosen to begin writing in it today since women are now allowed to vote in all the states. In Oklahoma we have had that right for almost two years. I was the first one in line to vote when the law was passed here in our state. I’m glad that I helped fight for the right. Hopefully, it will teach my daughter to stand up for herself and be independent. I’m thirty-three years old and have a wonderful, understanding husband, who has never held me back. We’ve been married thirteen years, and my daughter went with me on the first day I could vote. I hope she remembers that day forever. Mama still lives on the original homestead, two miles down the road from me, and loves her grandchildren. She misses Granny Matilda, but then we all do. We buried her here in Dodsworth, and we visit her grave often. Mama says it makes her feel closer to Granny Matilda. I hate to think of the day that I lose my mother. She’s been a rock to me my whole life, and always encouraged me to take up for myself and never let anyone run over me.

Tears rolled down Holly’s cheeks. “I didn’t want Matilda to die.”

Lily wrapped her up in her arms. “Don’t think of it like that. Be grateful that you got to read a little bit about her, and maybe learn that you had a strong woman in your past.”

“But, Mama, it’s like I know these women for real, not just on the page.” Holly wiped the tears away with her sweater sleeve.

“And someday you’ll add your pages to the journal, and some young lady will get to know you the same way,” Lily assured her.

“I hope so,” Holly said. “I want to write about my first days here in Comfort, and tell about my goat and my friend Faith and all kinds of things.”

Lily nodded in agreement, and wondered what she’d write on her first pages when she picked up the pen.

Chapter Nineteen

Mack’s little slip about “our daughter” came back to Lily’s mind on Monday as she drove to work. She parked her car behind the shop, opened the back door, and turned up the thermometer when she went inside. Turning on lights as she made her way into the front room, she still couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. She had seldom even said “our children” when she was talking to Wyatt about Holly and Braden.

She unlocked the front door and flipped the sign over to show that they were open for business. Then she opened the small safe, put enough money in the cash register to start the day, and closed the drawer. The minute she’d stashed her purse and coat, the bell above the door jingled, and Polly came in wearing a big smile and carrying a box from the pastry shop down the street.

“I brought fried pies today to celebrate,” Polly said.

“Celebrate what?” Sally came in through the back door and tossed her coat and purse on a chair.

Polly opened the box and took out a half-moon-shaped fried pie. “That Lily and Mack are dating. I guess that’s what you kids still call it. I’ve got apricot and cherry. Help yourselves. And”—she pulled a half gallon of milk from her purse—“I brought this to go with the pies. Now tell me all about it.”