“I promise I will,” Holly said.

Vera Johnston Miller, December 1990: I found this in an old trunk in the attic when I was cleaning it out last week. I don’t know why Mama never mentioned having it. I would have loved to have read all this before now. It’s strange to think that I am biologically related to the people on the historical plaque out in front of this house, even stranger to think of all the women in the family who have written in this journal for more than a hundred years already. I feel an obligation to write my story in this book, but I’m not sure where I should begin. Mother and Daddy are both gone now. They passed away within six months of each other. Like my mother, I was married several years before I had a child. Then I had two beautiful daughters within two years—Rosemary Ann was born first and then Lily Joann. We lost Rosemary before her eighth birthday to a rare form of cancer, but Lily is now nine years old. I held my breath until she passed her eighth birthday, always fearing that I might lose her, too. Mother passed away when Rosemary was only a few months old, but she told me often that she had finally gotten her official badge of honor and was really a grandmother, so her life was complete.

Lily couldn’t put the journal down, though it was getting late. She turned the page and continued to read:

Vera Johnston Miller, June 20, 2004: Today is Lily’s wedding day. I worry about her so much. She has finished college and has a good job, but Wyatt Anderson, her fiancé, is controlling like Mama’s first husband, Fred. He’s not as blatant about it as I imagine Fred was, but the wedding is basically what he wanted, not the small, intimate event that Lily had in mind. She assures me that she loves him, and I only hope that he will change. He’s a very handsome and charismatic young man, but he has a wandering eye when it comes to pretty women. I hate to think of him breaking her heart. It’s time for me to set the veil on her head so the photographer can take a picture. With motherhood comes worry and fears—that’s just life and it can’t be changed. My mama, Annie, always said, “Once a mother, always a mother, no matter the age or the era.” Truer words have never been spoken.

“So Granny Vera didn’t like Daddy so much,” Holly said. “Well, I don’t like him so much right now, either, Mama.”

“Give it time. He could change.” Lily hugged her daughter. “Now off to bed with you.”

“I don’t want the journal to end. I like reading it and talking about it with you,” Holly whined.

“Well, someday you can have it and read what I write in it,” Lily promised.

“Will you write about me?” Holly’s grin was downright impish.

“Most likely. Good night,” Lily said.

Holly hugged her tightly. “Night, Mama.”

When Holly was gone, Lily tucked the journal into the secretary. “Why didn’t you write more, Mama? I want to know more. What about those years after I left home and you passed away?”

It’s your life and your journal now, the voice in her head said bluntly.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The sun was still a full orange ball on the horizon that evening when five people gathered round the wooden casket. Holly hadn’t even put on makeup, because she said she’d just cry it all off. She stood between her mother and Sally, with Mack and Braden on the other end of the small crowd.

Sally nodded at the funeral director, and he pushed a button on a CD player. Alan Jackson’s voice singing “I’ll Fly Away” floated out across the rolling hills as the sun dipped behind the bare mesquite trees. Mack handed clean white hankies to each of the three women when the song started. When it finished, Sally took a step forward, opened a well-worn old black Bible, and read, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.” She closed the Bible and handed it to Holly. “She would want you to have this since so many of your ancestors’ births and deaths are recorded in this book. Granny Hayes wanted to be buried as the sun was going down. It seems appropriate, but I like to think of her in a place now where there is no night or day, no age or youth, and time doesn’t matter anymore. That’s all I have to say, but I thought we needed a little more than a song.”

“Amen,” Lily said.

Holly laid a yellow daisy on the casket. “You weren’t a rose, Granny Hayes. You were a wild daisy, doing what you wanted. I really loved you.”

That reminded Lily of a Dolly Parton song, “Wildflowers.” She pulled it up on her phone and turned the volume up as high as it would go. The lyrics said that wildflowers didn’t care where they grew, and that she’d grown up in a different garden than other folks. There wasn’t a dry eye among the bunch of them when the song ended.

The sunset was beautiful with the bright array of oranges, yellows, pinks, and purples that evening. Lily was sure that God had planned it special for Granny Hayes, just as surely as she’d felt that He had answered her prayers that morning when the sun came out bright and warm. It just wouldn’t have been right or fair for that particular Monday to have gray skies and rain.

Holly was sobbing and wiping her eyes with the hankie Mack had given her when the song ended. “Mama, that song was perfect for Granny Hayes. Thank you for playing it for us.” She wrapped her arms around Lily.

“I should go visit Mama and Daddy’s graves.” Lily motioned toward her right. “They’re over there and . . .”

“I’ll take the kids to Dairy Queen. We’ll meet you there,” Sally whispered.

“Thank you.” Lily gave her a quick hug. “I don’t think Holly can take much more today, but I haven’t been . . .”

“I understand.” Sally shushed her with a wave of her hand. “Go on. We’ll get a table and be waiting for you.”

Mack took her hand in his, and together, they walked across the brittle grass. Several of the graves still had poinsettias from Christmas on them, but the first thing she noticed when she got to her folks’ grave was a lovely arrangement of yellow tulips in the vase at the end of their tombstone.

“I should have been here to take care of this, rather than leaving it in Sally’s hands,” she said.

“There is a time for all seasons,” he quoted Scripture. “A time to break down and a time to build up. You’ve had your time to break down, and now it’s your time to build up. Don’t punish yourself for what you didn’t do. Just put all that behind you and move forward.”