“Mawmaw!” Cordelia said again, dropping her phone and bouncing up and down on her bent knees, doing a little dance. Dellarobia was surprised to see Hester invoke happiness in the child, but then realized the radio was blaring “Jingle Bell Rock.” She turned off the music, causing Cordie to drop to the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

“I’m sorry, baby, but Mammaw and I need to hear ourselves think.”

Cordie sought immediate revenge, picking up the toy telephone and getting down to business with the dial, dragging it with her finger to create a thrilling racket. If any object contained within its depths a horrible noise, this girl would find it.

Dellarobia tried to concentrate on making the coffee. She was rattled by Hester’s presence here, which could only mean bad news. Family disagreements were rising over everything to do with the butterflies: charging money for the tours, letting the professor come in. The wildly expanding contentions at church regarding Dellarobia’s role in the so-called miracle. A second newspaper article had appeared, with Dellarobia once again the headliner. If Hester and Bear held someone responsible for all this, it wasn’t Cub. Could in-laws seek a divorce on their son’s behalf? Whatever her mission, Hester was somberly dressed for it, by her standards. Plaid shirt and jeans, big silver belt buckle, old boots. So thoroughly damp, her ponytail was dripping. Did she need a towel?

“I see there’s a tree in your den,” Hester said, as though remarking that an alpaca had been seen in the bathroom.

“It’s looking like Christmas around here, isn’t it? Preston and his daddy cut that little cedar out of the fencerow yesterday. We had to move the TV to get it set up in there.” Dellarobia was layering on the cheer too intensely, thanks to nerves. But her kids had never had a Christmas tree in their own house, not once. Only the one at Hester’s. They did everything over there, including Santa Claus. This year Preston had asked why Santa didn’t like their house, and that settled it. She’d made an executive decision.

“We don’t have any ornaments, though,” she added, hoping Hester might pick up on the hint. Hester had boxes and boxes, so many they could never fit everything on their tree. Weren’t grandparents supposed to share such things? Dellarobia had no family left, so the heritage business was one long wild guess where she was concerned. She wished she still had the hand-turned wooden toys of her childhood, things her father made in his shop, a simplicity she only recognized as poverty in retrospect, after he died. She’d been too young at the time to covet the Christmases other kids had, with batteries. She turned on the coffeemaker with an authoritative snap, then realized she’d set the carafe into it full of water, rather than pouring the water into the machine.

“The bottom pasture’s full of standing water,” Hester said.

Okay, thought Dellarobia, end of the Christmas tree subject. She reorganized and started the coffee again, correctly this time.

“I’ve got all the breeding ewes down there now,” Hester continued, “but I don’t like it. It’s no good for them.”

“Well, the rain can’t keep going on this way, can it?”

“They say it could,” Hester replied. “That bottomland’s good for them usually, the grass down there is good. But not this year.”

Cordie’s ratcheting phone went on and on. Whoever designed toys, in Dellarobia’s opinion, at their earliest convenience, should be smacked. She counted the seconds until the coffee started to pour through. Whatever it was that had brought Hester into this house, it wasn’t sheep. “You could put them over here on this field, above us,” she offered. “If that’s what you want to do. I mean, it’s all your land.”

“I know it is. But they need to get their CDT shots here soon, and next thing you know they’ll start lambing. I like the ewes where I can keep an eye.”

“We could keep an eye for you. Preston loves the lambs. I do too, I’ve always liked that part the best. Seeing the lambs born.”

“It’s not child’s play,” Hester said. “You’ve got to know what you’re doing.”

Dellarobia made a face, standing at the coffeemaker with her back turned to her mother-in-law. Everything Hester did, she likened to rocket science. But as far as Dellarobia had seen, lambing season mostly involved walking out to the barn each morning to see who’d delivered twins. She said nothing. Hester got up to peer over the half-curtain on the kitchen window, presumably assessing the high pasture for her almighty ewes. Instead she asked bluntly, “Is he in that thing now?”

“Is who in what? I thought we were discussing sheep.”

“You know who.”

“Dr. Byron? I don’t know. He doesn’t clear his schedule with me.”

The camper’s windows had pleated curtains that were yellowed like old newspaper, and usually closed on this side. Hester wouldn’t be able to see much. She returned to the table and Dellarobia sat down with two mugs of coffee, sliding one over along with the sugar bowl. She watched Hester shovel in one heaping spoonful after another. Where she deposited those calories was a mystery of the universe. And the sweetness, where did that go?

“He looks foreign,” Hester pronounced. “Is he even Christian? He could be anything. And you in here with the children. Bear and I are a hundred percent on the fence about him being here.”

Dellarobia put on her poker face. If Hester wanted to play a round, she was ready. “I doubt the man’s going to rob us. He’s paying us two hundred dollars a month in rent.”

“He’s paying rent?”

“Long ago decided, Hester. Didn’t Cub mention it?” She knew Cub hadn’t; he was afraid to bring it up. Dellarobia took a long, scalding swallow of her coffee, making Hester wait. “It was Dr. Byron’s idea. He’s got a government grant that pays his way when he’s doing his research, so we get a certain amount from that. It’s called pear diem. That’s money that can go toward Bear’s loan payment, I guess.”

She watched Hester’s frown deepen. “He’s working for the government?”

“Not straight out. It’s a little bit complicated. He works for a college, and this kind of thing is part of his job. I guess the government pays for people to do research.”

Hester snorted. “There’s a job. Watching butterflies.”