“Yes, ma’am, Miss Bossy Britches,” Lily teased.

“I’m the organizer, remember?” Teena wrapped her arms around the last load of clothing from the rack and put it on the bed. “Do you want to keep anything from all this?”

Lily shook her head. “I’ve got lots of memories. I don’t need a shirt or a dress to remind me of her. Anything in there you can sell at Yesterday’s Treasures?”

“It’s not old enough to be vintage,” Sally said, “but if she’s still got that pair of cat-eye glasses she wore stuffed in a drawer, I’ll pay you top dollar for them.” Sally was already busy putting Lily’s clothes on hangers and taking them across the room to the rack. “I get two or three requests for those every week.”

“If they show up, you can sure have them.” Lily opened the top dresser drawer and fought back the tears welling up in her brown eyes. The faint aroma of the little floral sachet in with her mother’s nightgowns brought back memories of all the times her mama had tucked her in at night, right up until she was in junior high school. The rose scent that her mother loved had lingered behind in Lily’s bedroom a long time after Vera had left the room every evening.

Teena sniffed the air. “I smell roses.”

“Mama’s sachet.” Lily held it up. “You’d think it would have lost all of its scent after five years.”

“Probably no one has even opened the drawer in all this time.” Sally pushed an empty box over to her. “We could give the nightgowns and underwear to Granny Hayes if you don’t mind. She’d be glad to get them.”

“That’s fine,” Lily agreed.

It was common knowledge in Comfort that Granny Hayes only came to town on Sunday morning. She lived five miles west, way out in the sticks, and rode Dusty, her trusty old mule, to church. She sat in the back pew and was usually the first one to shake the preacher’s hand and leave. Sometimes she stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items, but usually she just rode back to her shack out west of town. She hitched the mule to a wagon about twice a year to come into Comfort for supplies, but other than that, she remained a hermit.

“I’d forgotten about her. She’s about the same size Mama was. Are you sure that she’d want such personal things?” Lily carefully took them out of the drawer and packed them into a box. “Does she still have that ‘No Trespassing’ sign up on her fence? She might shoot first and ask questions later if you enter her property without permission.”

“She likes me,” Sally said. “I’ll take them out to her this evening.”

“Well, she sure don’t like me.” Teena started stacking shoes under the clothes rack.

“She’s just a lonely old woman,” Lily said. “I wonder what her story is. We always thought her place was haunted and she kept ghosts in that old log cabin.”

“That’s why she doesn’t like me,” Teena said. “I asked her about the ghosts when I was a little girl. She glared at me and told me to leave her alone.”

“Y’all ever known anyone to go inside her place?” Lily asked.

“She lets me come up on her porch, but not inside the cabin,” Sally said. “That’s probably because I buy some of her craft items for the store.”

“I can’t imagine living like that.” Teena opened the last box, saw that it was underwear, and slid it across the floor toward Lily. “You’re on your own with this stuff, and now I’ve got to get going. I’ve got a two o’clock appointment to show a house.”

“And my long lunch hour is over, so I’m going, too.” Sally stepped out into the hallway. “Hey, you two beautiful kids. Come out of your rooms and give me a hug.”

Holly’s door cracked a little and then flew open. “I thought I heard voices,” she said as she wrapped her arms around Sally.

“When did y’all get here?” Braden asked as he came out of his room with a smile on his face.

Lily felt a pang of jealousy that they were so warm and sweet with her friend. She and Teena joined the three of them in the hallway, crowding up the small space.

“We’ve been here about an hour, helping your mama unpack. And now, we need some help getting those three boxes down the stairs,” Sally said.

Without so much as a sigh or a grumble, Braden and Holly each picked one up. Teena got the last one, and they all five paraded down the stairs together. The kids even took the boxes out to Sally’s bright-red vintage Mustang and helped her get them in the trunk—in the drizzling rain.

“Have they forgiven you?” Sally asked.

“Nope, but it’s good to see they still have some manners,” Lily answered in a soft voice.

“It’ll take time. I remember when my boys were fourteen. The world would have come to an end if I’d jerked them out of their school and took them away from their friends,” Teena said.

“I didn’t have much choice. I thought about every possibility for two days before I made up my mind,” Lily told her. “How are the twins?”

“They’re moving back into the dorms on Sunday. I’ve loved having them home for a month, but truth is, I’m glad they’re going back to college. Ryder spends every waking minute he can with his girlfriend, and Creed stays up all night playing video games with his friends and sleeps all day,” Teena answered. “They didn’t make all As, but they did pass all their courses, and they didn’t get kicked out of school, so I guess I shouldn’t bitch about them.”

“You don’t mind having an empty nest?” Lily asked.

“I did at first, but then they came home every couple of weekends, so it wasn’t a big deal,” Teena replied. “Okay, girl. I’m leaving now.”

“Call if you need anything. We’ll see you in church tomorrow morning, right?” Sally got into her car and waved out the window.

“We’ll be there, and thanks again.” Lily waved at both vehicles until they were out of sight.

The kids stopped on the porch to wave for a few seconds, and then they went back inside. When Lily got to the living room, Braden was sacked out on the sofa with a disgusted expression on his face. Holly was sitting in the recliner, frowning and picking at her nails.

“Mama, we don’t even have cable,” Braden moaned.

“I told him that we were going to live back in the caveman days, but he didn’t believe me,” Holly smarted off.

“This is back before that, even,” Braden said. “I keep expecting a dinosaur to peek in the windows.”

“There’s a whole assortment of movies in that cabinet. Take your choice,” Lily told him. “I’m going to make a pitcher of sweet tea. Y’all want some?”

“Nope.” Holly flipped back and forth between the three channels on the television, finally settling on a rerun of Friends.

“I’ll take a glass,” Braden said.

It got him a hateful look from his sister, but he just shot one right back at her. “You ain’t the boss of me. If I want tea, I’ll drink it,” he said. “Why couldn’t we bring our televisions from home? Holly always hogs the remote.”