“Not bad,” she murmured, smoothing her hand over the fabric. “Not bad at all. I don’t look a day over seventy,” she quipped.

“Them seams look ready to burst,” Lucille said, perusing the dress with her chin in her palm.

“Oh, let them,” Mamaw replied, fanning her face. “I just have to take shallow breaths. I do want to look nice for our photographs. Is the photographer here?”

“Yes’m. He’s been here for a while. Of course Carson’s fussing that she could’ve done the pictures better and we just should’ve asked her.”

“But I want her to be in the photographs.”

“That’s what I told her. But I understand how she’s feeling. It’s silly, you hirin’ a caterer when I could’ve cooked up a meal better.”

“What am I going to do with the two of you?” Mamaw asked, lifting her palms. “I’m just trying to let someone serve you for a change.”

Lucille muttered something under her breath that Mamaw couldn’t catch.

“Just say thank you,” Mamaw teased. “Speaking of the caterer, is he here?”

“Sure he’s here. Been settin’ up for hours. And the girls are in the living room. Everyone’s here. They’re all waiting on you!”

“Oh . . .” Mamaw felt flustered. She didn’t like to be rushed. “Well, it is my birthday party. They can’t very well start without me.”

She went to her dresser and pulled a small jewelry box out from a drawer. She had selected her jewelry very carefully for tonight. For all her discomfort, she did look like a queen in this gown. She wished that Edward were here to see her.

She leaned forward, closer to the mirror, to place the diamond scroll earrings, a fiftieth-wedding-anniversary gift from Edward, into her lobes. On her ring finger, she wore the antique cushion-cut diamond. The large stone caught the light and glittered like a million stars on her finger. Finally, she gathered the three black velvet bags containing the pearls and placed them in her black beaded pocketbook. Only a single blue velvet bag was left on the bureau.

She looked over her shoulder and summoned Lucille.

“I’d meant to give this to you later, when we had dessert. But I think . . .” Marietta turned to face Lucille. “Well, dear friend, you should have this now.” She handed Lucille the velvet bag.

Lucille’s eyes were wide with curiosity as she accepted the bag. “What’s this? You already bought me this dress.”

“It goes with the dress.”

Lucille gave her a mock-suspicious glance, then opened the bag and let the contents slip out into her palm. “Lawd have mercy!” she exclaimed when she saw the pair of large sapphire earrings, encircled with diamonds. “Lawd, Lawd . . .” She looked again at Mamaw, this time with shock. “Are they real?”

“Yes, of course they are.” Mamaw laughed. “They were my mother’s. And now they’re yours. They’ll look wonderful with your dress. I can’t wait to see them on you. Go on, put them on.”

Mamaw watched Lucille stand in front of the Venetian mirror to replace her gold hoops with the sapphires and diamonds, her hands shaking with excitement. Mamaw felt a rush of love for her, thinking of how those hands formed the bedrock of her world.

Lucille straightened, the earrings flashing at her ears, but not as bright as her eyes. “How do I look?”

It brought Mamaw a flush of pleasure to see how the earrings—baubles that had been sitting uselessly in a safe—brought such pleasure.

“I think the word is . . . sexy,” Mamaw said, and got the hoped-for blush.

Humor fled as Mamaw took Lucille’s hands. “Dear friend, please accept these earrings as a small token of my love and thanks, for more than I can ever express.”

Lucille pinched her lips, equally unable to express her emotions.

“Shall we go? It’s time for me to lay my cards out on the table.”

Lucille took Mamaw’s arm and, old friends, they began walking. At the bedroom door, Mamaw stopped short and her hand tightened over Lucille’s as she took a sharp breath.

“Don’t be nervous. You’ll do fine,” Lucille said in a comforting tone. “You’ve been thinking on this for a long while.”

“Nervous? It takes a lot more than three silly girls to make me nervous.” She placed her hand on her stomach as she took a deep breath. “But there is so much at stake, isn’t there?”

“They’ll want the truth now.”

Mamaw took another breath and looked beseechingly at Lucille. “Am I being a tad overbearing with the demands I’ll make tonight?”

“You? Overbearing?” Lucille chuckled. “Heaven forbid. Manipulative, maybe. Conniving. Calculating. Controlling . . .”

“Yes, yes . . . It may be my one flaw,” Mamaw conceded with a twitch of her lips. “I see now how all my meddling has only resulted in miserable failures.”

“And Mr. Edward’s.”

Mamaw fell silent as she thought again of her husband. He had been a dear man but he did, perhaps, love her too much. His love had blinded him, and knowing it, she had taken full advantage when it came to matters concerning their son.

“Do you think Edward had, well, given up on Parker?” she asked Lucille.

“No. But I always thought he should’ve given that boy a good whuppin’.”

“Maybe.” Mamaw’s thoughts journeyed down a troubled path as she absently twiddled the diamond on her finger. “Maybe he should’ve whupped me, too. He let me get my way too often. Oh, Lucille, I fear that I weakened both the men in my life.”

“That was then,” Lucille said. “This is now. Just say what you’ve got to say and let the cards fall where they may.”

“Yes,” Mamaw said, and looked at her diamond. “I must restrain myself and not offer my opinions tonight. Let them work this out among themselves.”

“That’s the plan.”

Mamaw couldn’t abide fools, and Lucille was nobody’s fool. Mamaw had always counted on Lucille’s ability to cut through the chaff and to give her opinion, honestly and clearly, when needed. Mamaw gathered her wits. In the card game of bridge, Mamaw annoyed her partners by taking forever to formulate how she would play out her hand. But once she began she’d snap her cards on the table with alacrity, having already thought through each trick in her mind.