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behind.”
    He stared down at the mess on the table but his hands were still. “And the sonogram?”
    It sounded like somebody else speaking when I finally answered, probably because nobody had ever cared enough to ask. “I miscarried at twenty-eight weeks—a little girl. It’s one of the reasons why my marriage fell apart. I wanted the baby and he didn’t. But I guess everything works out in the end.”
    He didn’t say anything for a long time, his hunched shoulders telling me that he understood what it meant for me to want a child and loseher. And what it meant to leave a child behind. Because I’d always been the one to say that I’d be different.
    Quietly, he said, “I’m sorry.” He turned around, his light blue eyes from a father he never knew regarding me steadily. “You could have called, you know. Just once.”
    I straightened my shoulders, eager to move on from the hard pit in my stomach that threatened to break through my mental pillow. “And you could have found me if you really wanted to.”
    He didn’t drop his gaze as we realized that we both spoke the truth, and how empty it seemed. As Bootsie used to say, if stubbornness were a virtue, we’d be shoo-ins for heaven.
    â€œWhat about Carol Lynne?” I couldn’t bring myself to call her Mama. Even in my memories I only thought of her by her given name. “Is she going to be okay?”
    He stood and rubbed his hands through his hair. “Jeez, Vivi. Where have you been? You don’t get better with Alzheimer’s, okay? She’s in her own little world right now, a world that’s gonna get smaller and smaller, and I’m not going to recognize her anymore. Most of the time she thinks it’s still the sixties and will wear some of her old clothes. Or she’ll borrow something from Bootsie’s closet. And you never know what’s going to come out of her mouth next. I don’t know if it’s the disease or just age, but all filters have come off.”
    He moved to the side of the table, where a folded blue tarp had been placed on the floor, and began unraveling it on top of the unmarked bags and small boxes on the trestle table. That’s when I noticed the stacks of corrugated boxes of all sizes leaning up against the side of the table and beneath it, all of them darkened with random water splotches. It was so much worse than I’d originally thought, and for one brief moment I really wanted to care.
    â€œI’ve got to go,” he said. “The water’s gone down a bit, so I’m going to ride out over the fields and see how they’re doing. Luckily we haven’t started the planting yet, but I’m hoping the water’s not too high that we’ve got to delay.
    My brain felt sluggish, as if muddy water were running through it, too. “Can Carol Lynne take care of herself? Is she okay in the house without somebody there?”
    Tommy tucked the tarp around the edges of the table and steppedback, the look on his face reminding me of the time I’d put bubble gum in my hair to see if it would stick and Bootsie had to cut it as short as a boy’s. “No. Not really. I’ve hired Cora Smith—Mathilda’s granddaughter—to do some light housekeeping and look after her. She used to come and help Mathilda some. Mama calls her Mathilda, and Cora doesn’t mind. I thought that was a good sign.” He glanced at his watch. “Mama usually sleeps until noon, and Cora gets here a bit earlier to get her to eat something and to make sure Mama doesn’t leave in Bootsie’s Cadillac.”
    I followed him down the stairs, a sense of urgency bursting through my numbness. “But isn’t there some sort of therapy she can be doing? Like crossword puzzles or something?”
    He turned around to look at me, and for the first time I saw how tired he was, how the dark circles under his eyes