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sounded like beautiful, tinkling chimes. “My daddy’s cars were the finest money could buy. One day when your Uncle Gordon was a few years younger than you, he decided that, if horsesran on oats, cars must too. He put a whole big scoop of oats in the gas tank of one of Daddy’s brand new cars. He ruined that car. Try as they might—and believe me they did try—they were never able to get that car to run right after that.”
    “Boy, oh boy, Granddaddy musta been mad about that!”
    “You know, Daddy laughed and laughed,” she smiled. “He never once raised his voice in anger.”
    I wondered about that. It certainly never seemed to be that way in
our
house.
    “He thought it was the funniest thing. I remember he bragged about how smart his son was,” she said.
    He doesn’t sound so smart to me
, I thought, but I knew better than to say so.
    “Daddy boasted to everybody who would listen, ‘My son is barely five-years-old and already he’s using deductive reasoning. That boy is going to go far.’ He was so proud of Gordon. He was proud of all of his children. You would’ve loved your grandfather. I’m so sorry you never got to meet him.” She sighed.
    “Did your daddy like my daddy?”
    “Oh, he died when I was in my teens. I hadn’t met your daddy yet.”
    “You didn’t know Daddy when you were little? I thought Uncle Gordon was his friend.”
    “They were friends in college—Uncle James, too—but not when we were children. Your daddy came from up north. He came here to go to college. That’s where he met Uncle Gordon, in law school.”
    I looked at one of the jigsaw pieces and tried to find a fit. “What was it like to have your very own pony?”
    “It was the grandest thing. After the fire—remember, I told you my parents’ house burned to the ground when I was just a little older than you?—we moved to Appin, my father’s home place out in the country. You know, beyond Belfield School? Remember where Granny Bess used to live?”
    I laughed. “That’s silly. Granny Bess didn’t live in the country.”
    “It was country then,” she said. “After we moved, Daddy bought me a much bigger pony, twice the size of Puddin’. He was beautiful, black aspitch, with a white heart shape on his forehead. I named him True Love. He could run like a racehorse. Our stable boy, Cy, took such good care of Puddin’ and Lovey.” She paused for a moment to turn a piece of the puzzle between her fingers. She put it in place.
    “There are no pictures,” I said. “How do you put this together?” I inspected another tiny piece and peeled my sticky arm off the table. “Aren’t you hot?”
    She nodded her head slowly. “Don’t think about it.”
    “This is harder than my puzzles. I don’t think I could ever do one of these.”
    “Each piece is part of the picture. You can’t see the picture until the whole thing is done.” She took the piece I was holding, examined it, and then fit it into the puzzle.
    “But I’ve got to have pictures. Did you play with Cy?”
    “Lord, no. It wasn’t allowed. I learned that quickly. I had put Cy’s picture in a locket Daddy gave me for Christmas. It was the prettiest little locket, heart-shaped with a small diamond. I told Daddy I put Cy in my locket because he took such good care of Puddin’ and Lovey. He told me to take it out. He said it wasn’t right to have his picture in my locket. What did I know? I was just a silly little girl.”
    She glanced up at me looking almost embarrassed. She picked up her pack of cigarettes and lit one, holding it in her mouth as she undid all her work on the puzzle and knocked all the pieces back into the box. She told me to go help Ethel in the kitchen. I didn’t bother to remind her that Ethel was off.

Chapter 3

    Ethel
1927
    I was fourteen-years-old when I come to work for yo’ granddaddy’s family, Miss Sallee. It was just a few days a week when I didn’ have nothin’ to do at the boardin’ house; helpin’ my