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is dead.” Maude drank the rest of her tea standing up, moved to the sink to wash her cup and plate, and set the clean dishes in the rack. She turned back to Sally, fighting strong emotion. “Meg used to have me in three days a week—wouldn’t cook a lick or wash a towel to save her life, spoiled brat,” she muttered. “But you probably don’t want me in your way while you work on her stuff. If it’s okay with you, I’ll come once a week, on Fridays, to do a thorough cleaning. The yard sprinklers are on timers, but I’ll be around an hour or so three days a week this summer to keep up with the gardening, more when it needs it. I’ll do whatever else in the way of cooking or cleaning you see fit. That’s it.”
    â€œI appreciate it,” Sally told her, liking her and meaning it but not quite knowing what else to say, and trying to keep from saying anything that might lead to further heedless cussing.
    â€œThat goes two ways,” Maude offered graciously. She headed for the back door, then turned to say more. “Listen, Sally. I don’t know how much you know about Meg, or her life, or how folks felt about her or how she felt about them. I don’t know exactly what’s in her files,” she said, nodding her head in the direction of Margaret’s locked office. “I haven’t looked at them, because I wasn’t asked to do so. When she died, they were all over the place. I just looked at the things she’d written on the folder tabs and put them in boxes. I didn’t even read the loose papers—just stacked them up and boxed ’em. Dealing with that stuff is strictly up to you.
    â€œBut I do have an idea of some of the stories you’re going to find in those boxes. I lived through them and heard more. It’s not going to be easy.” Maude looked sober, apprehensive. “Various people will see to it that it’s just about as hard as it can be. Lots of people hated her. She was a liberal and a feminist, and they don’t exactly win popularity contests around here. Byron Bosworth hated her guts for more than thirty years, and from what I hear some people have hated yours for almost twenty. When Bosworth found out she’d endowed a chair in women’s history, and that his department didn’t have anything to say about who would be hired for it or how much they’d be paid, he screamed his head off. He isn’t about to give up on the idea that the money she gave the university ought to belong to him and his friends.
    â€œMeg wasn’t always, well, nice. And then there’s her life, her life. Meg had an interesting life. Do you really know what that means? It’s a Jewish curse to wish an interesting life on somebody.”
    Sally knew a version of this old saying, but didn’t want to interrupt.
    â€œAre you ready to try to understand the things she chose? Are you sure you have the imagination?” Maude caught herself in mid-tirade, and shook herself. “Sorry I got carried away. I don’t even know you.”
    Sally remained silent, eating the delicious muffin, the delectable jam.
    Maude apparently decided she’d raised enough heavy issues over a muffin and a cup of coffee. And she looked like she had plenty on her mind. “I don’t really know what you’re made of. But writing her life will be the most important thing you ever do with yours.” She pulled a bandana out of her back pocket, wiped her eyes, squared her shoulders, worked up a smile. “I’ll be in the back when you’re ready,” she said, walked into the mud room behind the kitchen, and stepped out the back door into sunlight and green.

Chapter 4
Her First Visitor
    Sally wanted to see the garden, of course, but she had not yet explored inside. She took her cup of coffee now, and walked toward the front of the house. One odd feature of Meg Dunwoodie’s house was that the front door