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days ago William had read them a chapter from The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle . William thought the children should read all the Newbery Medal winners.
    Emma’s voice from the bedroom startled Lydia from her thoughts. “Mother, are you coming?”
    “Yes, right now.” Wake up, she ordered herself. Take care of your girls.
    They stared up at her, snuggled together in the double bed they shared. Lydia forced a placid smile. No need to scare them with her plans to murder the flowers. She tucked a cool white sheet around their shoulders. Dark smudges under their eyes betrayed grief.
    The house creaked, settling in for the night, as if shrinking back to size after holding half the town in its modest rooms. Birdie, still childlike, spoke with a sleepy voice. “Mother, stay with us until we fall asleep.”
    “Yes. Close your eyes now.”
    But Birdie’s blue eyes remained wide open, steadfast in the study of her mother’s face. “Do you think Daddy can see us from heaven, Mother?”
    She felt scratchy, salty tears behind her eyes. “I do.”
    Emma moved closer to Birdie in the bed.
    “Are we poor now, Mother?” Birdie asked.
    Lydia brushed blonde hair from Birdie’s freckled forehead. “Your Daddy took care to make sure we aren’t. His daddy’s daddy owned this house and property, so we’ll always have a place to live. He had some money put aside for us in case anything ever happened to him.” Just last week, he’d suggested he teach her to drive, though most women in Atmore, Alabama, did not. She’d agreed, pleased that he would think her capable. Thinking about how carefully he’d planned for them, it seemed to Lydia as if he knew he might die young. There was money and a small life insurance policy, too, that he’d mentioned to her a year ago. She hadn’t listened carefully, believing they had many years left together. No one expected a healthy man to die of natural causes at age forty-five. Was there something in him that suspected he wasn’t long for this earth?
    The worried look disappeared from Birdie’s eyes. “So we won’t have to move out of our house?”
    “No, of course not. What made you think that?”
    “One of her friends told her that when your daddy dies you have to move to the poor side of town.” Emma pulled her arms from under the sheet, clasping her hands together. “But Daddy took care of things, didn’t he?”
    “He did. All he ever cared about was taking care of us. Since the moment I met him, he started looking after me.”
    “You looked after him, too, Mother,” said Birdie. “He told us so.”
    Lydia’s eyes brimmed with tears. She brushed them aside. “I’ve been a very lucky woman. Now go to sleep. This has been a long, terrible day.”
    The girls nodded. Emma reached under the sheet and took Birdie’s hand. Their entwined fingers made a bump in the sheet in the shape of a heart. They closed their eyes, and Lydia watched until their grief-pinched faces turned peaceful in sleep.
    Now, the flowers. She tiptoed out of the bedroom to the parlor and slipped her feet into her husband’s work boots for the first time. Only a size too big. Enormous feet and hands for a woman, she thought with disgust. How a man as handsome as William had ever overlooked her feet she had no idea. They were flat and wide, like a duck’s.
    In the last of the evening light, she pushed the wheelbarrow close to the porch, filled it with flowers, then took the lot of them out to her compost heap near the chicken coop. As she walked, her feet moved up and down in the boots, rubbing against her toes and heels. William’s voice in her head: You’ll get a blister, Lyds. Do you have to do this now?
    She averted her gaze from the spot where he’d fallen. Once she reached the compost, she stopped, clutching both handles of the wheelbarrow. The flowers lay atop one another, their blooms bowed in repose, like dancers taking a final bow. They were benign. Of course they were. How had she thought