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grandmother.”
    “Sweet tea in Georgia, as I live and breathe—Lacey Anne Carmichael is alive and well.” Her grandmother Mildred “Mamaw” Phillips stood holding the door, the twinkle in her rheumy blue eyes betraying rose-colored lips pursed in a mock scowl.
    Lacey laughed. “Well, ‘alive’ anyway, although just barely.” She dropped her suitcase with a thump on the oval Persian rug of Mamaw’s high-ceiling foyer to swallow her tiny grandmother in a ferocious hug. Eyes drifting closed, Lacey immediately felt the sting of tears at the familiar scent of oranges and herbs from Mamaw’s Breck shampoo combined with the heavenly aroma of pot roast from the kitchen, a Sunday staple in Mamaw’s house. Although she towered over her grandmother’s petite five-foot frame by four inches or more, Lacey felt all of six years old in her silky embrace. Tucking her head into Mamaw’s neck, she breathed in her childhood with hints of White Shoulders perfume and the clean scent of starch, the comfort of “home” surrounding her like Mamaw’s loving arms.
    Eyelids lifting, she scanned the curved maple staircase lined with oil paintings and family pictures, and memories flooded of PJ parties with popcorn and old movies. Games of “spades” and “pass the trash.” Melancholy struck hard over all the times she and Nicki had snuggled with Mamaw in her double bed when Gramps was out of town, giggling the night away with secrets and spook stories and little-girl laughter. Emotion clogged in her throat, and with a powerful squeeze, she clung with all of her might, gratitude spilling from both her heart and her eyes over the blessing of this precious woman in her life. A woman whose very prayers, she had no doubt whatsoever, had set her upon the path to faith, no matter how long the journey. With an awkward swipe of her eyes, she pulled away to press a tender kiss to her grandmother’s soft cheek. “Oh, Mamaw, I’ve missed you so much.”
    A soft and throaty chuckle rose like a caress as her grandmother hooked arms with Lacey to usher her down a wide amber hallway embellished by white molding and warm maple floors. Her standard white Keds were replaced by the leopard house slippers Nicki had given her for Christmas last year, and Lacey couldn’t help but grin when Mamaw teased with an affectionate smirk. “Well, now, if that were true, young lady,” she said with a toss of silver curls set and dried every Friday at the kitchen table with an old-fashioned bonnet hair dryer, “we would have seen you on Isle of Hope more than once or twice a year, sneaking in and out so fast, no one even knew you were here.”
    A chuckle rolled from Nicki’s lips as she set the second suitcase on the foyer floor and hurried to catch up. “Uh, I think that was the plan, Mamaw.”
    Lacey cringed. Ah, yes, the plan. In and out. Down and dirty. Like a Band-Aid on a festering sore—yank the sucker off so fast you never feel the pain.
    “A plan that slurps marsh water if you ask me,” Mamaw said with a wry twist of lips, modifying one of Nicki’s favorite expressions to make it more palpable. She and Nicki bantered back and forth while Lacey soaked it all in like a woman coming out of a coma after too many years asleep, reveling in her family as if seeing them for the very first time.
    With her stylish silver white coiffure, Mamaw looked more like sixty than almost seventy-five. Sleek and slim in white linen slacks, she wore a cotton top splashed with a hodge-podge of ladybugs that clashed with her leopard slippers. Uncle Cam always said she was as cute a bug’s ear, and the memory tilted Lacey’s lips into a smile because it was so very true. Mamaw was one of those cute, little old ladies that dogs liked to sniff and lick, and everybody else wanted to hug. A bunko-playing dynamo, who could be as sweet and deadly as her famous peach crumble pie.
    “Spencer, look who’s here,” Mamaw said. She led them into her sunny kitchen overlooking a