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got up from the dinner table.
    “She’s going out, Journey. Don’t fret.” She opened the door, and Bloom went out to sit on the porch. Cat turned to look at me. “She’ll come back,” she said softly.
    Cooper got up, too.
    “Thank you,” he said. “I like to get home for Emmett’s bath.”
    He went out to the porch and stood for a moment next to Bloom. Then he put on his hat.
    “‘Bye, Cooper,” said Cat.
    We went out, all of us, and waved to Cooper.
    “Maybe someday,” said Cat thoughtfully, “I
will
marry him.”
    Grandma, smiling, tapped Cat on her shoulder. The two of them went to their garden.
    Grandfather stood next to me, fiddling with his camera. I looked up at him, trying hard to remember something new, something at the edge of my mind. He put the camera around his neck.
    “Think I’ll take a small walk to the henhouse.”
    I smiled and watched him walk down the steps. Inside, the phone rang, and he turned.
    “I’ll get it,” I called to him.
    * * *
    “Hello.”
    I look out the screen door.
    “Journey, is that you?” says my mother.
    There is crackling on the line, and I stand very still, watching my grandfather walk away from the house.
    “Journey?” Her voice is stronger now. “So, how have you been?”
    I take a breath.
    “A cat has come,” I say. “And the cat is a very good mother.” My voice rises. “And she is staying here with me. Forever.”

Chapter Eleven
    Grandfather found me in the barn. Light slanted through the windows, and dust motes floated in the air between us. He sat next to me on the bench in front of the wall of pictures. There were dozens now that spread across the back wall, some I’d never seen.
    “That’s a new one,” I said, pointing to a close-up of a fierce-looking chicken.
    “That chicken pecked me on the wrist,” said Grandfather. He held out his hand to show me the small red puncture wound. “Taking pictures is dangerous business.”
    I nodded, looking at the picture I had taken, all soft and blurred. My grandfather holding Emmett on his knees.
    There was silence.
    “She asked me how I was,” I said after amoment. I looked up at Grandfather. “And she never said she was sorry for leaving.”
    Grandfather sighed.
    “No. Liddie doesn’t want to feel guilty.”
    “Well, she is guilty,” I said so softly that Grandfather bent his head down next to me to hear. “And then she said, They were only pictures, Journey.’”
    Grandfather reached over and put his arm around me. I leaned against him.
    “A picture stops a little piece of time, good or bad, and saves it,” he said. “Your mama never thought there was anything worth looking back on after your papa left. She thought all good things were ahead of her, waiting to happen … just around the corner. Your mama doesn’t really understand about the pictures.”
    “But we understand, don’t we,” I said.
    Grandfather’s arm tightened around me.
    “We do.”
    I sighed.
    “I sure would like things to look back on.”
    It was quiet in the barn. Somewhere in the garden Grandma was playing the flute, the beginnings of a song I didn’t know.
    “Grandma’s getting better,” I said.
    “Yes,” said Grandfather. “And it’s a good thing, too,” he added, making me smile.
    “Mama wants me to visit her,” I said.
    Grandfather got up and went to the wall of pictures and bent down as if he were examining them.
    “I told her I couldn’t. I told her I have a cat and kittens to take care of.”
    Grandfather straightened.
    “I told her someday, maybe; if she sent me words instead of money, I might visit. Maybe.”
    Grandfather said nothing.
    “Grandfather?”
    “What, Journey?” His voice was soft.
    “I told her that nothing is perfect. Sometimes things are good enough.”
    I got up and stood next to him and looked at the family picture of all of us, our necks all white in the sun as we looked up at the airplane overhead.
    “I like that picture,” I said.
    “So do I. You said it