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of the tourist traps. Denny and The Wiener's father owned it, and she would have gone there because even though it was morning and the place wasn't open yet, Denny would have been inside setting up for the lunch crowd. Denny had been her friend since they were in grammar school. When they were kids they'd discovered Hank Williams and Patsy Cline together, and the music plus their friendship was probably what had gotten them through the bad times when Denny was doing drugs and Laurel wasn't, but she'd get plastered enough to sleep with any boy who asked and some who didn't. And after Denny got clean, on Friday nights when his band played at the Grill, sometimes Laurel still got plastered and sang harmony with the guys.
    Over the years, it was Denny who made sure she got home when she'd had one beer too many and who patched her up when she'd fallen for yet another son of a bitch who turned out to be as bad as Denny said he was going to be. Denny was always there for her. Until he met Jennifer, who really wasn't as awful as Laurel tried to tell herself she was.
    The next thing Laurel knew, Denny was wearing a tux and standing next to his little brother, who had come home to be his best man, and she was one of Jennifer's ten bridesmaids who traipsed down the aisle of the First Baptist Church. After the ceremony, the happy couple moved to North Carolina and even though Laurel and Denny swore they'd never lose touch, she knew they already had.
    And that was why she couldn't go into the Sportsman's Grill anymore, so she'd lost it too. It was coming up now, on her left. She pushed the gas pedal to the floor, with the usual lack of response from her ancient Camaro. She couldn't even speed past the damn place.
    “I'm tired of losing!” she yelled as she drove.
    But of course, most people would say she hadn't. Most people would say she was one of the luckiest women alive. Because of the way Peggy had “fixed” everything for her.

Chapter Six
    MRS. RAIN

    2004
    T HE BACK ISSUES of the
Atlanta Constitution
weren't any more satisfactory than the
Charles Valley Gazette
had been. A quick skimming of six weeks' worth of Sunday papers yielded not one single mention of Peggy Garrison. There was nothing left for Mrs. Rain to do but go through the obituaries, a gloomy prospect and definitely tiring to ninety-year-old eyes. She hit pay dirt in the second newspaper in the stack, but her triumph was short lived. Of the three columns devoted to Peggy, almost all of it was blather about the great man who had been her husband. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so typical. Dalton Garrison was never worthy of either of the women who married him, but there he was, downstage center in Peggy's obituary, hogging the spotlight. The damn thing had probably been written by one of the PR people who worked for the resort and the gardens.
    Finally, in the very last paragraph, Peggy was mentioned in her own right. She was a beloved figure in Charles Valley who would be missed, said the
Constitution
, as if delivering hot news. Then it added that the late Mrs. Garrison's place on the board at the Garrison Gardens Charitable Trust would be taken by Laurel Selene McCready, who was also the new owner of the Garrison resort complex.
That
was news—big, strange, exciting news! Maybe the old connection to Charles Valley wasn't broken after all. Or if it was, maybe there was a new connection to be made. Suddenly, creaky joints and failing eyes didn't seem to matter.
    Essie had planted a new walkie-talkie thing by the side of her bed next to the natural-light lamp. Mrs. Rain wasted several valuable minutes trying to work it, then gave up and called out in the voice that could once hit the back wall of a 1,500-seat theater, “Cherry, I want you!” She was pulling herself out of bed, as Cherry raced into the room.
    “What's wrong?” the girl panted anxiously.
    “I'm not dying, dear, I just need to get dressed. And I want you to brush out that bird's nest at