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the back of my head.” She always thought better when her hair was brushed. And now she needed to think. She wanted to find out everything she could about Ms. McCready.

Chapter Seven
    LAUREL

    2004
    L AUREL TURNED ONTO Highway 22 heading north toward I-85 and Atlanta, for no reason except it was the opposite direction from Charles Valley. She floored the gas pedal, and a Volvo station wagon with a mommy and two kids in it whizzed past her, which had to be a new low for the Camaro. Just once she wanted to fly down the highway at the speed of traffic. Or better yet, she'd like to outrun everything on the damn road. She floored the gas pedal again. But she was going up a hill—not the Camaro's best event—so the speedometer didn't even waver.
    When Peggy's lawyer dropped the bombshell and told her she was Peggy's heir, Laurel's first thought was that someone should have warned her. Then she realized that Peggy had, in her own way. A week after Peggy's tests at Emory—when, as far as Laurel knew, she was still waiting for the results—she'd invited Laurel to have supper at the Magnolia Room. This was unusual. Peggy might make use of the Garrison family perks in her own home, but she kept a low profile around the resort. But that night Peggy had seemed so insistent that Laurel was sure she had good news.
    Laurel had left the
Gazette
, even though it was a Thursday, the night when she and Hank put the paper to bed, and raced over to the Magnolia Room. She'd sat across the table from Peggy, waiting for her to say they were celebrating because it wasn't cancer, after all. The doctors were wrong, Peggy was going to say, it was a false alarm.
    But Peggy wasn't following the script. “What do you think about this place?” she asked, after a moment.
    “I understand the food is good,” said Laurel cautiously.
    “I meant, what do you think of all of it? Garrison Gardens? The resort?”
    This was another first. Peggy never talked about anything Garrison, which was a blessing, given Laurel's feelings on the subject. Now Laurel measured her words carefully. “If the gardens and the resort weren't here, a lot of people wouldn't have jobs,” she said.
    “That's not what I asked.”
    Candlelight from the table flickered over Peggy's face, outlining hollows and jutting bones that had never been there before. Her eyes were tired.
    How did she get so thin?
Laurel thought.
How did I miss seeing it?
That was when she knew the news was not going to be good.
    She wanted to say whatever would make Peggy happy. “The gardens do a lot of good,” she said. “Everyone would miss them if they weren't here.”
    Peggy nodded and opened her menu. Then she shut it. “I've made a lot of bargains, Laurel. And a lot of mistakes. I've done my best, but I could have done a lot better.”
    “We all could,” Laurel said, knowing something awful was coming and trying to brace for it.
    “I'm not apologizing,” Peggy went on. “I wanted money, and I've had it. I'm proud of some of the things I've done with it.” She eyed Laurel thoughtfully. “But I don't want to mess up now.”
    Because she couldn't stand the suspense even more than she didn't want to hear the bad news, Laurel said, “Peggy, please tell me what you're talking about.”
    That was when Peggy drew a deep breath and said what Laurel already knew, that the preliminary cancer diagnosis was confirmed.
    Laurel made all the usual noises about how Peggy could beat it. And Peggy agreed that, yes, of course she could. But her eyes said differently and so did her voice.
    Suddenly, as she sat across from Peggy with the candles on the table flickering, Laurel remembered being in her first semester of college at Jackson State, when her mother Sara Jayne called. Laurel could hear the panic in her ma's voice as she said, “I've been feeling like shit for almost a year now, not that you'd ever notice, college girl.”
    Remembering her mother's phone call, Laurel wanted to run. She wanted to get