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and relief. “Yeah, okay. And thanks.”
    â€œIf you really want tothank me, you can start vacuuming.” Harper pushed off from the counter. “Don’t think being pregnant gets you off easy. Dora, you’ve got garbage duty. FYI, it’s recycling day tomorrow. I’m going to start in the kitchen. Come on, girls.” Harper clapped her hands. “We’re wastin’ daylight.”
    Dora looked at Carson, her arms spread out in a gesture of incredulousness. “Who is that girl?”

    Hours later Mamaw walked into the kitchen to prepare lunch. She was arrested at the threshold by a vision of utter chaos. The entire contents of the cabinets—boxes of food, tins, spices, and all the dishes—had been emptied out and grouped into piles on the kitchen table and counters.
    Mamaw put one hand on the doorframe and stared in mute shock at the pots and pans littering the floor. “What on earth . . . ?”
    Harper was scrubbing the inside of a cabinet. Hearing her grandmother’s voice, she crawled out from deep inside and raised her head. The sponge in her hand dripped water to the floor.
    â€œHi, Mamaw,” she called in a cheery tone.
    â€œChild, what in heaven’s name are you doing?”
    â€œI’m cleaning the kitchen.”
    Of course, Mamaw thought ruefully, it wasn’t enough for Harper to simply tidy the kitchen. She had to disassemble it, scour it, then reorganize it. Where did she get her energy? Mamaw wondered. She couldn’t ever remember having that kind of energy. It seemed as if all Harper’s domestic talents, dormant all these years, were bubbling out at Sea Breeze.
    Mamaw stuck out her hands toward the table. “I came in to fix some lunch, but there’s no room to make a cup of tea, much less a meal. Everything is everywhere!”
    â€œIs it lunchtime already?” Harper looked around at the mess. “I guess I lost track of time. I started cleaning the drawers and . . .” She made a face. “Oh, Mamaw, they were so dirty and dusty. That led to the cabinets. Do you even know how long it’s been since anyone scrubbed those out? And there’s no rhyme or reason to where things are put. Everything is helter-skelter. And”—Harper shivered in disgust—“I’m putting roach traps everywhere. It’s war.”
    Mamaw felt a twinge of guilt that Lucille’s kitchen was being criticized, as if she should defend Lucille somehow. Yet, truth was, Lucille had been so ill before she’d passed on that she hadn’t even had the energy much of the time to leave her little cottage, let alone march into the house and whip things into shape. Even before that, she’d lost her zeal for cleaning and projects. Not that Mamaw could find fault in that. She felt the same way. Old age had a way of taking the starch out of one’s sails.
    She pointed to a specific trash bag. “Why are the pots and pans in the trash?”
    Harper had the grace to look sheepish. “Yeah, about that.” She sat back on her heels. “Honestly, Mamaw, some of these have to be tossed.”
    â€œNo! You can’t throw them away. Lucille used these for fifty years.”
    â€œMy point exactly. They’re no good any longer. Take this iron skillet, for example.” Harper dug it out from the trash bag and held up a rusted iron skillet with a long wooden handle, distaste skittering across her features.
    Mamaw, her face reflecting her horror, rushed to grab the skillet from Harper’s hands. “This was my mother’s skillet! Her mother gave it to her when she was married, and she gave it to me. I was saving it to give to one of you girls. It’s an heirloom!”
    â€œOh.” Harper looked slightly ashamed. “But, I mean, who’d use it? It’s all rusty.”
    â€œIt simply needs to be reseasoned with oil,” Mamaw said with a hint of scold. “Any