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she’d learned at her first aid class, more than twenty years ago.
    “You mean other than being in severe pain and humiliating embarrassment?” said Helen.
    “Can you move everything?” asked Edith, recalling that you weren’t supposed to attempt transporting someone with a spinal injury.
    “What would you suggest that I move?”
    “You know,” said Edith. “Your arms and your legs, does everything work okay?”
    Now Helen waved her arms and legs as if she were making a snow angel.
    “Okay,” said Edith, satisfied. “It looks like you’re pretty much in one piece. Can you sit up?”
    “Perhaps with a little help.”
    Neither Edith nor Olive was particularly large or muscular, so Edith took one hand and Olive took the other, and together they pulled Helen to a sitting position.
    “How’s that?” asked Edith.
    “Better.” Helen rubbed her knee. “Although I do feel a bit foolish.”
    Edith went for a wooden chair now. She thought it might be a better way to help Helen to her feet.
    “You shouldn’t feel bad, Helen,” said Olive. “It’s that ding-dong janitor who’s to blame. He shouldn’t have left a wet spot on the floor like that. A person could get killed taking a fall like that.”
    “He probably didn’t realize anyone was going to be here today,” said Edith as she set the chair next to Helen.
    “What’s that for?” asked Helen.
    “I thought we could use it to help you get up,” suggested Edith. “Olive and I can each lift you from the sides, and maybe you can help to hoist yourself up with the chair.”
    “Well, as long as you can keep the chair from slipping,” said Helen a bit skeptically. So they all got into place, and before long they had Helen on her feet, then sitting in the chair.
    “Thank you, girls,” said Helen. “I suppose it’s time to consider having some work done on these old knees of mine. This right one is really howling now.”
    “That’s what I keep telling you,” said Olive. “Get yourself fixed up while you can. We’re not getting any younger, you know.”
    “Are you going to be okay?” asked Edith.
    Helen attempted standing now, holding on to each of them as she did. “My hip is okay, but my knee’s a bit sore. I’m sure that’s partly due to going up and down all those stairs earlier. But I doubt that I’m going to be much help to you today,” she told Olive.
    “Why don’t we help you to your car,” suggested Edith. “Do you think you can drive okay?”
    “Of course,” said Helen, ever the stalwart army nurse. “And if someone calls ahead, Clarence can help me into the house when I get there.”
    “I’ll do that,” said Edith.
    So the three of them slowly hobbled off toward Helen’s Crown Victoria, which was parked close to the side exit from the church kitchen. Thankfully, that meant no stairs. They finally had Helen in her car, and she thanked them once again.
    “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” she told Olive.
    “It’s quite all right, dear,” said Olive, glancing at her watch. “Goodness, the kids will be here any minute. I better get moving.”
    “Take care,” said Edith. “And I’ll give Clarence a call right now.”
    “Appreciate it.”
    “Let me know if you need a hand today,” Edith called to Olive as she was hurrying back to the church.
    “I think you have your hands full with grandma over there,” said Olive. Then she paused. “But thanks anyway. I think I can handle this on my own.”
    Edith was relieved to hear this, and as a matter of fact, she was a bit concerned, not to mention curious, about the old woman whom she’d left behind at the registration table. But when she got inside the house, there was no one to be seen. Everything was quiet, and for a moment she wondered if perhaps she’d imagined the whole thing. But then why would Olive have mentioned it?
    She decided to peek her head into Charles’s study to see if he knew anything. “Sorry to disturb you, dear,” she began.
    He looked up from