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Chapter 1
Wise, West Virginia
1954

Casewell’s stomach grumbled. He hoped no one in the surrounding pews could hear it. He’d thought to eat some warmed-over biscuits this morning, but the barn cat had slipped into the house and found the bread wrapped in a dish-cloth on the back of the stove. Even though most of a biscuit remained, Casewell knew better than to eat after a cat.

His stomach growled a little louder, and he wondered what he could rustle up for dinner. Normally, he’d have Sunday dinner with his parents, but they were visiting his aunt, who had lost her son—his cousin Harold—in the Korean War a good two years ago. She had yet to get her feet back under her, as his mother put it, so they visited when they could. In the meantime, Casewell would fend for himself.

He could scramble an egg and fry a potato, but he’d burned more than one pot of beans, and his attempts at biscuits and corn bread never browned right. He’d always assumed he’d leave his parents’ house for a home with a wife in it, but at the advanced age of thirty-five, he lived alone in a house he’d built with his own two hands.

Pastor Longbourne invited the congregation to bow their heads for the closing prayer. Casewell sighed and did as asked. The pastor could get windy at the close of service, and Casewell thought to pray for a short prayer but decided it wasn’t proper. He shifted his six-foot-four frame on the hard pew to find a better position and scratched his jaw where his red beard covered a scar that ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth. The wound had healed decades ago but still itched from time to time. A reminder of . . . Casewell forced his attention to the prayer. He didn’t need any reminders.

The prayer was indeed long, and toward the end, Casewell’s belly growled loud enough for the dearly departed in the cemetery outside to hear. He heard a giggle from the pew behind him. He dared to peek over his shoulder. A child—a little girl of perhaps five or six—covered her mouth as her mother placed a quieting hand on her shoulder. The girl stilled, but she grinned at Casewell so he forgave her giggles. He was grateful his parents weren’t there to hear. His father would not hesitate to offer criticism.

“Amen,” intoned Pastor Longbourne, and the congregation echoed him.

The pastor walked to the door of the church, and his flock began filing out past him, shaking his hand and offering compliments on the sermon. Waiting his turn, Casewell got a better look at the little girl and her mother—at least he assumed this was her mother. They were new to the church. The pair appeared to be accompanying Robert and Delilah Thornton, who lived in the heart of the little community of Wise—such as it was. Robert kept the one small store that served the immediate area. Locals had to drive eighteen miles to reach a chain grocery store, and no one there would know the local gossip, so the Thorntons did well enough. Perhaps the woman and child were family come to visit.

The woman stopped to speak to the pastor, offering her hand and ducking her head. A little thing, she had cornsilk hair under a scrap of a hat, rosy cheeks, and pink lips. She was pretty enough, but Casewell knew pretty didn’t guarantee pleasant.

The little girl peeped out at Casewell from behind her mother’s skirt and giggled. He grinned back without even meaning to. And there was little point in considering how pretty her mama was—nice or not—since there was almost certainly a papa in the picture.

Casewell’s turn to clasp Pastor Longbourne’s hand finally came, and then he stepped out into the soft spring air of the churchyard, eager to make his way through the crowd so he could head home and find something to eat. He could always resort to a jelly sandwich, though it would be a far cry from his mother’s Sunday fried chicken.

As he walked through the crowd, Casewell caught snatches of conversation.

“ . . . young when she had the child . . .”

“ . . . what kind of husband would . . .”

“ . . . too pretty for her own good . . .”

Casewell fought the urge to plug his ears. As he neared the gate to the churchyard, Delilah Thornton intercepted him and grasped his arm. “Casewell, allow me to introduce my niece, Perla. She’s staying with us . . . for a time. You might remember her family—they moved from here back in ’45.”

Casewell wondered at the slight hesitation, but then Perla stood before him, and her clear, blue eyes completed the pretty picture he’d been noticing inside. She smiled, though there was something solemn lingering around her eyes.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, dredging up a vague memory of a girl with blond curls. “And is this your daughter?”

The little girl smiled up at him as she clung to her mother’s leg. “This is Sadie,” Perla said, placing a hand on the child’s strawberry-blond curls. “She has little to say but finds a great deal to laugh at.” Sadie giggled again, as if to prove her mother right.

At that moment Casewell’s belly rumbled so long and loud that there was no question of pretending otherwise. Casewell felt his ears grow warm and scuffed a boot in the dirt.

“I’m afraid I missed my breakfast this morning,” he said. “And I had best be getting home to my dinner.”

He gave the group a nod and started toward the gate when Delilah said, “But your family is off visiting. I’m guessing there’s not much in your cupboard. Please come eat with us.”

“Right, Casewell,” Robert said. “Put your boots under our table. There’s a mighty fine pork roast in the oven at home, and Perla here has a knack for gathering spring greens. I know you won’t get a better meal in all the county.”

Casewell opened his mouth to decline, but after one look into Perla’s china eyes, he heard himself agreeing to go along. He blamed his moment of weakness on the promised pork roast. The group walked toward the Thorntons’ 1949 Chevy sedan. Casewell admired how good it still looked after several years of use—certainly better than his beat-up ’38 truck with the paint peeling off the fenders. Sadie left her mother’s side and slipped a little hand into Casewell’s large, rough one. She looked up at him with huge brown eyes, and he felt his heart squeeze. Whether or not the mother charmed him, the daughter certainly did.

The pork roast sat succulent under a crisp, roasted layer of fat. Casewell cut his portion carefully so he got a little fat with each bite. He also ate turnips boiled and mashed with butter and cream, fresh-baked light bread, and the promised greens wilted in bacon grease. Casewell was beside himself.

After eating his fill, he sighed and pushed his chair back a little. “That might’ve been the best meal I’ve ever eaten,” he said. “I thank you.”

“Perla did most of this,” Delilah said, smiling at the younger woman. “She claims she needs to work for her keep, but of course she doesn’t.”

Perla ducked her head and scrubbed at Sadie’s chin, as though the speck of grease from the greens couldn’t wait another minute.

“And you’d best take home a mess of these leftovers,” Robert said. “It’s the darnedest thing—anytime Perla cooks we seem to have leftovers for a week.”

Casewell protested but not very long or loud.

“Come see my dolly,” Sadie said, breaking into the adult conversation.

Perla shushed her daughter. “Don’t be silly, sweetheart. Casewell is a grown man and men don’t take much interest in dolls.”

“I make it a habit not to contradict pretty ladies,” Casewell said, feeling expansive. “But I’d be pleased to see Miss Sadie’s dolly.”

Sadie jumped up; then she plopped back down. “May I be excused?” she asked.

“Yes, you may, but don’t keep Mr. Casewell long. We’ll have some dessert out on the porch directly.”

These were quite possibly the only words that could add to Casewell’s feeling of satisfaction with his current lot in life. He stood and allowed the little girl to lead him into what Delilah referred to as the parlor. Casewell sat on the Victorian sofa with its high back and lumpy cushions. It sloped in such a way that Casewell felt the need to dig his heels into the carpet to keep from sliding onto the floor.

Sadie made a beeline for the corner, where a doll sat on a block of wood with a small board propped up behind it to form a simple chair.

“This is Amy,” she said, retrieving the doll. “She knows my secrets.”

“It’s important to have someone you can trust with your secrets,” Casewell said. “But then, you probably don’t have too many yet.”

“Only the one about not having a daddy,” Sadie said with a sigh. “Everyone else has a daddy, but Mommy says it’s our lot in life to get along without one.”

Casewell raised his eyebrows. A widow, then. Or she was . . . well, surely she was a widow. He started to ask and then caught himself. What a question to ask a child.

“Well, it’s good you have Amy,” he said. Then his eyes fell on the makeshift chair. “But is this all the furniture she has?”

“Yes,” Sadie said. “Mommy says I mustn’t leave Amy on the big people furniture, so she made me this chair. I wish Amy could have a bed, too, but she sleeps with Mommy and me for now. Mommy says that’s okay, since it’s just us.”

Casewell smiled to himself, thinking that he knew how he could thank Perla for the fine meal she’d prepared that day. Delilah called them to the porch for dessert—huge slices of angel cake with sliced and sugared strawberries.

“The chickens have taken a laying fit,” Delilah said as she handed Casewell a slice big enough for two men. “Got to use all them eggs up somehow.”

Although the slice was large, it was so light and airy Casewell made short work of it. He declined a second slice for fear he might appear a glutton.

“Too bad you don’t have your mandolin with you,” Robert said. “A sweet piece of music would be just the tonic to settle that meal.”

Casewell grinned. He would play a piece of music anywhere, anytime, for anyone. Music was the only thing he liked better than a good meal cooked by a pretty woman.

“You’re a musician?” Perla asked.

“Oh, some would call me that, but I mostly just fool around with the mandolin my granddaddy gave me. I guess it wouldn’t hurt your ears.”

Robert laughed. “Casewell is one of the finest musicians in Hartwell County. He’s being modest. We’ll have to get up a dance here before too long—maybe after the spring planting gets in. You put Casewell on the mandolin, George Brower on the banjo, Steve Cutright on the fiddle, and sometimes I pitch in with the harmonica or some spoons, and you’ve got something you can shake a leg to. ’Course, Casewell here likes them solemn tunes that wail. But he’ll save them till everybody’s too tired to dance. Yes sir, mighty fine, mighty fine.”

“Oh, that would be fun,” Delilah said. “We haven’t had a dance in ever so long. I’ll start putting a bug in the ears of all the ladies as they come by the store.” She smiled at Perla. “It’s always up to the women to organize something like this. The men just come when we tell them and eat up all the food.”

Perla’s smile seemed a little uncertain. She bit her lower lip. “I’m not sure I ought to be dancing,” she said.

“Whyever not?” Delilah asked.

“Well, with Sadie and all . . .”

“Nonsense. And anyway, if you don’t want to dance, you can sit and listen. There’s plenty of ladies who prefer to sit out the dancing and visit.”

“The old ladies,” Robert said with a snort. “And it would serve them better to exercise their feet and let their tongues rest a minute.”

Delilah frowned and Casewell tried to hide his smile.

“Oh, do have a little dignity,” Delilah said. “Perla can help with the food. She has such a knack for cooking, and we always seem to have too much for just us. What she needs is a crowd to feed.”

Casewell stood. “Well, I, for one, would be happy to play and to eat anything Perla cares to cook. Count me in. But for now, I’ll be heading home to tidy up my place before Ma gets back and has a fit over how I’ve let things go.”

“Bachelors,” Delilah said in a way that sounded scornful and affectionate all at once.

Sadie scampered inside to bring Casewell his Sunday hat. He dropped to one knee so she could help settle it on his head. Casewell felt self-conscious and awkward until he looked up and caught Perla watching him. The look in her eyes made him hope, against his better judgment, that she was a widow.

After helping Delilah tidy the kitchen, Perla went to the room she now occupied at her aunt and uncle’s house. Her gaze drifted from object to object. The quilt her grandmother made lay folded across the foot of the bed, the Bible her mother gave her when she turned eighteen sat on the bedside table, her brush and comb on the dressing table. It was the sort of room she’d always dreamed of calling her own.

Her eyes came to rest on the child napping peacefully on top of the coverlet. Here was something she had not dreamed of. She adored her ginger-haired Sadie, just turned five, but some days being a mother was simply too hard. And now this.

Perla’s mother had agreed that it was probably for the best when Perla suggested going to Wise to stay with her aunt and uncle. “Robert and Delilah have a real nice place. Least it was last time I went out there,” her mother had said, as if that would make leaving easier. “You probably remember the store well enough from when we lived there. You can be a help in the store. Won’t nobody know . . .”

Perla thought back to her mother’s final words before her father drove her—in silence—the six hours from Comstock to Wise. “You hold your head up,” her mother said. “If it weren’t for all that food, I think folks would overlook . . . the child. But take the two together, and it makes everyone uneasy.” Perla remembered her mother stepping forward to take her hand, squeezing it hard. “Daughter, God doesn’t make mistakes, and I say that child and your way with cooking are both miracles straight from heaven. It’s just miracles don’t always feel like it at the time.”

Perla hadn’t wanted to come. She might have even whined about it a little. She’d certainly carried on more than a grown woman of twenty-four should. When her mother released her hand, Perla missed the pressure and the warmth. She’d felt oddly bereft standing there in her parents’ house. She’d tried to tell herself she could always come back.

Chapter 2

At home, it took Casewell all of twenty minutes to move his boots from the chair by the fireplace to the rug by the door, hang up some clothes lying around his bedroom, and sweep the living room and kitchen. Thanks to the Thorntons and the cat, there weren’t any dishes to wash and he decided to leave the dusting. His mother would be sorry if she didn’t have something to do when she came to check on him.

Not that she would ever criticize him one way or the other. No, that was his father’s job. Casewell had been trying to please his father for decades. It wasn’t that his father was unkind; it was more a matter of not knowing what he was thinking—good or bad. Casewell tended to suspect it was bad.

Chores done, Casewell walked across the backyard to a stout little outbuilding that he had designed and built. It had a wide ramp leading up to the door so he could drive his tractor in and out. Heavy beams above were open so he could slide boards up there for storage—he could even put together a makeshift second floor that would hold boxes or cast-off tools he wasn’t ready to part with. One side of the building held the tractor and tools he needed for farmwork. The far side held his woodworking tools—his treasures.

Casewell stepped up to his worktable and handled several scraps of lumber stacked underneath. There were a couple of nice pieces of maple that he thought would be perfect. He set to work on his thank-you gift for Perla and Sadie.

The next morning, Casewell needed to put aside work on his gift to visit Elizabeth and Evangeline Talbot. Before church, the twin sisters, nearing their seventies, had asked Casewell to stop by Monday morning so they could discuss a project with him. Casewell was curious what they might want him to do—likely something around the old homeplace they’d inherited when their parents died within days of each other. Although the Talbot sisters had sold off the farm equipment and a fifty-two-acre parcel of rich bottomland, they’d kept the rambling farmhouse they’d lived in since birth. Probably the banister needed repair or a doorsill was rotting.

Casewell pulled up under a large oak with leaves just starting to unfurl. He was admiring the tree when a voice came from the porch.

“Once they’re the size of squirrels’ ears, it’s time to plant corn.”

Casewell turned and saw Angie—no, Liza—standing on the top step, smiling at him.

Strangers often had a hard time telling the twins apart, but those who knew them had no such difficulty. Both were a whisper over five feet tall, with silvery hair braided and twisted into a bun at the nape of the neck. But somehow, Angie’s hair remained perfectly in place, while Liza’s tended to fray and fall in wisps around her face. And while they both had blue eyes, Angie’s had a hint of ice, while Liza’s looked like faded cornflowers.

Liza had been engaged once, but her fiancé, Frank Post, ran off with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show on a tour of Europe in 1902. By the time he came home some thirty years later, everyone had given him up for dead, and Liza was running the farm alongside her sister and father. Once old man Talbot was too feeble to work the fields, the twins did most of the farming themselves.

“Howdy, Casewell. Come on in. Sister and I have a special order for you.” Liza clapped her hands, looking like a child on Christmas morning.

Inside, the more staid Angie showed Casewell the large kitchen and the wall where she wanted a cupboard.

“We’d like to display Mama’s china and a few other things,” she explained.

“Oh, and a pie safe,” Liza said. “And a potato bin—the kind that tilts out.”

“But nothing fancy,” Angie said. “This is for practical use. No need for fancy.”

“It’s our seventieth birthday.” Liza’s faded eyes sparkled. “And this will be our present.”

“No need to tell our age, sister. And we need a cupboard, birthday or no.” Angie turned sharp eyes on Casewell. “But the price has to be right. We must be good stewards of what Mama and Papa left us.”

Casewell pulled a piece of paper and a stub of pencil out of his breast pocket. He made a rough sketch of what he had in mind, the sisters looking over his shoulder and nodding along. When it was done to their satisfaction, Casewell penciled a number in the corner. Angie pursed her lips and then gave a brief nod.

Back in his workshop that evening, Casewell began the actual construction based on his pencil drawing. He often gave thanks for his ability to earn a living doing something he loved so dearly. Smoothing his rough hands over the sawn lumber, he could feel the shape of the furniture rising up to meet him. The smell of sawdust and the rhythm of the plane sliding along the grain soothed him in a deep, soul-satisfying way. He could lose himself for hours in his workshop, missing meals and working until he became aware of the time only after losing light with the setting sun.

He had pieced together the shell of the cabinet and was settling in to address some of the finer details when he heard a light scuffling at the door. Turning, he smelled the cigarette smoke even before he saw his father leaning against the frame. John Phillips was a tall, lanky man with a shock of white hair that had once been coal-black. Dad’s narrow face, lined from days spent working the farm, stood out starkly tan against his white hair. Although not traditionally handsome, he was striking with an unbending air. Casewell rarely saw him without a hand-rolled cigarette, squinting against the smoke rising past his eyes.

As his father moved into the workshop, Casewell noted that his limp seemed more pronounced. He’d worked briefly in the mines, but a cave-in took his only brother’s life and left him with a hitch to his gait that served as a constant reminder of what he’d lost. John swore he would never mine again, and he’d held to that promise, even in years when the farm lost steadily and the income from a few months of mining would have been welcome.

Casewell saw the limp but knew better than to mention it. His father didn’t leave much room for weakness in himself or in others. He would not have appreciated his son noticing his discomfort.

“Your mother is over at the house fussing about,” Dad said, drawing smoke deep into his lungs. He exhaled. “I told her you’re a grown man able to take care of yourself, but she never could leave well enough alone.”

Casewell nodded, smiling to himself. If Emily Phillips were content to leave well enough alone, his father probably wouldn’t have lived this long. She’d insisted Dad do the exercises that helped him regain the use of his foot. She’d made the garden stretch in the years when income from the farm was thin. And she’d traded her needlework—embroidered pillow slips, handkerchiefs, and baby gowns—for staples like sugar and coffee when the Thorntons had extended as much credit as they could. Casewell doubted his father knew what lengths his mother had gone to in order to keep the family going and knew no one would dare tell him.

“What’s that you’re working on?” he asked.

“A cupboard for the Talbot sisters. I plan to have it done before their birthday. It’s their gift to each other.”

“Don’t know what two old ladies need with new furniture.” He pinched the ember from his cigarette and dropped the stub in his breast pocket. “They’ve made do this long.”

“They have,” agreed Casewell, knowing better than to get into a drawn-out discussion about the advantages of improved storage for two women approaching seventy.

“Got anything an old man can do?”

This was a new development in their father-son relationship. While his father approved of Casewell being a carpenter, he’d not shown much interest in the work itself. In the past few months, he’d begun stopping by to lend a hand. Casewell didn’t mind. His dad didn’t have much to say, and he enjoyed the quiet companionship with a man whose love he’d never been sure of.

“You can sand down that door front,” Casewell said, pointing with his chin. “I pulled the pieces with the nicest grain.”

“So I see,” he said.

They worked in silence for a time. Dad cleared his throat.

“Before I forget, your mother wants you to come to dinner this evening. She heard you ate Sunday dinner with the Thorntons, and I reckon she wants to know all about that niece of theirs staying with them.”

Casewell smiled. “Sounds good.”

“Reckon Emily will be about done messing in your business,” he said. “Good work on that cupboard, son.”

“Thank you, sir.” Casewell supposed that was about as close as he’d ever come to hearing his father say he loved him.

That evening Casewell joined his parents for a meal of beans and corn bread. The beans had been cooking all day with ham hocks, and the cornmeal was ground from the Phillipses’ own corn. His petite, dark-haired mother with the smiling gray-green eyes called this a poor man’s supper. It didn’t take her long to broach the subject she was most interested in.

“So tell me about Delilah’s niece,” she said to Casewell.

“Well, she sure can cook,” he said and helped himself to another wedge of corn bread.

“That’s a fine thing in a woman, to be sure,” Mom said. “But what is she like?”

“She’s pretty—yellow hair and blue eyes, I think. She didn’t have a whole lot to say, but she seemed pleasant enough.”

His mother sighed. “Like pulling teeth. Doesn’t she have a child?”

“Yup, a funny little sprite. I think maybe I talked to her—Sadie, it is—more than her mother. She showed me her doll.” Casewell racked his brain to think of something that would be of interest.

“And the father?” she urged.

“Don’t rightly know,” Casewell said. “The child said something . . .” he trailed off, fearing he was wandering into something too much like gossip.

“Said what?”

“Well, she’s just a child. There’s plenty of reasons for a woman to be visiting family without her husband.” Casewell folded his napkin and shoved back from the table a notch.

His mother was not so easily dissuaded. “And how long are they staying? There’s a rumor . . .”

“Enough, woman,” Dad said. “You’ll have to run down the other hens if you want to gossip about this new girl. Come out on the porch with me, son.”

Casewell obediently followed his father while his mother began tidying the kitchen. Once outside, Dad fished the makings for a cigarette out of his breast pocket. He held a paper in one hand and shook out the tobacco from a tin with the other. He rolled the cigarette in a single motion, with the practice of years. He licked the edge to seal it and gave one end a twist. He struck a wooden kitchen match on a post and began puffing. His gnarled fingers were yellowed where he’d held a thousand cigarettes.

Casewell, like most of his peers, had experimented with smoking as a boy. He’d tried corn silks and grapevine and finally tried the real thing when his friend Carl stole the makings from an older cousin. Casewell wanted to smoke like his father, his grandfather, and his dead uncle, but he never could get the hang of it. Smoking didn’t impress your friends when you were hacking and choking. He finally gave up trying and now was grateful a love for tobacco didn’t drive him out on the porch all through the day and in all kinds of weather. His mother didn’t allow smoking in the house, and Dad respected her in that.

“So this girl is good lookin’, is she?” he asked.

“I suppose so,” Casewell said. “But there’s likely a husband somewhere, and even if she’s a widow, there’s sure enough a child. That’s a whole other kettle of fish.”

“True enough. Still, you’re about the right age to think of settling down, and seems like no one around here has caught your eye. Though I’ve seen more than one try it.” He slanted a look at Casewell. “It’s a man’s duty to find a good woman who can raise his children in the fear of God. And your ma probably wouldn’t mind a grand-young’un or two.”

This was quite possibly the longest speech Casewell had ever heard his father make. And he was surprised the man seemed to advocate for him to get involved with a woman he barely knew.

Casewell wanted to marry and have children. He thought of it often. But no woman had quite come up to his standards. He was looking for a God-fearing woman who would keep the house and raise well-behaved children. She needed to be smart enough to carry on a good conversation with him and to teach the children until they were old enough for school. He’d taken notice of a young lady or two over the years. Even now he recognized that Melody Simmons probably wouldn’t mind if he came calling, but pretty as she was, she was kin to the worst moonshining clan in the county. He aimed to stay clear of that bunch. And he certainly didn’t want a woman with notions about working outside the home. Lately it seemed like all the women his age either married young or were “liberated.”

The country was changing rapidly. While the Korean War had ended, Joseph McCarthy had the whole country on alert for Communists, and that Marilyn Monroe was setting a terrible example for women everywhere. Such things seemed very far away to Casewell. There were places back in the hills where folks still didn’t have electricity or running water. Casewell didn’t have a television set, though his parents had one, and he’d watched a few programs with them. He liked the westerns—The Lone Ranger and Dragnet—where the good guys won out in the end.

Casewell leaned against the side of the house and fished out a toothpick. “You’re right, Dad, it is time I settled down, but even if this Perla is available, there’s more to it than that.”

“Right enough. Just thinking out loud.”

After that the two men stood in silence and watched the light fade from the pasture and the woods. A deer walked into the far edge of the field and grazed her way down toward a pond. Casewell would have been willing to bet she had a fawn stashed somewhere nearby. But you’d never see it. He’d walked right up on fawns that he didn’t see until he almost stepped on them. Nature knew how to protect her young.

At home that night Casewell found himself replaying the afternoon he’d spent with Perla and Sadie. There wasn’t much to it, but what he did remember agreed with him. Perla ­behaved like Casewell tended to think a woman ought. She’d been mostly quiet, tending to her daughter and the meal. And as he’d noticed before, she was easy on the eyes. Now that he was beginning to think of Perla as perhaps more than just a guest passing through, he realized that he’d done very little to engage her in conversation. He and little Sadie had talked more than he and Perla did. Well, if Perla’s visit lasted long enough, he’d have to remedy that.

Chapter 3

The following Sunday, Pastor Longbourne invited Casewell to play along with George and Steve during the service. They struck up a rousing version of “I’ll Fly Away” that had even the staid Presbyterians tapping their toes. He saw Sadie stand up and dance a little before her mother coaxed her back into the pew. After church, the musicians were swamped by well-wishers, and Casewell watched Perla climb into the Thorntons’ car as townsfolk blocked his path to the door.

That afternoon he went to see the Talbot sisters so that he could get their opinions on a few finishing touches for their cupboard. After giving him the information he needed, Liza and Angie insisted he stay and visit with them. They produced a pot of tea, and Casewell found himself sitting on a sprung sofa, trying to balance a teacup on his knee. With his mother’s Sunday dinner in his belly and the twins’ prattle in his ears, he had a hard time staying awake.

Casewell tried to pay attention as Liza turned her blue flannel eyes on him.

“We’re not fond of gossip,” she said. “But since you’re a single man, you probably ought to know about that Perla Long.”

Casewell jolted awake.

“Now, Liza,” cautioned Angie, “we oughtn’t to say anything until we know for sure that she’s a harlot. It could just be mean talk over a pretty woman.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Liza said. “Just because Melanie Saunders says she’s never been married doesn’t make it true.”

“And the Bible is clear about carrying tales,” Angie said.

Casewell felt as if the sisters were playing a game of badminton as they gently batted their bit of gossip back and forth in front of him. Angie turned to Casewell and gave him a tight smile.

“Pay no attention to us,” she said. “Scandalous stories travel faster than plain ones, and we have no business telling you anything we’re not sure of. Perla is probably a lovely young woman and Melanie Saunders is jealous.”

Casewell had a dozen questions but didn’t see his way clear to ask any of them. Liza apologized and turned the conversation to peonies and whether the ants they attracted were necessary to make them bloom, or if it was safe to knock the little pests off. As soon as he could do so politely, Casewell told Liza and Angie he’d have their cupboard for them by Thursday and took his leave.

He pondered what the sisters had to say about Perla. He was strongly opposed to gossip, but he couldn’t very well unhear what the Talbots had said. He also couldn’t think of a way to determine if what they had hinted at was true, short of asking Perla herself, and that he would not do. Casewell toyed with the idea of dropping some hints around his mother so that she might be inspired to do a little digging, but that felt wrong, too. Regardless, he found Perla Long somewhat less attractive at bedtime than he had when he’d awoken.

Casewell worked hard to finish the Talbot sisters’ cupboard that week. The unfinished thank-you project for Perla and Sadie sat on the corner of his workbench. He worked around it for a couple of days and then packed it into a crate and pushed it under the bench. He’d get to it once the paid work was out of the way.

On Thursday Casewell loaded the finished piece of furniture into the back of his truck with the help of his father and carefully cushioned it with old quilts. He drove slowly over to the Talbots’, smiling to himself. It was a fine piece of work, and he was glad the twins would have it. He charged them less than he could get elsewhere, but the Talbots weren’t up on the current cost of handcrafted furniture, and he suspected they might faint if he charged what it was worth.

Liza and Angie were waiting for Casewell on their front porch, hands clasped and faces eager. Liza leaned out to see better as Casewell and his father began unloading the base of the cabinet. Angie frowned at her sister and stood up a little straighter.

As he lifted the furniture free of the tailgate, Dad stumbled slightly and Casewell had to lunge to take the bulk of the weight. Dad grunted and seemed to recover himself, so Casewell shrugged it off, supposing that neither of them were getting any younger. It was nothing.

“That’s the bottom part, isn’t it?” Liza asked.

“Of course it is,” Angie said. “The top is still in the truck. Open the door for them.”

The sisters got in the way only a little as they tried to help the men bring both pieces of the cupboard into the kitchen. The two men settled the base into place and then centered the top against the wall. It fit perfectly and Casewell stood back, a twin on either side, to admire his work.

Liza sighed. “It’s perfect.”

“Well, nothing is perfect, but it’s mighty close,” Angie said. “Now let’s see how it works.”

The two women began placing rose-strewn china plates on the open shelves. A teacup in its saucer went in front of each plate. Then a teapot with sugar and creamer found a home on a doily on the far right side of the serving board. Once everything had been placed, the twins stepped back to check the overall effect. Liza sighed again but apparently did not feel the need to speak.

“Now,” Angie said, rubbing her hands together, “let’s check the workings.”

She sent Casewell to fetch a sack of potatoes from the cellar, and he poured them into the potato bin while Angie tried all the doors and made sure the latch on the pie safe was to her satisfaction. She stepped back to stand beside Liza again and nodded once.

“We are quite pleased,” she said. “Liza, fetch our purse.”

Liza disappeared upstairs and soon returned with a well-worn black leather purse. Angie took it and unsnapped the clasp. She withdrew cash and carefully counted out the correct amount onto the kitchen table. She paused, looking torn, and then pulled out an additional five-dollar bill.

“This is for you and John for your trouble in delivering the cupboard,” she said.

“Why, thank you, Angie, but that isn’t necessary,” Casewell said.

“I insist,” Angie said, tapping the stack of bills. “Your work is solid and you delivered on time. John, you raised a good boy.”

Dad grunted and nodded at Casewell. “Take it. You surely earned it,” he said.

The sisters offered coffee and molasses cookies, which the men accepted. Casewell’s father wasn’t one for socializing, but the twins’ cookies were legendary. They sat around the kitchen table while the women chattered on about how handsome the cabinet was, how it dressed up the room, and how nice it was not to have to go to the cellar for potatoes so often.

The talk eventually turned to the barn dance Delilah was getting up. The sisters were trying to decide what they would bring.

“Can’t go wrong with a batch of them cookies,” Dad said, making his first real contribution to the conversation.

“Oh, I know,” Liza said. “But sometimes I get the urge to try something different. I just ordered the new Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and oh my, there are some lovely things in there. So fancy.” She looked wistful.

“Plain and good is better than fancy any day,” Angie said, brushing imaginary crumbs from the tablecloth. “A basket of fried chicken and a plate of cookies always get eaten up.”

“I suppose so,” Liza said, looking disappointed.

“I hear that Perla Long is a mighty good cook,” Angie said. “You’ve had her cooking, haven’t you, Casewell?”

“Yes, I guess I have,” he said. “And it was right tasty.”

“What did she make?” Liza asked, leaning forward.

“Well, now, she made a fine mess of greens along with roast pork. Oh, and an angel cake for dessert.”

Angie sniffed. “Angel cake only uses egg whites. It’s a waste of yolks. Extravagant.”

“It was good, though,” Casewell said. “She sent some home with me, and I ate on it all week.”

“Someone told me she always makes way more than is needed when she does the cooking,” Liza said. “They have more leftovers than they know what to do with over there at the Thorntons’.”

“No gossiping, sister,” Angie said, then made a tsk-tsk sound. “Wasteful, wasteful.”

“Time to go, son.”

Casewell was surprised his father had tolerated sitting and visiting with the Talbot sisters this long. He was probably itching for a cigarette. Dad stood slowly, pushing himself upright from the edge of the table. It seemed to take him a moment to straighten his back.

Once outside, Casewell said, “Hope that heavy furniture wasn’t too much for you, Dad. I’d hate to see you get down in the back.”

He shot him a pointed look. “That’ll be the day when I can’t help my son deliver a few sticks of furniture.” He pulled out his makings and built a cigarette, blowing smoke out the truck window in lieu of conversation.

Casewell pulled into his parents’ driveway and watched his father climb out, waving a hand in his son’s direction as he trudged toward the door. Casewell slid out of the truck and followed him in. Dad looked a little surprised but didn’t comment.

“Thought I’d say hey to Mom,” Casewell explained.

Once inside, Dad headed straight for the living room and settled onto the sofa with the newspaper. Emily was in the kitchen baking her homemade white bread.

“I’m so glad you came in,” she said with a smile. “Let me get you something to eat.”

Casewell laughed and stopped his mother from raiding the Frigidaire. “I had molasses cookies with the Talbot sisters,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“Well, you can take one of these loaves home with you as soon as they come out of the oven,” she said, settling for feeding him later.

“So, Ma,” Casewell said, hoping to sound casual, “everything all right with Dad? He seemed a little tired today.”

“Did he?” Emily turned away to finish wiping down the counter where she’d kneaded her bread.

“Yeah. I figure it’s nothing, but I wanted to check with you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “Probably didn’t sleep well last night, and he’s not as young as he once was. Scoot in there and read the paper with him. This bread will be out in ten minutes.”

Casewell stuck his head in the living room and saw that his father was snoring softly with the paper open across his chest. Casewell stepped back into the kitchen.

“He’s napping. Don’t worry about the bread. I’ll get some next time.”

“Napping?” Casewell thought he heard a note of alarm in his mother’s voice, but she quickly smoothed it over. “Well, then, I’m sure he just had a restless night.” She nodded emphatically and Casewell wondered which of them she hoped to convince.

Perla was grateful Sadie was such an easy child. The little girl rarely fussed and fit in with adults better than most children. She had an easygoing, cheerful way about her that somehow put grown-ups at ease. Perla noticed that people talked to Sadie without resorting to a high-pitched voice or silly questions. Sometimes Perla caught herself talking to Sadie about things the child had no business knowing—things about her father and their situation. Perla tried to remember that Sadie was five and needed protecting, but she had no one else to talk to. Sadie was a comfort, and Perla hoped that coming to Wise and removing them both from everything they knew hadn’t been a mistake.

Robert and Delilah were lovely. They hadn’t asked a lot of questions when Perla wrote to ask if she and Sadie could come stay for a while. Delilah just called and said of course they should come and stay as long as they liked. Perla had offered to pay a little rent or help out in some way, but the Thorntons refused adamantly. Perla missed her mother, but the looks and the whispers had gotten to the point that Perla knew the only thing to do was to go where no one, except Robert and Delilah, knew her story. Perla’s mother, Charlotte, had protested but not very much. She came around much too quickly to the idea of her daughter and granddaughter leaving, and Perla thought maybe she sensed a certain level of relief.

The sisters had always been close. Just thirteen months apart in age, they had been mistaken for twins a time or two, and it was a comfort for Perla to have someone so like her mother fussing over her and Sadie. And then again, there were times Aunt Delilah reminded her so much of her mother that Perla would have to find a quiet corner to cry over missing her mother and regretting what she had done to shame her. Mother always said the shame wasn’t on Perla, but the way the folks in Comstock acted, there was no doubt where they laid the blame.

The one thing the Thorntons had allowed Perla to do was to take over almost all of the cooking. With Robert and Delilah at the store most days, it helped to have Perla bringing them lunch around noon and having supper ready when they came home in the evening. Delilah used to come home an hour early to start dinner, but now she could take her time and help Robert close up each evening. Perla hoped that she was truly a help to her aunt and uncle. And she did have a knack with food.

Sometimes Perla’s way with food unnerved her a little. She would take a chicken or some potatoes into her hands, and it seemed as if she didn’t decide what to do with them—they decided for her. Almost before she knew what she planned, she’d have enough chicken and dumplings to feed half the county, or so many potatoes au gratin she couldn’t find a pan big enough. And the food was good. People often told Perla she should write her recipes down, but she wasn’t sure she could even remember what she put in them half the time. When she cooked, it was almost like she went into a trance and the rest of the world didn’t matter; just transforming raw ingredients into something delicious and life sustaining was the closest Perla got to being happy.

No, Perla realized, not happy. She was happy when Sadie laughed or cuddled close. What she felt when she cooked was a deep, abiding peace. She might have preferred to cook all the time just to retain that feeling, but sometimes when she put a meal on the table, she realized that she had lost a chunk of time. She knew she’d been in the kitchen preparing food, but she could no more recount her movements than she could fly. Serving dinner was like waking up from a deep and restful sleep. And Perla worried that she neglected Sadie at those times.

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