I covered the receiver with my hand and repeated this to Abby.

“Of course,” Abby said. “Elizabeth Taylor and Zero Mostel. It’s a classic.”

My grandmother said, “I told your mama she could buy the video, but she said no, so I had to share a room with Daisy Burt. She was up and down all night long with colitis. I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Do you remember Daisy Burt? Her son is the one who killed himself. Went upstairs one day and blew his brains out with a shotgun. He was only seventeen. How are you doing? Are you still constipated? If you would just take two tablespoons of mineral oil . . .”

“How about this one?” said Abby. “Father of the Bride of Young Frankenstein. No, wait. Blazing Cleopatra.”

“Would you shut up? No, not you, Nana.”

“Now, when your mama was just a little thing, I used to give her Fletcher’s Castoria, but I don’t suppose they still make that.”

“I am fine,” I said loudly. “My plumbing is working just fine. Is everyone well at home? Is Mama there?”

“She is,” said my grandmother. “Do you want to talk to her?”

“Sure.”

The sound of the phone clattering to the floor, and then being picked up and dropped again, was followed by the sound of Nana shouting to my mother as if they were separated by the Berlin Wall.

My mother said, “I don’t know why she hollers like that. I’m standing not three feet away from her.”

“I hear you skipped Daisy Burt’s colitis tour of the Biltmore House.”

“I did. I had a weekend all to myself. I watched movies, I read books, and I cooked exactly what I wanted for dinner.”

“Meaning you ate a hamburger steak junior from the Char-grill every night?”

“Exactly.”

“So, what else is happening?”

“I was getting to that,” she said. “First, how are you feeling?”

“I’m up and about.”

“Well, that’s good. And everything’s moving along now?”

“If you mean am I still constipated, the answer is yes, but don’t tell Nana. I’m not taking mineral oil, I don’t want an enema, and I have no idea what the hell Fletcher’s Castoria is. I don’t care if I never go again, I just want to stop talking about it.”

“Fletcher’s Castoria.” My mother made a shuddering sound. “No, you don’t want that.” There was a pause, and then she said, “I don’t mean to worry you while you’re recovering, but your grandfather is in the hospital, Poppy. He has pneumonia.”

“Good lord. Is it serious?”

“Probably. If you can manage it, I think you should come home.”

My mother’s tone was always deadpan. She felt things more keenly than she ever let on, but in order to know what she was feeling, you had to listen to what she said rather than how she said it. I’d left home at eighteen, but no matter how far away from Raleigh I’d lived, my mother had never asked me to come home. Not that she wasn’t glad to see me when I did—it was more that she liked to feel that the visits were my idea, something I did out of a genuine desire to see her rather than a sense of obligation. This, of course, had the opposite effect of making me feel guilty by scrupulously trying not to make me feel guilty.

“I think I could pull myself together in the next couple of days,” I said carefully. “Why the hell did Nana waste time telling me about Daisy Burt and the Biltmore House? Has she gone off the deep end?”

“Denial,” my mother said. “Or Alzheimer’s. Hunter doesn’t just have pneumonia, Poppy. There’s something else going on. We’re meeting tomorrow with a lung specialist. There are dark spots on his X-rays.”

I put my hand over the receiver. “Black spots on his lungs?”

“Lung cancer,” Abby said. “How long did he smoke?”

I did some quick math. “Sixty-nine years. From age eleven to age eighty.”

“I heard that,” my mother said. “It’s what I thought.”

“Is he in any pain?”

“I don’t think so. He’s breathing hard, but he’s on morphine. He’s out of it. He didn’t even wake up when we went by this afternoon.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to shake off the effects of my own painkillers. “Call me tomorrow after you meet with the lung specialist. I’ll hop a flight out of Portland as soon as I can, sometime in the next few days. Don’t worry about picking me up at the airport. I’ll rent a car. I think I’ll get a hotel room, too.”

“Uh-uh,” said my mother. “I understand the impulse, but I wouldn’t if I were you.” She dropped her voice to a near whisper. “Nana has already cleaned out your old bedroom. She’s moved the ironing pile and made up the bed. If it gets to be too much, you can always go over to Susan’s.”

“Susan?” I said blankly.

“Didn’t I tell you? She got back about a week ago from wherever it was she’s been these past three years.”

“The former Yugoslavia,” I said.

“That’s it. The war is over and now she’s home. Here to stay, too, or so she says. She was on call when they admitted Hunter, and I can tell you, we were glad to see her. She’s so calm. Nothing seems to faze her.”

I wished the same were true of me. Abby and Belvedere were both staring at me.

I took a deep breath. “She’s staying with her father?”

“For the time being. She’ll be right next door. You can pop over whenever you need a break, just like you used to.”

“I don’t think so.”

My mother sighed. “That was all a long time ago, Poppy. None of it was your fault, any more than it was hers. Susan couldn’t have been more professional with your grandfather or friendlier to us. She asked about you.”

“Did she?”

“Of course. I told her where you were and what you were doing. She said she’d like to see you. It’s a shame you two lost touch, but, well . . . we’ll talk when you get home. I’ll let you go now. You’re probably tired.”

“I am. Good night, Mama.” I hung up the phone and settled back into position on the sofa. Abby and I looked at one another. The doorbell rang. Abby shoved Belvedere off her lap and got up to answer it.

She set the pizza box down on the coffee table. Without looking at me, she said, “Susan Sava returns and you’re on the first plane back to Raleigh.” There was a long pause. “You’re not fit to travel.”

“I know that, but my grandfather . . .”

“Which is why I’m going with you.”

“What? Abby, you can’t. You’ve just taken a week off.”

“I can,” she replied firmly. “I have a million hours of annual leave, and I intend to use them. The ICU is fully staffed. I won’t have any trouble getting someone to cover for me. I’ll stay with my mother.”

I laughed. “Oh no, you won’t. Your mother’s favorite game is fingernails on a chalkboard. You wouldn’t last five minutes. Listen, my grandmother be damned, I’m not sleeping in that hard little bed next to her ironing pile. You and me, we’ll share a room at the Velvet Cloak Inn, my treat. It’s the least I can do.”

“I suppose it is,” Abby agreed. She handed me a slice of pizza, took one for herself, and sat back down. “You’ve just compared my mother to Captain Quint in Jaws.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have given her top billing.”

Abby sighed. “I’m not saying that it’s not accurate, only that it’s not nice. So, you can also spring for the plane tickets. I want the window seat. You can have that cramped one in the middle with no armrests.”