Carolina Moon

turned, knowing she was expected to receive condolences. Rosie was right there, her eyes bird-bright behind her veil. “It was a proper service. Dignified and brief. It reflects well on you.”
    “Thank you, Miss Rosie.”
    “We can’t choose our blood, but we can choose what to do with it, what to do about it.” She tipped up her face, looked at her nephew. “You’ve chosen well. Margaret will come around, or she won’t, but that’s not for you to worry about. I’m going to talk to Iris, find out who that big, strapping man is she’s got with her.”
    She plowed through the wet in a two-thousand-dollar Chanel suit, and Birkenstocks.
    Struggling against twin urges to laugh and weep, Tory laid a hand on Cade’s arm. “Go take her your umbrella. I’ll be fine.”
    “I’ll be right back.”
    “Tory, I’m very sorry.” Dwight held out a hand, and clasping hers, kissed her cheek even as he shifted his umbrella to shield her from the rain. “Lissy wanted to come, but I made her stay home.”
    “I’m glad you did. It wouldn’t be good for her to be out in this weather today. It was kind of you to come, Dwight.”
    “We’ve known each other a long time. And Wade, he’s one of my two closest friends. Tory, is there anything I can do for you?”
    “No, but thank you. I’m going to walk over and visit Hope’s grave before I leave. You should go on back to Lissy.”
    “I will. Take this.” He brought her hand up to the handle of the umbrella.
    “No, I’ll be fine.”
    “Take it,” he insisted. “And don’t stay out in the wet too long.”
    He left her to walk back to Wade.
    Grateful for the shelter, Tory turned away from her mother’s grave to walk through the grass, through the stones, to Hope’s.
    Rain ran down the angel’s face like tears and beat at the fairy roses. Inside the globe, the winged horse flew.
    “It’s all over now. It doesn’t feel settled yet,” Tory said with a sigh. “I have this heaviness inside me. Well, it’s so much to take in at once. I wish I could … there are too many things to wish for.”
    “I never bring flowers here,” Faith said from behind her. “I don’t know why.”
    “She has the roses.”
    “That’s not it. They’re not my roses, not mine to bring her.”
    Tory looked behind her, then shifted so they were standing together. “I can’t feel her here. Maybe you can’t, either.”
    “I don’t want to go in the ground when my time comes. I want my ashes spread somewhere. The sea, I think, as that’s where I plan to have Wade ask me to marry him. By the sea. She might have felt the same, only hers would have been for the river, or near it in the marsh. That was her place.”
    “Yes, it was. It is.” It seemed important, and natural, to reach out a hand and clasp Faith’s. “There are flowers at Beaux Reves, that was her place, too. I could cut some when the storm passes, take them to the marsh. To the river. Put them there for Hope. Maybe it would be the right way, laying flowers on the water instead of letting them die on the ground. Would you do that with me?”
    “I hated sharing her with you.” Faith paused, closed her eyes. “Now I don’t. It’ll be clear this afternoon. I’ll tell Wade.” She started to walk away, stopped. “Tory, if you get there first—”
    “I’ll wait for you.”
    Tory watched her go, looked back over the gentle slope, the curtaining rain, the gathering ground fog. There was her grandmother with Cecil strong at her back, Rosie in her veil and Lilah holding an umbrella over her.
    J.R. and Boots still by the grave of the sister he had loved more than he might have realized.
    And there was Cade, with his friends, waiting.
    As she walked to him, the rain began to thin and the first hint of sun shimmered watery light through the gloom.
    “You understand why I want to do this?”
    “I understand you want to.”
    Tory smiled a little as she shook rain from the spears of lavender she’d cut. “And you’re annoyed, just a little, that I’m not asking you to come with me.”
    “A little. It’s counterbalanced by the fact that you and Faith are becoming friends. And all of that is overpowered by the sheer terror of knowing I’m going to be at Aunt Rosie’s mercy until you return. She has a gift for me, and I’ve seen it. It’s a moldy top hat, which she expects I will wear for our wedding.”
    “It’ll go well with the moth-eaten dress she’s giving me. I tell you what. You wear the hat,