It happened slower than that. And better.
The following Tuesday morning, Tamra knocked on the basement door.
Knocked. On a door in her own husband’s church.
When Louise opened it, Tamra was standing there in jeans and an old sweatshirt, holding a notebook and a pen.
“I’d like to learn the funeral shelf,” she said. “And the dietary list. And how Eunice takes her coffee. Not to run any of it. Just to help carry it. If you’ll still have me.”
The four of us looked at Louise.
Louise is the one who started this whole thing thirty-one years ago, with two casserole dishes and a cold February morning. It was hers to answer.
Louise looked at Tamra for a long moment.
“There’s always room at this table for one more set of hands, Tamra,” she said. “So long as you remember whose table it is you’re setting.”
