Lucinda covered her face with her hands after Nancy left. She could not stand another confrontation. When she opened her eyes, she saw Vernon, dressed in military fatigues and a helmet. He stood in front of her with a blank expression on his face.

“Vernon! I’m so glad you came back. I wanted to—“

Vernon fell forward, revealing the back of his helmet blown apart and a red mess that was once his brain. Lucinda screamed loud and long. Bertha rushed in the door, grabbed her and hugged her as she dissolved in tears.

“You poor baby!” Bertha cooed. “What’s wrong?”

“There! There! On the floor! Can’t you see him!?” Lucinda pointed to the form only she could see on the floor. “All that blood? The back of his head! Just blown away!”

“You poor thing!” Bertha patted Lucinda’s head. “I didn’t know you suffered from the hysterics too!”

The very thought that she was not always in complete control of her emotions jolted Lucinda back to reality. Taking several deep breaths, she averted her eyes from the vision of Vernon on the floor. The tears finally stop. “I’m all right now. Thank you, Mrs. Godwin.”

“Thank goodness. I don’t think I’d have the nerve to slap you into calmin’ down.”

“No.” Lucinda forced a smile. “You won’t have to slap me.”

“Jest what on earth happened to make you have a fit like that?”

Lucinda stood, closed her eyes momentarily then walked to her rocker where she sat. “I was remembering a student of mine.”

“Oh, I know what you mean. Young people today.” Bertha’s eyes widened. “I jest don’t know where we went wrong. They’re so disrespectful and—“

“Oh no,” she interrupted. “This young man wasn’t bad at all.”

“That’s unusual.” Bertha’s eyebrows went up.

“He was sweet and kind. Not the brightest in his class but the hardest working.” Lucinda dared not to look down. “He was the kind of student that made teaching all worthwhile.”

“Well, what about him upset you?”

“I remembered a spring day, near the end of the semester, many years ago.” She decided confession might be good for her soul. “This very special, very wonderful young man came into my office and announced he had been drafted and was going to serve in Vietnam. He was obviously scared.”

“At least he wasn’t of them draft dodgers.”

“He needed me to say something, to make him feel better, not to be scared anymore.” She smiled ruefully. “And all I said was to worry more about driving home that day than dying in war.”

“But that’s true.”

“There is truth, and then there is reality.” Lucinda leaned back in defeat. “He was dead of a mortar blast to the back of the head less than a year later.”

“At least he died for his country.” Bertha persisted in her perky optimism.

“That’s what he said, that he was going to die for his country.” Lucinda had never allowed herself to be so harsh in self-judgment “And all I could say was something trivial, something so heartless.”

Bertha scooted across the bed to be closer to the teacher. “Now don’t you fret about that and make yourself have fits.”

“But it’s hard not to be.”

“I know a woman who had the same thing happen to her, or jest about. Her husband had a heart condition, and they lived right behind their daughter and her family.”

“Bertha! Come here!” Emma’s voice echoed up through the stairwell.

“One day while the wife was mowin’ the lawn — the man couldn’t, you see, because—“

“Shouldn’t you answer your sister?” The last thing Lucinda wanted was to have Emma bursting through her door in an outrage.

“Oh, if she wants me bad enough she can come git me. Anyway, he couldn’t mow, you see, because of his heart, but that day he followed her every step while she mowed. She said that made her nervous.”

“Bertha! Help me move this sofa so I can clean behind it!”

She continued to ignore her sister. “After supper that night he wanted to go through the back gate and visit—“

“Won’t she hurt herself lifting the sofa?”

“Oh no. Emma’s strong as an ox,” She replied with a sneer. “Anyway, he wanted to go through the back gate and visit the kids. Well, she said she was too tired from mowin’ and that they’d go another night. Sure enough, he died of a heart attack that night, and she felt jest terrible ‘cause she didn’t fulfill his last wish.”

“Bertha!” Emma was sounding angrier.

“There was the kids—“

“There were the kids.” Lucinda could not help but correct Bertha’s grammar.

“That’s right. There was them kids close and he couldn’t see them one last time because of her. Why, she jest about drove herself nuts thinkin’ about it. One day while I was over havin’ coffee—“

“Bertha! Where are you!?” Emma was on the verge of erupting like Mount Vesuvius and scorching everyone in her grasp.

Bertha went to the door and shouted, “I’m in the teacher’s room calmin’ her down after a fit!”

“I didn’t have a fit.” Lucinda tried not to sound too offended.

“Hold your horses!” She returned to the bed and sat. “Where was I? Oh yes. We was havin’ coffee, and she jest bust out cryin’ and told me how she felt and — I don’t know why I thought of this but I did and I’m so proud — I asked her if she knew her husband was goin’ to die that night.”

“If I git a hernia it’s your fault!” Emma continued her rant from downstairs.

“Oh git a hernia! I don’t care!” There was a rough angry edge to Bertha’s voice. A sweet smile covered her face when she resumed talking to Lucinda. “Anyways, she looked at me funny and said no. Then I said then you didn’t deprive him of that visit on purpose, did you? And she said no. If you had known it was his last night you’d gone to Timbuktu for him, wouldn’t you? She said yes. Well, I told her no one knows when you’re goin’ so you can’t cry over what you might have done if you had known. You know, she agreed and started feelin’ better right off.”

“But, my dear, don’t you think we should always be mindful that what we do today will be with us all our tomorrows?”

“But that’s kinda hard to do, ain’t it?”

“Isn’t it.”

“It sure enough is.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.” Lucinda leaned back in the rocker, drained from her attempts to be Bertha’s teacher.

“So don’t you worry about that boy none.” She reached over and patted the teacher’s bony knee.

“Thank you very much, my dear.” Lucinda found herself out of breath again. “It was sweet of you to comfort me.”

“Call me Bertha.”

“Very well. Thank you, Bertha.” She decided to be magnanimous. “And you may call me Lucinda.”

“Thanks, Lucy.”

“Lucinda.” Perhaps not that magnanimous. “Um, I’m sorry I wasn’t a very good sentinel, but your sister flew up the stairs and past me before I could say a word.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry she didn’t let you complete the call.”

“Well, that’s life, ain’t it?”

“It isn’t my place to talk.” Lucinda wrinkled her brow. Has your sister always been so hard on you?”

“Oh yes, ever since we was little girls.”

Emma exploded through the door, put her hands on her hips and stared at Bertha. “I’ve been callin’ you to help me move the sofa in the parlor.”

“I’m sorry, Emma.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “Lucy and me’s been talkin’.”

“So. It’s Lucy now, huh? Well, I don’t care to be on first name basis with jest boarders.”

“Emma, what a thing to say.” A shy little laugh sneaked from her mouth. “Why, I’m jest a boarder.”

“Yes, and I’m the landlady because Buster Lawrence saw fit to leave me with this wonderful house, big enough to rent rooms to make a livin’.

Seein’ you jest got four boarders, you ain’t makin’ much of a livin’ off of it.”

“That’s right,” Emma retorted. “And one of them ain’t even paid full rent.” She pulled a pack of cigarettes from a pocket in her worn apron, extracted a lighter from another pocket and lit up.

“I’ll pay full rent if you want me to.”

“Oh no. You’re my sister, and I love you.” She blew the smoke in Bertha’s direction. “It’s the least I can do for you since your husband didn’t see fit to leave you as well off as Buster left me.”

“Now why do you always have to say that?” Her face started turning an ominous shade of red. “My Merrill couldn’t help it if he had kidney stones. His three operations took up all the money we’d saved.”

The telephone in the kitchen rang. A moment later Cassie called out, “Mommy! It’s the fire marshal on the phone. He wants to talk to you right now!

“If I find out it was you who set the fire marshal on me I’ll slap your face off!” She goes out the door, throwing an order over her shoulder. “Bertha, you git down there in that parlor and wait for me to move that sofa.”

“I should have said, ‘You’re gonna die from cancer by smoking all those cigarettes.’ That’s what I should have said to her. But it wouldn’t have done no good. She’d come back with smart answer.”

“I’m so sorry your sister acts that way.” Lucinda’s hand went to her chest.

“She causes all my fits. I jest know I wouldn’t have none of them if I didn’t have to be around her.”

“Of course. I’m sure,” she agreed in a whisper.

“But Lucy, why didn’t you back me up on them cigarettes? You know they cause cancer! Practically all the doctors say so now. Everybody knows that!”

“I’m sorry, Bertha.” She looked up to the ceiling. “I suppose I let your sister intimidate me.”

“Well, I jest thought you was stronger than that.” Bertha’s voice was filled with petty spite.

“No, I’m not strong at all.” It was as much a confession to herself as to Bertha.

“You fooled me. And I thought you was perfect.”