She was bent over, opening lower cabinet doors in succession, searching, when the doorbell jingled and her first customer walked in.

"Hello,” she said and banged her knee on the open cabinet door. She couldn't believe she had greeted her first-ever customer with a view of her rear end.

She grabbed her knee as she stood up and dropped the napkins in the process.

"I'm sorry,” she said. “I'll be right with you."

"Take your time,” Avanell said. “I'll just help myself to some tea, if that's okay."

"Oh, yes, please.” Harriet picked up the napkins and brought them over to the table. Avanell had her tea steeping, had clipped the end of a honey straw and was stirring her tea with the open straw, dumping its contents into the hot liquid.

"You look just like you did when I left for college” Harriet asked.

"Aren't you sweet! I still had dark hair when you left, but it was from a bottle, even back then.” She laughed. “I quit that nonsense a few years ago.” She tucked an errant gray strand behind her ear. You look like you just got on the plane yesterday, and of course, your aunt has told me everything that's happened with you since the day you left."

"Only the good parts, I hope,” she said, and wondered exactly how much Aunt Beth had told her friends in Foggy Point about her recent past. At the very least, the women would know she'd been widowed. Whether she'd filled them in on Steve's genetic illness that probably could have been treated, had he and his family not worked so hard to keep it a secret, would remain to be seen.

She poured her own cup of tea, sizing up Avanell in the process. She was a short stocky woman in her late fifties. She wore a tailored skirt in charcoal-grey wool flannel and a maroon paisley blouse with a cardigan sweater that looked like it had been hand-knit. Her grey hair was in a loose bun on the top of her head. She looked like the grandmother most children only dream of.