Mary turned away and hobbled into the house. "Well, I should think, making the kind of money you do, that you could eat a little better."

Tess resisted rolling her eyes and stuck her sunglasses back on, following Mary inside. They went through a shallow living room that stretched across the entire front of the house, a west-facing room with bumpy stucco walls and well-used furniture, dominated by an upright piano. Three archways led off the opposite wall, the center one upstairs, the right one to the bathroom and Mary's bedroom, the left one to the kitchen at the rear of the house. Mary stomped through the left one, still talking.

"I thought country singers wore big hair."

"That's old, Momma. Things're changing in country."

"But you flattened all them pretty natural curls right out of it. I always loved them natural curls of yours."

"They want me to look up-to-date."

Mary's own hair could use some styling, Tess thought, studying a pinwheel of exposed skull on the back of her head. She'd given up coloring it and let it go natural, which proved to be a peachy gray. The remains of an old set clearly disclosed the need for an update. More important, however, was the pained gait with which she moved, lurching sharply to the right each time she put weight on that leg, using whatever furniture or walls were available for support.

"Are you sure you should be walking, Momma?"

"They'll have me off my feet plenty after the operation's over. Long as I can hobble around I'm going to."

She was a squat, squarish woman of seventy-four, wearing a disgusting old slacks set made of polyester knit that had begun to pill. The pants were solid lavender, the top had been white once, and was stamped with a cluster of pansies so faded their edges had lost distinction. The outfit had to be a good fifteen years old. Tess wondered if this was what her mother had worn when she went to tour the hospital today. She also wondered about the stylish silk trouser outfit she'd had shipped from Nordstrom's last fall when she'd been on tour in Seattle.