"Here, let me," he said, taking the cup.

"I shouldn’t be carrying on so."

"Hey, now." He squirted some Joy into the cup, let a trickle of water run into its bottom, then ran his forefinger around the ring of stain in the bottom. "You only get one daddy, and he only gets to die once. So you go ahead and do whatever you need to do."

She wiped her eyes, then wiped her hands on a dish towel hanging from a cabinet knob. "I think I need to eat something."

"Try the pie," he said. "Beverly Parsons made it."

"Maybe so. You know what’s funny?"

"What?"

"I can’t taste nothing. Ever since… "

"Ain’t unusual." He rinsed the cup and filled it with water. Spring water, come from a fresh rocky crevice in the hills. Roby had found it with a dowsing rod, not that you needed a dowser to find water in these parts. But Roby had the gift with water witching, could make that forked stick dip down for water or precious metal or even lost bones.

He handed a knife to Anna Beth, handle first, so she could take it without cutting herself. She snicked off a sliver of sweet potato pie and used the blade to push it into her mouth. She stretched the plastic wrap back over the pie. Roby frowned. The wrap was wrinkled.

"Take this to your ma," he said.

She licked the knife clean and set it on the counter, then took the cup with both hands. "Good pie."

A good-bye pie, Roby almost said aloud.

She left the room, and Roby was once again alone with the heaps of food. Deviled eggs, left out for at least two hours. The paprika had dissolved into a rusty blur among the yellows. That was a sign. The eggs had turned. Only four of the dozen had been eaten.