Roby poked a finger into the mushy yellow of one of the remaining eggs. He sniffed his finger. Definitely turned. But maybe he could get Buck to eat a few, if only to shut him up about the tractor. If Buck churned his guts up later, that was okay.

The pie called to Roby again, almost with a whisper of human voice. He picked up the knife, wiped it on the leg of his jeans, and looked at his reflection in the blade. The fluorescent light made him look green and sickly, as if he himself were two days dead instead of Jacob. But Barnaby would take care of the skin. Barnaby was as reliable as the sun.

He reached the blade to the pie and was about to cut a thick wedge when Marlene entered the room.

"Momma wanted some of that," she said.

"I thought she wasn’t hungry."

"You know how it goes when you got sorrow. Half the time you can’t stand a bite and the other half you want to stuff yourself blue."

"I’ll cut her a piece, then. Mind handing me a plate?"

"Momma’s all the time going on about Beverly Parsons’s pies. Daddy raved about them, you know. Ever time we come home from a church social, he’d lay on the couch and put his hands over his tummy and said if he’d married Beverly instead of our ma, he’d weigh four hundred pounds. And Momma would throw a pin cushion at him, sometimes not even taking the pins out first."

"Well, they’re good pies."

"And Daddy stayed skinny as a rail, even though Momma ain’t so bad a cook herself."

"No offense, Marlene, but your momma is best with casseroles, when she has some garden harvest to work with. Beverly’s good for all seasons."

Marlene almost smiled. "Hush up, now. She might hear you."

Roby eased the slice of pie onto the plate. The crust collapsed and lay on the plate among some brown crumbs. He hoped the widow would eat that part. Every crumb added to Jacob’s burden, and if the dead man couldn’t even count on his own wife to help him make the passage, then he was in deep trouble.