"But, Momma, you are old."

The silence fell again, as thick as the ash dust in the back of the hearth.

"Dishes," Roby said. "There’s a whole sink full in the kitchen."

He moved across the room, every eye on him. He took the widow’s plate, almost asked her if she were going to finish that last bit of pie, then took her glass. A ring of milk had hardened halfway up the glass.

"Mind giving me a hand, Sarah?" he asked. Buck gave Roby a suspicious look, then turned his face out the window, toward the barn where the Massey Ferguson sat in the shadows.

Sarah got up. Marlene crossed her legs and folded her arms. Cindy moved closer to Alfred, who planted the stock of the rifle on the floor as if he were a soldier at parade rest. Anna Beth watched the black screen of the TV.

The fork fell off the widow’s plate as Roby lifted it. Crumbs flipped onto the gray rug. The fork bounced across hardwood. Roby counted the crumbs. Three big enough to see, maybe six more too small for a mouse.

Sarah stooped and gathered the fork and Roby followed her into the kitchen.

#

IV

Lemon-fresh Joy. Roby not only enjoyed its smell, but the lather was richer than that of Ivory or Dove. The dishes were stacked to the left of the sink. Sarah had scraped them clean and was busy putting away the morning’s plates from the drying rack.

"That’s one thing people don’t consider," she said. "They bring over food, but nobody remembers to bring paper plates."

"It would be even worse if you had to cook, too," Roby said. "Greasy frying pans, tomato sauce clinging to the bowls, egg yellows that set up and get stubborn on a plate."

"I’m sorry about what happened in there." She wiped her hands on a dish towel.

Roby lowered the first stack of dishes into the soapy water. He wiped the scrub pad over the surface of the top plate, flipped it over, wiped a circle in the back, and placed it in the adjacent sink.