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whatever you—”
    “One breezeway is quite enough, thank you,” Mother said, lifting her chin with pride.
    “Oh yes, I know you had Marvin connect your house to your mother’s after the, uh, you know, the accident,” Uncle Waldo stammered. Then he spoke in a quieter voice. “But let’s be honest. Taking care of the elderly isn’t easy. I know how hard it is, believe me. That’s why I thought I could help you on thisside. You know, by fixing things. Doing odds and ends.” He coughed airlessly. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve noticed the spring on your screen door could use a little oil. If you want it to stop squeaking, I mean.”
    “I apologize if my door has disturbed you,” Mother said in her iciest voice. “I’ll add it to Marvin’s to-do list.”
    “Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Uncle Waldo put in quickly. “I just meant that, well, I’m fairly handy, you know. And I’d be happy to help out around your house any way that I could. It wouldn’t have to be anything more than that. But in time, if you discover you enjoy my company and want to—”
    “Daralynn,” Mother said, “take Mamaw inside. Now .”
    It was only then that I realized Uncle Waldo was quite possibly courting Mother.
    She joined us in the house a few minutes later.
    “Is Uncle Waldo going to live with us?” I asked.
    “No,” Mother said gruffly. “But I can’t stop him from buying a house if he has the money.”
    She was mad, that’s for sure. And she was even madder when he came to the beauty parlor a few days later.
    “Even bald men need a little upkeep now and then,” Uncle Waldo said.
    “Not much I can do to help you there,” Mother said without looking at him. She was sweeping hair clippings off the floor. Ribbons of blond hair mixed with clumps of gray and black curls.
    “Hattie,” Uncle Waldo said, “I was thinking about planting some rosebushes around the gravestone. But I wanted to make sure that was okay with you.”
    Mother just kept sweeping. I knew she was thinking what I was thinking: the smell of all those roses at the funeral. It really was enough to make a person sick.
    Uncle Waldo smiled. “Okay, I’ll hold off on that,” he said. Then he bought a root beer for me and a grape soda for himself. He stuck a five-dollar bill in the jar and left.
    “No reason to be rude, Hattie,” Mamaw said after Uncle Waldo was gone.
    “You can count the hairs on that man’s head with one hand,” Mother said, dumping a dustpan full of hair into the garbage. “One finger , even.”
    “A baby can’t help it if he’s bald,” said Mamaw, rinsing out the shampoo sink.
    But to Mother, baldness was a sign of moral failing, like crabgrass and dandelions.
    “And then he has to show off by overpaying for those soda pops,” Mother hissed. “I swear, he’s just like his sister.”
    She said it like it was the worst possible thing you could say about a person. But it made me look at Uncle Waldo in a new, more favorable light. Or maybe I just felt sorry for anyone foolish enough to try to be sweet to my mother.

Eight
Clem’s Crematorium
    Later that week an unfamiliar car was spotted cruising through town. A man no one knew was seen pounding wooden stakes in the empty field where the Digginsville Dairy Dream had been before it burned down.
    A few days later, a hand-painted sign stood in the middle of the staked-off area. The sign read FUTURE HOME OF CLEM’S CREMATORIUM. I thought it meant we were getting a new Dairy Dream—and just six blocks from my house.
    “Are you excited about the new crematorium?” I asked Janelle Harper. She’d come in the beauty shop for Le Frenchie , as everyone was calling the Marlon Brando–inspired haircut I’d given Barry Howe’scousin Frankie. All the girls in Digginsville suddenly wanted Le Frenchie cuts after they heard—and believed—it was the hottest hairstyle in France.
    I was just trying to make small talk while I thinned the hair around Janelle’s ears. But it