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or use molds. To use molds, break the mixture into small balls, coat in finely granulated sugar, and press into molds. Let sit for two days, then pop out.
             
    Can be frozen.
             
    *You can add food coloring of choice.
             
    “All right, girls, I gotta scoot,” says Nancy.
    “What are you adjusting?” Iva Lou asks as she tucks the recipe into her date book.
    “There was a wreck in Appalachia by the train trestle.”
    “People think Appy Strait is a speedway.”
    “They do indeed.” Nancy snaps her purse shut. “That curve right under the Roaring Branch always gets them.”
    “It’s from people leaning to see the waterfall. You know, lookie-loos and rubberneckers.” Iva Lou shrugs.
    “I guess so. Y’all call me if you need anything else.” Nancy takes her assignment and goes.
    Iva Lou checks off her list. “I’m making the orange sherbet punch, one bowl with vodka and one without. Wedding cake is gonna be carrot. Janine wants to make it for her mama. The Tuckett twins said they’d make the Chex mix. So that leaves me with the salted pea-nits and the candy mints.”
    “You got off easy.”
    “What about you? Farming your job out to that overachiever Nancy Kilgore-Hall.”
    “Guilty.”
    “I don’t blame you—them Garden Clubbers are semiprofessionals, as it were. Let ’em do what they do, ’cause they do it better than anybody else.”
             
    “Mrs. MacChesney?” The library aide Emma Morrissey, a delicate blonde with blue eyes, appears in the doorway. I can never tell her apart from her sister, Charlotte, who is her dead ringer.
    Iva Lou smiles. “That there is Emma, in case you were wondering.”
    “There’s a call for you on line one,” Emma says to me.
    Iva Lou shoves the phone toward me. “Something the matter?” She glances at Emma, who looks concerned.
    I pick up the phone and say hello.
    “Ave? It’s Mousey. We need you to come over to Holston Valley right away.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “It’s Jack Mac, ma’am. He’s in intensive care.”
    “What happened?” I feel faint.
    “He passed out on us, and we brought him here. The doctor says it’s serious. You need to hurry.”
    Iva Lou puts down the extension that she picked up when I asked what was wrong. “Let’s go,” she says. “I’ll drive.”

Kingsport
    I va Lou doesn’t say a word as we drive to Holston Valley Hospital in Kingsport. I’m numb as my thoughts tumble over one another; my feelings come and go in waves of panic. Iva Lou pumps the gas pedal, lifting it off to take each curve with precision. She barrels out of town and into Wildcat Holler at a clip. The stone walls, where they blasted through the mountain to put in the highway, are charcoal blurs on either side as we go. It seems that time has stopped entirely, and yet we’re speeding through it. Soon we’re outside Hiltons and the Carter Family Fold. When the road straightens into Gate City, Iva Lou deftly passes cars two at a time to get me there. To Jack.
    I feel sick. Jack and I went to bed angry at each other last night, even though my inner voice told me to apologize. This morning I didn’t even bring him his coffee. I just hollered up the stairs that I’d be home at six, and left for work early, without waiting for his reply. This is what makes me the saddest, that I didn’t wait to hear his answer. I beg God to let him live just so I can hear his voice again.
    Iva Lou pulls in to the parking lot outside the hospital. “He’ll be in Building A,” she says quietly. She knows this hospital well—it’s where she had her surgery—so there’s no confusion about where to go or what to do. We jump out of the car and run into the hospital. Mousey is waiting for us inside.
    “What happened?” I ask.
    “We were hanging Sheetrock, nothin’ strenuous, and we was talking, and then he passed out. He didn’t say nothing. He just hit the floor.”
    My stomach turns at the thought of my