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cabaret?”
    “We crunched numbers and came up with one we think we can work with,” she said. “It really was a great idea, Jake. I never would have thought of it, but we think we can make it work. And with music from last night, I’m positive we can. Eventually we’ll bring in live music, but this will be a start.”
    Jake visited many times after that, with or without an excuse. He was there for the opening of the cabaret. On Cindy’s tenth birthday, Beth was no longer wearing a wedding ring.
    Now they often sit under the oak tree in the long warm summer evenings. The cabaret is open three nights a week, and they talk sometimes about making it four nights, but there’s no rush. Reservations are lined up for months to come. Weekends that Cindy and the Krewe play, the place is jammed, with reservations required a year in advance. Cindy never leaves for long. She seldom goes on tour, but sometimes her group goes to New York to produce a CD in Roberto’s snazzy studio. His first album was a hit. As Luellen’s heir, Beth receives the continuing royalties and license fees, not big money, but sufficient.
    Often out here, under the tree, Beth tries to think through a conversation she had with Luellen when she asked if there had ever been a lover in her life.
    “Honey, love’s a funny word. Means so many different things, now doesn’t it? Family love, love of country, of flag, mother for child, religious love, love of a friend, love for your mate. All different. There were a few men along the way, love along the way, but it never was the right sort of love. None of them really did fit in, belong somehow or other. I reckon there’s something even stronger than the love we talk about, more than friendship, more than sexual love, more like a finishing of something not really whole. I think I learned that when you find where you belong, it’s foolishness to keep moving on.”
    Beth suspects that she hasn’t yet thought through to the bottom of that, but meanwhile she’s where she wants to be, and doing what she wants to do. And she has Jake. It’s enough.
    Sometimes they talk about opening a real restaurant up in the salon, which no one ever uses. “Maybe some day,” they agree. Jake writes a column for the River News , and he is writing his book about Uncle Bob. It’s going slowly, but over the years Luellen told him so many stories, so much magic, it can’t be hurried.
    They hold hands and talk, and sometimes, especially when Cindy is away and the basement is still and dark, they listen to the other music. The songs vary, but what he likes best is when Uncle Bob is at the piano, Leo with the clarinet, and Luellen is singing, “‘My mama done told me . . . .’”
    Shadows on the Wall of the Cave

    ASHLEY WAS DREAMING WHEN HER PHONE RANG. In the dream she was in absolute dark, running wildly, crying out soundlessly, screaming, hearing nothing. A pin point of light, a single star in a void, blinked out when she ran toward it, only to appear somewhere else, again and again.
    She came awake, wet with sweat, shivering, and groped for the phone. It was her father.
    “Your grandmother died during the night,” he said. “I’ll catch an eight o’clock flight. Do you want to fly down with me?”
    She shook her head. “I’ll drive.” Her voice sounded hollow, strange. She cleared her throat. “I’ll get there tonight.”
    “Give us a call when you get in,” he said. “Drive carefully.”
    After hanging up, Ashley pulled the thin summer blanket over her, then pulled the bedspread up also, cold, shivering. She seldom knew what brought on that nightmare, but three times this week she had known. Before her mother had flown to Frankfort to be with Gramma, she had said they would go to the farm after the funeral, and she wanted Ashley to go with them. “There are things she would have wanted you to have,” she had said.
    Ashley had refused. The last time she had been to the farm, seventeen years ago, she had