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Everyone knows when it comes to the hot dish table, your grandma beats all.”
    “She what?” Hairs rose along the nape of Cress’s neck. The Scandinavian Fall Festival was a local tradition that involved all branches of her family , and Aunt Sylvie had headed the Swedish food volunteers for as long as Cress could remember. “She said that?”
    “Oh, you know Sylvie. She’s a pill. I told her to never mind her bossy ways, that as long as your grandma and I could handle a stove or a fry pan, we were on board. But Sylvie’s got a bee in her bonnet over losing this farmland to development and I think she’s anxious to show her big sister the error of her ways. She had the nerve to tell Merle Langley that her bars were the last thing folks bought off the sweets table because Merle’s mighty stingy with the good stuff, if you know what I mean.”
    “I don’t, actually.”
    “The nuts and chips and goodies everyone and their brother expects in a good bar. And while Sylvie might be right, she was wrong, too, because no one works harder than Merle to get things done, make things right. Sylvie’s always had a mind of her own, and she’s far too inclined to speak it. She’s gotten to be a real pain in the neck these days, and it won’t do Norma a bit of good to hear of it. Mum’s the word.”
    It was one thing for Cress to be upset with the loss of the farmland. She’d linked all that was good and holy from her childhood to the rolling meadowland now covered with fancy homes. But Aunt Sylvie had no right to interfere. Or get upset. Or say anything at all. Gran had obviously stepped on family toes by selling for development. The Ekstrom elders had strict rules concerning land sales. Family first, farming second, and development ranked dead last. Gran broke the rules, which meant more family fall-out. As if her father’s drinking problem hadn’t caused enough furor back in the day. She drew a breath, let Ginny precede her and decided she’d check things more closely before flying off the handle. Audra would have the insider’s edge on both sides of the issue. When you were nice, people talked to you.
    Around Cress?
    They clammed up tight, and that was all right. Their reticence saved her no small amount of annoyance. Except now she’d be in the thick of the aggravation, entering the last act of an elongated play. But if it helped Gran? She’d do whatever proved necessary.
    *
    “You mind that scrubber, Charlie. I don’t got money to be buyin’ new scrubbers because you’re too good-for-nothin’ to put some elbow grease behind the job. Ya gotta push down, push hard.” Her hand covered his over the semi-rotted wooden picnic table, showing him what she wanted, and when she did a sliver of the old table lodged in the soft palm of his right hand.
    “Ouch!” He pulled back, the stab of pain making him forget. Miz Jane liked little boys to be quiet and still. To follow directions. And to stay quiet when folks came to visit, though few did.
    A trickle of blood oozed from the wound’s open end. Not much, just a dot or two, but she saw it and screeched. “What have you done?”
    “I didn’t,” he protested. “You did.”
    Her face went still. Her eyes narrowed. He cringed, expecting to be smacked at best and thrashed at worst, but she stopped, stared, and then wrinkled her face as if thinking. “This old table ain’t worth a darn, most likely.”
    The boy held perfectly still, afraid to tip the scales in either direction.
    “And if that gets infected, we’ll be havin’ to look for help, and there ain’t no good comin’ from that, is there, Charlie?”
    Did she really want him to answer?
    He couldn’t.
    He’d love help, he’d love for someone to notice him. Care about him. Be nice to him. He maintained his position, motionless, silent, letting her work this all out. In the end, it would be her choice, so why risk the outcome?
    “You go in, wash that up, then I’ll get that sliver out and there’ll be