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Mama’s spirit had been trying to tell me: Susannah was to be my new guide. I yearned so to believe it that I forgot my
     father and his disapproval and how I should obey him. I moved to the side of the bed and looked down into my mother’s sleeping
     face and said, “The green was her best dress.”
    Susannah stood back, watching as I lifted my mother’s arms and undressed her. I had not imagined how hard it would be to touch
     skin that held no warmth, to move arms and legs without resistance. I had loved this body, and I reverenced it now as I washed
     her and combed her hair. I felt my aunt beside me, not too close, there to guide me if I needed it. I saw the tears shimmering
     on her cheeks and knew that she had loved Mama too. I felt the strength of that love, and it bound me to Susannah.
    Together we dressed my mother in the worsted that usually saw only Sabbath meetings. When we were finished, Susannah said,
     “She looks beautiful. You’ve done well.”
    I stood back and looked at my mother. I could never tell my father about this, but I longed for his approval enough that I
     would seek it even through Susannah. “Do you think he’ll think so?”
    She nodded. “Aye. He’ll thank me well for it.”
    She smiled again, and I smiled with her. I felt my spirit reach out to her—she understood me as Mama had. ’Twas such a relief
     that I let the control I’d held throughout these last hours slip away. My tears fell again. Father was not here to see, and
     Susannah’s warmth filled the spaces around me, so I did not try to stop. My aunt looked at me with a gentleness that only
     made me cry harder, and she took me in her arms and pressed me hard against her body, and though she didn’t smell like my
     mother, she felt like her, and her hands went to the right spot just below my shoulder blades as if they knew already where
     to go, and rubbed with my mother’s smooth and even comfort.
    “’Tis all right, Charity,” she murmured. “’Tis good to cry.”
    But it was not; I knew that. I shook my head against her and pulled away so she had to let me go. Then I wiped my eyes with
     the edge of my skirt. “She’s with God,” I said. “I know she is happier now than she could have ever been with us.”
    “Oh, child—”
    “’Tis just that I miss her. And I…I don’t know what to do without her. She was so strong. And I…”
    Susannah seemed to hear what I hadn’t the courage to say aloud. “You are strong,” she said. “You must believe that.”
    I shook my heard. “No. It isn’t true. Mama always said—”
    “Charity, I’ve a story to tell you.”
    I wiped at my eyes. “I’m too old for stories.”
    “Not for this one. ’Tis about a girl just your age. A silly girl who was forever getting into trouble of all kinds, to the
     despair of the whole village. She had a reputation for being impulsive and disobedient, and she was. She was a weak girl,
     without any sense at all. But this girl had a sister, and that sister was kind and good and strong. Without her, the girl
     would have been lost.”
    I looked up at her. Susannah said, “That girl was me. And the sister was your mother.”
    “But you—you’re not weak at all.”
    She smiled. “There’s weakness in everyone, don’t you think? ’Tis just that some are better at resisting it than others. When
     your mama left me, I did not know how I would survive. But I did, Charity. Just as you will. Your mama taught you well. You
     remember that. You remember how strong she taught you to be. It’s there inside you; I know it.”
    She fascinated me. I looked into her face and saw the light shining there, and I took strength from it the way my mother had.
     Susannah was like a gift from God, and it seemed she lifted the staff my mother had left behind, so ’twas as if we’d known
     each other years instead of only hours. She gave me hope. If my aunt Susannah could survive herself, then surely I could.
     It was as she’d said: She was