I walked up the grass path, leaving Daniel in the car with the windows rolled down. The hum of Clara’s old green refrigerator drifted through her open kitchen window, a steady, domestic sound that had not changed in forty years.
“You look pale, Martha,” Clara said without turning around. She snipped a dry stem with a sharp metallic click.
“I spent the morning at the county archives,” I said, stopping a few feet behind her.
Clara paused. Her shears stayed closed on a branch. She slowly turned her head, her reading glasses tapping against her chin.
“You have always had a habit of looking backward, sister,” she said, her voice precise and formal. “It is a very unhealthy trait for a woman of your age.”
“Clara, do you remember the autumn of 1971?” I asked.
She turned her entire body to face me, her gloved hands resting on her hips. “Mama was very sick then. I was running to the pharmacy twice a day while you were sitting in your room feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Did Richard buy the Miller place that year?” I asked.
Clara’s eyes narrowed. “Richard saved this town from going under when the mill closed. If he bought land, he did it to keep the county solvent.”
