The Oleander Sisters. Elaine Hussey

say not!”

      Emily sat down beside her and started patting her hand. Sweet Mama was torn between snatching it away, acting all huffy that her youngest granddaughter was treating her like an old woman and leaning into her to enjoy the petting. If you’d told her ten years ago she’d ever get to the age that she needed somebody treating her like a child, she’d have slapped you silly.

      Before she could make up her mind which way to act, Gary came over and interrupted the whole thing.

      “Larry, darling,” Emily said, and Sweet Mama thought about her narrow escape. She’d come within a gnat’s hair of calling him the wrong name. “I thought you were going to join Andy and Sis.”

      “Your sister doesn’t seem to like me.”

      “Nonsense, darling. You have to know Sis. She’s just protective, that’s all.” Emily patted him on the arm. “Go on over there now, and don’t spare your charm.”

      He trotted off and Sweet Mama said, “Charm, my ass.”

      “Sweet Mama! What a thing to say!”

      She knew it was a terrible thing to say, but she wasn’t about to admit that it had just slipped out. To make up for the many ways she was now failing Emily, she was going to give her granddaughter the best wedding the Mississippi Gulf Coast had ever seen.

      Sis was another thing—as tough and unbending as the live oaks that dripped with Spanish moss in front of the café. Sometimes Sweet Mama wished her oldest granddaughter would bend a little. She wished she wouldn’t be so hard on people. And the way she dressed...Lord God, the more Sweet Mama tried to talk her out of wearing khaki slacks and black blouses all the time, short sleeves in the summer, long in the winter, the more Sis resisted.

      Still, Sweet Mama knew Sis would make sure her sister got a wedding grand enough to make up for all those years wondering if Mark Jones would have changed his mind and married her if he’d made it back from Vietnam.

      More and more, Sweet Mama depended on Sis to take care of the family. Any day now, she might retire and travel to some of the places she’d read about in National Geographic. She’d always wanted to, and now could be her big chance.

      “I think I’ll head to Pikes Peak first,” she said.

      “What?” The funny look Emily gave her said she’d done it again, gone off and said something that didn’t have a thing to do with the conversation at hand.

      She racked her brain trying to figure out what the latest subject had been. Emily was now looking alarmed.

      She had to say something that made sense or Emily would tell Sis, and Sis would fetch Doctor...what was his name? He was an old fart. That’s all she knew.

      “You said you were going to Pikes Peak, Sweet Mama.”

      “Not this very minute, silly. But I’m getting so old, I’m liable to kick the bucket any day, and wouldn’t it be nice to be up so high I could see Heaven?”

      “I don’t think you can see Heaven from Pikes Peak.”

      “I was just kidding.”

      Feeling backed into a corner, Sweet Mama looked around for a means of escape. And there was her poor grandson, leaning against the wall as if he could no longer see his place in the family.

      “Help me up, Emily, and let’s take your brother some of that Amen cobbler.”

      Food, that’s all Sweet Mama could remember anymore. She watched as Emily scooped up a big helping and then put a smile on her face as she carried it to Jim.

      Sweet Mama got that heaviness in her bones again, an uncomfortable feeling that could be anything from old age to angels whispering in her ear. If she could just ground herself in the café, she’d be all right.

      She glanced around at the pictures on the wall. They told their own story—the history of a bakery that became a café and a woman too fierce to give up, the friendship against all odds with Beulah, who had been with her every step of the way, the ever-increasing number of patrons who carried on meandering conversations spun out like a roll of silk ribbon, linking the past to the present and binding people together as surely as tree-ripened peaches blended with fresh cherries in Sweet Mama’s Amen cobbler.

      “Amen cobbler, Jim,” Emily was saying. “I made it.”

      Fear stung Sweet Mama as unexpectedly as a red wasp. Lord, she could have sworn she made that cobbler. Hadn’t she stood in the kitchen not more than two hours ago adding peaches to the batter? Or had that been last week?

      “I’m not hungry, Em,” Jim said.

      “Take a little bite, anyway. It’s your party,” Emily said. “Tell me if it’s as good as Sweet Mama’s.”

      The way Jim was looking at his plate, you’d think it was filled with mud pies. What do you say to a grandson who’s standing close enough to touch but is so far away he’s no more substantial than the moonlight laying a path over the water?

      Beulah’s shadow fell over Sweet Mama, a huge umbrella to shield her from a downpour of sudden sorrow.

      “Honey, if you don’t eat that cobbler, old Beulah’s gonna think you don’t appreciate none of this cooking we nearly killed ourselfs over.”

      “You’re still a con artist, Beulah,” Jim said. “And you don’t look a day older than when I left.”

      “If you keep up that sweet talk, you’re gonna have a girl before we know it.”

      “Don’t hold your breath.”

      “I ain’t holding my breath. I’m gonna put out the word to the reg’lars to be looking. Now, eat that cobbler pie.”

      Sweet Mama puffed up with pride as she watched Jim pick up his fork and dig in. The war might have taken his leg, but it hadn’t stolen one iota of the Blake honor. She glanced at her granddaughter’s fiancé over there with all his body parts intact, sleek as a tomcat.

      “Emily, did What’s His Name serve his country?”

      “Please, Sweet Mama. This is a party. Let’s not talk about that now.”

      “It’s a legitimate question, Em,” Jim said. “Did he?”

      Suddenly, Andy shouted, “Com’ere, quick! That’s him. There’s a man on the moon!”

      Emily raced off like somebody saved from the guillotine.

      “Oh, it is, sweetheart!” She sat on the bar stool beside her son, her color suddenly so high she looked as if she might be the one standing on the moon.

      Even Jim moved toward the RCA TV, and suddenly the whole family was riveted by the pictures being beamed back to them all the way from the moon. Relieved that she was no longer under scrutiny, Sweet Mama poured herself a glass of sweet tea and sat at a table close enough so she could see what was going on. It didn’t look like much to her, just a bunch of blurry black-and-white images. For all she knew, this man on the moon stuff could be a big hoax.

      “He looks like a monster, Mommy.”

      “That’s the astronaut Neil Armstrong in his space suit,” Emily said. “Listen, Andy. You’re watching history.”

      “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Neil Armstrong said.

      An impossibly huge moon shone through the plate-glass windows. That a mere mortal—somebody not so different from her, except younger—was up there this very minute walking around in the moondust filled Sweet Mama with such hope the café could hardly contain it. Her grandson was home safe, one granddaughter was at the beginning of a new life and the other granddaughter had the grit and the brains to turn this café into the finest restaurant in the Deep South.

      Sweet Mama looked around the room till she found the picture she sought, hanging on the wall beside the clock and