“If I could get out of bed, I would hug your neck,” she said. “I never turned anybody away from my door. Your daddy knows that. I took in Raleigh, and later Laverne. I have never turned anybody away. Never sent nobody back.” She shut up and worked on her breathing some more. “I love you,” she said to me, just as she had said to Raleigh so many years ago. I know that it was supposed to make me feel warm and welcome, but instead I wondered if she saw me the way she saw Raleigh—as an unfortunate bastard, unloved and pissy.
