Page 44 of Call Back

“Me either.” I paused before adding, “I know you were close to her.”

“After you left . . .” Momma said. “She helped fill the void.”

“I know.” I hesitated, worried that she might pass out. “Maybe you should go home. This is quite a shock.”

Fire blazed in her eyes. “I’m made of sterner stuff than that, Magnolia.”

“Of course you are. But you haven’t been feeling well . . .”

Her back straightened. “I’m feeling just fine. Well enough to have lunch with my daughter.” She rested a hand on the table again, disguising the fact that she was doing it to hold herself up. “Part of the reason I wanted to have lunch with you was to discuss . . . practical matters.”

I tried not to stiffen. “What does that mean?” I asked, even though I knew.

“What happens when I die and after.”

I breathed in slowly, filling my lungs, trying to inflate myself with the courage to deal with this. I didn’t want to have this discussion, but I was practical enough to know it needed to be done. She’d told me some of her plans, but I knew there was a lot more for us to discuss. I straightened my back and lifted my chin, preparing myself. “Okay.”

Surprise flashed in her eyes. “I expected more of a fight.”

“Then how about we bargain for my cooperation?”

“What do you want?” she asked, and I was happy to see some of her color return. Momma had always thrived on confrontation.

“I want to hear stories about when I was a kid.”

She sat back in her seat. “Magnolia, you don’t have to barter for that.”

“Then you win,” I said with a small smile. “So tell me what you want to say.”

She spent the next ten minutes telling me all the details of what she’d planned out.

“There’s a DNR in my medical records,” she said, holding my gaze. “That means no machines. No feeding tubes. If I go into a coma, you have to make sure they follow my orders.”

“You’re asking me to just let you die?”

“I’m dyin’ anyway, Magnolia Mae. At least let me have some say in the matter.”

I forced myself to nod. She was right, however much it hurt.

She told me where to find her will and how to contact her attorney. “You know I’m leaving you the house, but it will be easier with probate if I put you on the deed before I die. I have the papers with me, so I want you to come to the bank when we’re done so you can sign and get it notarized.”

“Roy’s gonna have a fit.”

“You told me that last week. Let him. I let him get away with far too much. I should have had a stronger hand with him, and a softer one with you.”

“Water under the bridge, Momma.”

She paused, then said in a soft voice I wasn’t used to hearing, “But it’s still in view, Magnolia. Still in my memories, haunting me.”

Tears stung my eyes and I swiped at my left one. “Let it go. Neither one of us is perfect.”

She grinned. “Tilly thinks you and I are too much alike for our own good.”

I laughed. “I always knew Tilly was smart.”

“I’ve already made arrangements with the funeral home and picked out my casket, along with all the other macabre details,” she said.

The only way I knew how to handle this was to pretend it was happening twenty years in the future, because Momma would get ticked off if I started crying.

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