She went down, and out to the summer kitchen. In Cousin Bess's day it had been used routinely. For the lavish parties she enjoyed throwing, for canning, for preparation of simple meals on hot nights. They used it more sporadically now, but the second refrigerator was handy for storing extra cold drinks. Phoebe took out the butter-yellow daisies she'd picked up as a hostess gift.

It was going to be a pretty evening, she decided, and turned to admire the flowers of the courtyard Ava had labored over.

"Well, my God!" She stared, openmouthed, at the dead rat at the bottom of the steps.

She had to bury revulsion to step down for a closer look. No doubt it was dead, but it didn't look mauled, as she'd expected. As she imagined it would if some cat had caught it, then gotten bored enough to dump it in the courtyard like some nasty neighbor's gift.

If she'd had to guess at cause of death, she'd have voted for the sharp spring of a trap, right across the neck. The idea made her shudder as she stepped back again.

Some kids, she thought, playing a particularly unpleasant prank, tossing a dead rat over the wall.

She went back inside, dug up a shoe box, got the broom. And, stomach rolling with disgust, managed to sweep and nudge the corpse inside. She wasn't ashamed to look away with her eyes half-closed as she put on the lid, or to hold the box at arm's length to carry it to the trash can.

Shuddering, shuddering, she backpedaled from the trash can, then turned to dash inside. She scrubbed her hands like a surgeon before an operation, all the while telling herself not to be an idiot. She hadn't touched the awful thing.

She had herself nearly settled down when the doorbell rang. The quick, appreciative grin on Duncan's face did the rest of the job. "Hello, gorgeous."

"Hello back."

"Those for me?"

She tucked the flowers in the crook of her arm as she closed the door behind her. "They certainly are not. They're for our hostess. Or host. You never said which it was."

"Hostess. How's that shoulder?"

"It's coming right along, thank you." She sent him a knowing look. "I'm about ready to start arm wrestling again."

"I knew this guy when I was tending bar. Russian guy, arms looked like toothpicks. Nobody could take him down. I don't think he ever paid for a drink." He opened the car door for her. "You smell great, by the way."

"I really do." She laughed, slid in. When he got in, she shifted toward him. "Now tell me about this friend of yours who's going to be feeding me."

"Best person I know. She's great. You'll like her. Actually, she's the mother of my best friend, who also happens to be my lawyer."

"You're best friends with your lawyer? That's refreshing."

"I met Phin when I was driving a cab. Nobody hails a cab in Savannah, which you'd know since you live here. It was just one of those things. I was heading back to the line at the Hilton, just dropped off a fare. Raining cats that day. He spotted me, I spotted him. He waved me down. Heading to the courthouse, big hurry. Later, I found out he was this struggling young associate, and they'd called him to bring some papers down. Anyway, I get him there, and he pulls out his wallet. Which is empty."

"Uh-oh."

"He's mortified. Sometimes fares try to scam you that way, pull some sob story, whatever. But I've got a good gauge and this guy is seriously embarrassed. He's apologizing all over himself, scribbling down my name and the cab number from the license, swearing on his mother's life he's going to come down to the cab company with the fare and a big tip. Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"A likely story," Phoebe commented, enjoying herself.

"I spring him, figure I'll never see him again. No way is this guy going to haul down to the cab company over an eight-dollar fare."

"But?"

"Yeah, but. I'm clocking out that night, and he comes in. Gives me twenty. First, I'm floored he'd bother to come in, and second, twenty for an eight-dollar run's over the top. And I tell him, dude, ten's enough, thanks. But he won't back off the twenty. So I say fine, let's go have a couple of beers on the other ten. And we did."

"And you've been friends ever since."

"Yeah."

"I'd say that story shows a bit of what you're both made of." She glanced around as he began to drive through the pretty, residential streets of Midtown. "I grew up down this way-well, started growing up down this way. We had a nice little house on the other side of Columbus Drive."

"Good memories or bad?"

"Oh, both. But I've always liked the area, the mix of styles in the houses, kids everywhere."

He pulled into the already crowded drive of a lovely craftsman-style home, with its big front yard tidily mowed and edged with flower beds. "Me, too," he said.

He came around the car to take her hand. She heard the shouts and shrieks of children, the motorized thunder of a lawn mower. She smelled peonies, and meat cooking on someone's backyard grill. She'd grown up like this, she thought, for the first little while. Then everything, everything had changed.

The screen door opened with a happy slam. The woman who stepped out onto the big front porch was hugely pregnant, with skin the color of semisweet chocolate and hair in a glossy profusion of dreads. A boy dashed out behind her, scabs riding both knees. "Dune,

Dune, Dune!" He shouted it as he streaked like a little bullet down the walk. "Catch!" And flew.

Obviously an old hand at the game, Duncan caught the boy in midair, then flipped him upside down. "The strange creature you see below is Ellis."

"How do you do, Ellis?"

"Hi! Do it again, Dune."

"Ellis Tyler, you let Duncan get in the house before you start jumping all over him."

The boy might've been upside down, but he managed a dramatic eye-roll. "Yes'm." When Duncan flipped him to his feet, he grinned.

"We got cherry pie. Come on in, Dune. Come on! You can come, too, ma'am." With that he made his dash back into the house.

"My son likes to be the welcoming committee. You must be

Phoebe. I'm Celia. I hope you came hungry." She tipped her face up for Duncan's kiss. "I know you did."

"How many cherry pies?" Duncan asked.

"Just you wait. Duncan's here!" she shouted as she scooted them inside.

There was an army of them, Phoebe realized, in all shapes and sizes. Babies, toddlers, gangly teens, and an ancient old man they called Uncle Walter, men, women, and all the noise that went with them.

Most were congregated in the backyard, sprawled in chairs, on the grass, chasing kids, pushing them on the bright red swing set. A couple of men stood by the grill, watching it smoke with all the pleasure and delight they might have shown were it a centerfold.

By Phoebe's estimate five generations were represented here, but the center of power, the magnetic north, was obviously the woman who stood supervising as younger family members hauled two picnic tables together to form one long space.

She was comfortably round in the way that made Phoebe imagine every child would want to crawl into her lap, would want to rest their head on her breast for comfort. Her handsome face with its deep-set eyes, strong nose and mouth, was capped off by a puffball of ebony curls. Both hands fisted on her generous hips, and when a big yellow dog streaked by after the blur of a gray-striped cat, she threw back her head and laughed so her whole body shook with it.

Then she turned toward the ancient old man, her hands moving. It took Phoebe a moment to realize she wasn't merely gesturing but signing. The old man wheezed out a laugh, signed back.

Duncan's arm draped around Phoebe's shoulder, and when she glanced up to smile at him, she saw he was looking over at the laughing woman. On his face, deep in those soft blue eyes of his, was absolute and unconditional love.