"Sorry, but I made plans for lunch." Helena noticed relief more than disappointment cross Paula's face. "Crystal Howard needs my advice about a few things. I promised to meet her at the hospital."

"You're not going to lunch with her?" Paula circled the desk. "She's nothing but a lowlife, Momma. Folks say she was old Shelby's mistress even before he was widowed."

"Be careful," Helena warned. "She happens to be the wife of one of J.D.'s friends. If she needs help, I'll do what I can."

"Yeah, but J.D.'s dead, Momma." Paula whispered the words as though she could lessen the blow as their impact reached Helena.

"Not in my heart." Helena lifted her chin. "He'll be with me always."

She reached for a silver dollar she kept in the organizer at the corner of her desk. "When he left for the army, my mother gave him this. Told him it would bring him home. When he came back the last time and we married, he slipped this silver dollar in my hand during the ceremony promising he'd never leave me again. He said it took him through the valley of the shadow and back to me."

Paula looked like she was fighting to keep her eyes from rolling to the back of her head. "Oh, all right, Momma. If you want to think he's still here, Preacher Wayne said it's understandable for the first few months."

Helena made no comment. Preacher Wayne was quoted so often in this town, she would not have been surprised to see him come out with a quote-of-the-day calendar.

Paula changed the subject. "Can't someone else help Crystal Howard? Or maybe you could just talk to her, give her advice. But don't go to lunch. At least not where you'll see anyone we know."

Helena was disappointed in her daughter, but somewhere deep down she knew that a part of the blame for what Paula had become lay with her. When the girls were small, she had left them in someone else's care most of the time. Helena told herself that, as a single mother she had to make a living but, in truth, she'd always felt like an outsider. Almost from birth, the twins bonded with one another, treating her as a stranger. She had built a successful business by working day and night. The twins were passed from day care to babysitters to housekeepers.

"I need to help Crystal," Helena answered. "For her sake and mine."

"Oh, I understand." Paula's whole body relaxed. "You do need something to keep you busy. A project. Everyone will understand that."

Helena did not argue. She finished dressing, listening to Paula remind her to take her heart medicine as though she had ever forgotten a pill in her life. She left two hours before she planned to meet Crystal. Paula was still there when she came downstairs, talking with the housekeeper about things that needed to be done. Paula seemed convinced her mother would forget such details. Helena overheard her, but made no comment. In her way, Paula was just trying to be helpful.

Helena thought of returning to lock her bedroom door, but decided that would spur too much curiosity. Paula might rifle through the desk, or help with cleaning, but she would never sit in the chairs by the window as Helena had done for an hour yesterday. She would never notice the beauty and color as the last few leaves fought to remain on the trees. She would never see how the bare branches seemed to thicken and knot like thin aging fingers stretched toward heaven. Her daughters would never witness the wonder she saw each day simply sitting beside J.D. in their worn leather chairs.

Ten minutes later, Mary looked surprised when Helena walked into the small office over the dress shop. Though Helena could well afford a suite of offices for herself and Mary, they both enjoyed the quarters they had started with almost forty years ago. Helena remembered an old saying her father liked to quote: Having money doesn't always have to breed gluttony.

"Morning, Mrs. Whitworth." Mary stood at attention. "We weren't expecting you." Mary used the plural as though there was more than herself in the office.

At four feet eleven inches, Mary looked frail and washed out with her gray hair and eyes, but in all their years together she had never taken a sick day or asked for more than her two-week vacation.

"Morning." Helena smiled. "I wonder if you might call Elliot Morris and ask him if he's got a little time free for me this morning?"

"Of course." Mary never asked for explanations. "Right away."

She followed her boss to the other end of the office where a long window looked down on the finest dress shop between Dallas and Oklahoma City. Helena's Choice.

"Mrs. Whitworth?" Mary whispered.

"Yes?" Helena continued to watch a few customers moving about the store. When Mary did not say anything, Helena glanced at her friend. "What is it, Mary? Don't tell me we've had another manager quit?"

"No." Mary looked tortured.

Helena waited. Mary always bore the burden of every problem on her shoulders as though it were her fault. The wiring could spark, and Mary would start apologizing.

"It's about your daughters. They've both been in asking all kinds of questions about the running of the store. Paula even asked to see the books."

Laughing, Helena patted Mary's arm. "I'm sorry, dear. It's my fault. They've felt the need to smother me since the accident and in truth, I've been more tired than usual. Out of desperation, I asked them to check on the store just to allow me some peace. I hope they didn't pester you."

"Oh, no. I just wasn't sure how much to tell them." Mary was a woman who always needed to know exactly where to stand. If she had been on the Titanic, she would have been looking for her place card as the ship submerged. "Paula's got a head for numbers, I can tell. She likes everything in order, like her mother."

Helena never thought of either girl as being like her and guessed Mary was, as always, being kind.

"Tell them whatever they're interested in knowing. Some day, they'll have to run the place. Let them take care of any last-minute Christmas ordering, if they like. Any mistakes they make can be sold in the January clearance sale."

Helena closed her eyes, trying to imagine what the store would look like if her daughters took over. Grays, blacks and browns would be the colors for all seasons and a blue light special would flash every hour. Handbags would all be huge and shoes practical. Animals and cartoon characters would likely dance across the hem of all the blouses.

She straightened. She was only sixty-three. Retirement was still years away. She felt so good lately, she had not bothered to take the atenolol her doctor thought she needed twice a day. Her blood pressure had not been high for years, and it was time to stop bothering with at least one of the many pills he always insisted she take.

There was nothing wrong with slowing down a little and just enjoying the sunsets with J.D. She was old enough to know what her body needed and fewer pills seemed right.

Thirty minutes later, Helena walked into Elliot Morris's law office in a royal-blue wool suit that flattered her white hair. She said simply, "How can I help Crystal Howard?"

Elliot offered her a seat and asked his secretary to bring a fresh pot of coffee. Both knew this would take some time.

They came to the oil fields on horseback, by train, by wagon and in Model T Fords, all loaded down with what they owned. They came unprepared and untrained, but with their pockets full of dreams.


November 4

Dusk

Randell House Restaurant


By the end of the day, Crystal's head whirled with excitement. Helena not only helped her select several new, professional-looking outfits, she gave Crystal suggestions on how to handle Shelby's business. Helena knew the insides of running a company and shared her knowledge freely.

Anna Montano joined them at the restaurant for drinks and dinner. As before, her speech was halted, almost a stutter at first. But by the time the salad arrived, her words flowed smoothly with only a hint of accent. There was an intelligence about Anna, a grace that Crystal knew she would never have no matter how many people called her Mrs. Howard.

There was also something fragile about Anna that frightened Crystal, for she was not sure her foreign friend would stand to face the winds of change. A few of the oil workers had said Anna refused to talk to the sheriff or anyone else investigating the fire. They commented it was almost like she was afraid of the law. So far her brother had been answering all the questions, claiming that when she had to make a statement she would.

Crystal worried. Anna seemed too fragile, like a hothouse flower that had never had to face the real world. She wasn't sure what it would take to make Anna stand on her own.

Some folks are fighters, and some aren't. Crystal saw herself as a fighter, scraping her way since her teens. But Anna'! Anna didn't have a scar on her.

Crystal noticed a few gaps in the conversation, but they weren't uncomfortable. It was grand to sit in such a nice restaurant and eat a meal with her new friends. Helena looked stately, as she always did, and Anna's beauty way timeless. Crystal found herself sitting up straighter and watching her manners carefully.

After all, she did know how to eat at a restaurant that didn't have a drive up window. Shelby used to joke that she'd never had a meal she didn't have to pay for first until she married him. Crystal could hardly wait to tell him about tonight.

She made it through the meal with only one mistake. She stacked the plates after each course. When the waiter frowned at her and picked up the dinner plates, Helena told him to bring several desserts. They were still starving she said, and might eat until they had the plates stacked a foot high. All three women laughed and Helena, thin to the point of being bony, ate three desserts before she gave up the challenge.