The float was already in the glass before she asked for it, two scoops of vanilla softening at the bottom and the root beer poured slowly down the side the way Mama liked it, so it wouldn’t foam over the edge.

Tonight it foamed over anyway, and I wiped off the TV tray with my sleeve.

“Hand me that straw, Ona, before you go and forget it,” she said.

I passed it to her, and she took one long sip and put the glass down as though it had let her down.

For fifty-five years I had taken carnations to the unmarked stone behind the Methodist church, every spring and every fall, and not once had Mama asked me to quit.

She patted my hand two times.

“Nobody makes them the way you do, Doll, not anywhere.”

“I guess I learned from the best,” I said, and she gave me the short little laugh she kept for when I was being silly.

“Did I ever tell you you were a good girl?

I did, at least one time.”

“You’ve told me a time or two, Mama.”

“Did Dwayne Henderson ever come out about that gutter?

He did not.

Call him first thing in the morning.”

“I’ll call him.”

“Take the carnations for Sunday too.

Three dollars at the florist on Center, and not a penny more.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will.”