Darla nudged her rearview mirror half an inch with her thumb, meeting my eyes in the glass for one second before turning back to the road.

“He always did holler the loudest when he knew he’d been caught dead to rights,” Darla said, her voice perfectly smooth and calm.

I twisted around in my seat to look in the back.

Sadie was sitting up straight on the velvet seat with her arms folded loosely in her lap, staring at the back of her grandmother’s silver head with her lips slightly parted.

She wasn’t crying, and her shoulders weren’t hunched up around her ears the way they always were when her father called.