The next day, not long after Adela has gone into the house to rest, I hear someone shove the back door open. When the person to emerge from it is Bennett and not Mack, I sigh. “He’s not coming, is he?”

Bennett crosses over to where I’m kneeling in front of the vegetable patch in the backyard. “Faith wanted to pick up some things from town and asked if he would take her.”

I turn back to the soil before picking up a trowel. “How’s his dad? Did he say?”

Beside me, Bennett ...