Skip Rock Shallows by Jan Watson

to the Pelfrey family graveyard. I feel guilty for not keeping up her site.”
    “You don’t have to worry about that. Daddy keeps it clean. I’ll take you home with me next time I go, and you can see for yourself.”
    Ned’s face lit up with a mischievous grin. “I can’t wait to tell Uncle Turnip and Aunt Tillie. She’s gonna swallow her chaw.”
    Lilly grabbed the saddle horn. “Help me up, Ned. If we don’t get a move on, it will be dark before we finish at the Eldridges’.”
    “You sure you want to ride this devil again?”
    Lilly patted the horse. “He’s docile as a kitten without that bur under his saddle. Let’s go.”

Chapter 11
    The Eldridge homestead was just as Lilly had left it on her previous visits. Everything was tidy. Even the hard-packed dirt yard, which sported random tufts of browning grass, was swept clean.
    Ned took the reins to Lilly’s horse. “I’ll wait out here.”
    Armina appeared in the doorway with the babies in her arms. Then, quick as a hummingbird, she darted out of sight.
    Lilly found the young woman in the curtained-off pantry. Wedged on a shelf behind her, Bubby and Sissy anchored a ten-pound sack of pinto beans and a graduated set of yellowware mixing bowls. “Goodness, Armina, what are you hiding from?”
    “I didn’t expect company.” Armina smoothed a strand of hair that had dared escape her tight braids. “You should have told me if you were bringing somebody.”
    “May I?” Lilly asked as she reached for Sissy. “I’m sorry if we startled you. I needed Ned to come along today.”
    Armina lifted Bubby down and followed as Lilly held the curtain aside. “I don’t see why,” she said, bouncing Bubby on her hip. “If you was afeered to come alone, I would have fetched you.”
    “I’ll explain after I examine Orie,” Lilly said. “How’s she been?”
    “About the same, I guess . . . maybe talking a little more.”
    Lilly untwined Sissy’s fingers from her pearl necklace and set her on a bright rag rug at Orie’s feet. She knelt and placed her hand on Orie’s wide knee. The woman seemed to be asleep. Lilly shook her knee slightly and Orie opened her eyes.
    “Aunt Orie, how are you feeling?”
    Orie Eldridge smiled and put her hand on top of Lilly’s. “La, girl, I reckon I’ve felt better,” she said in her wheezy way.
    “Your heart’s laboring, but your lungs are not as wet as they were last week,” Lilly said when she finished her examination.
    “Perhaps I’m getting well,” Aunt Orie said.
    Lilly looked into the gravely ill woman’s eyes and saw a spark of hope. “There is a new treatment I’d like for you to try. You’d have to take pills. . . .”
    “Drastics? Old Doc never gave me such a thing. Dandelion tea, strong as I can stand—that’s all Doc recommended.”
    Lilly chose her words carefully. “Dr. Jones took good care of you. I can see that. He wouldn’t have known of the new treatment for congestive heart failure.”
    “Say what?” Armina broke in.
    “Congestive heart failure,” Lilly said. “It’s akin to dropsy.”
    Aunt Orie took a coughing fit. Her whoops stole her breath, and her face turned the purplish-red of a pickled beet. Her king-size chair teetered back and forth dangerously. Lilly feared the thing would collapse and dump Orie on the floor.
    Armina fanned her aunt’s face with a church fan. Sissy whimpered and scooted under the bed. Bubby crawled after her.
    Lilly retrieved a rubber suction bulb from her kit. It was the only relief she could offer while Orie fought for life-giving oxygen. The woman could die right before their eyes. This simply couldn’t continue.
    When the hoots turned to gasps and finally to ragged breaths, Armina sponged beads of sweat from Orie’s forehead with a wet washrag. “There, there, Auntie. You’ll feel better now.”
    “Them drastics,” Aunt Orie said when at last she could speak. “What’ll they do for a body?”
    Lilly studied what to say. She could