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“Hey, Mo to place a hand on her mother’s shoulder She’d learned lately that she could touch her mother at times like this; sometimes Meredith’s touch could even help ease the confusion “It’s cold out here And it will be dark soon ”

“Don’t o alone She’s afraid ”

Meredith let out a sigh She was about to say soarden There was a bright new copper colued one “When did you order that, Mom?”

“I wish I had soive him He loves candy ”

Meredith helped her ht, warm kitchen, where she made her a cup of hot tea and reheated a bowl of soup for her

Heralave her a slice of bread, slathered with butter and honey, that she finally looked up

“Your father loves bread and honey ”

Meredith felt a surprising sadness at that Her father had been allergic to honey, and the fact that Mo so concrete was somehoorse than the previous confusions “I wish I could really talk to you about him,” she said, more to herself than to her mother Meredith needed her father lately, more than ever He was the one she could have talked to about the trouble in her e He would have taken her hand and walked out in the orchard with her and told her what she needed to hear “He’d tell me what to do ”

“You knohat to do,” herit in her pocket “Tell theive them the butterfly ”

It was perhaps the loneliest ht, Mom Thanks ”

She busied herself around the kitchen while herAfterward, she helped Mom up the stairs to her bedroom and brushed her teeth for her, just as she used to do for her daughters when they were small, and like thean to undress her, the usual battle began

“Coowns are dirty Letclean ”

“No ”

For once, it was too ave in and let her own

Outside the bedrooan to softly snore, and then she went downstairs and locked up the house for the night