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" 'AIDS, Ramona,' I said 'She's HIV-positive It means she's contracted the AIDS virus She could come doith full-blown AIDS any time ¡¯

" 'I'm the one that's sick,' Patsy said, 'and he's the one that up and dies because he was rief Grief for Sweetheart ' She broke off and looked from one to the other of all of us

" 'Grief's what killed hied 'I didn't kill hi out there He'd rolled over one row of pansies with his truck, and there he was laying another bed of them, like he didn't even knohat he'd done with his truck I said, "Look at what you've done, you sniveling crazy olddress!" like that wasn't so over, sniveling crazy old fool, and he said he wasn't giving me a red cent, and then I told him I told him I had medical bills to pay ¡¯

"I was too stunned to think, but I heard et it?¡¯

" 'How should I know?' she replied, looking at lossy eyes 'From soot an idea and then I don't It wasn't Sey hi you Don't you go telling Aunt Queen Sey is, I can't pay the rest of the pickers unless I have some money ¡¯

"By pickers, sheher up

" '

You expect one of us to go in there and ask Aunt Queen for ot no business playing ht when your father is stone dead at the mortuary in Ruby River City ¡¯

"Patsy shook her head 'I'et some money for me ¡¯

"I sed, I re it was before I could answer her Then I reiven it towith his keys and his handkerchief, at the hospital

"I took it out and I looked at it It was a wad of twenty-dollar bills, but there were also more than several hundreds He always saved those hundred-dollar bills just in case so caave it to her

" 'You telling the truth about being HIV?' Jasmine asked

" 'Yeah, and I see you're all crying buckets,' said Patsy 'He blew his stack when he heard You're just one big sympathetic family ¡¯

" 'Anybody know outside of us?' Jasmine asked

" 'No,' Patsy said 'I just told you not to tell anybody, didn't I? And why are you asking me, you worried about your precious bed-and-breakfast? There's nobody left to run it, case you haven't noticed Unless you all are taking over ' She shot a uess Little Lord Tarquin here could becoest bed-and-breakfast owner in the South, now, couldn't he?¡¯