The blinds had been drawn to soften the harsh light, and a bouquet of fresh flowers—garden roses and lilies, likely brought by Scarlett—sat in a glass vase near the window. The scent didn’t quite cover the underlying sterility of antiseptic and plastic tubing. A television murmured quietly in the corner, tuned to a game show Grand Memaw would’ve normally hollered answers at. But not today.
Reva’s breath caught in her throat.
Rosetta Nygard, the indomitable matriarch of the family, looked impossibly small against the starch-white hospital sheets. Her skin had thinned to parchment, stretched loosely over fragile bones. Her once-luxurious gray hair—always curled and coiffed—lay flat against the pillow, like cotton left in the rain. A nasal cannula fed oxygen to her with soft hissing breaths, and her hands, those same hands that had stirred cornbread batter and snapped green beans by the bushel, now trembled as they rested against her quilted lap blanket.
But her eyes—still a sharp, soulful brown—lit up when they found Reva.
“Well, would you look what the wind blew in,” Grand Memaw said, her voice surprisingly steady, though her lips moved slowly, like every syllable had to be coaxed out of her. “My girl from the mountains.”
Reva stepped closer, trying not to betray her shock. She leaned down, kissing her grandmother’s cheek, which felt too warm and too thin all at once. “Hey, Memaw.”
“Mmm,” the old woman murmured, her eyes drifting to the others who’d followed Reva into the room. “I got just enough left in me for one more private talk.”
Reva’s mama raised a brow. “Grand Memaw, don’t go stirrin’ up emotions. Ree-Ree just got here.”
“I ain’t stirrin’ nothin’ but my soul, child,” Grand Memaw said, waving a frail hand toward the door. “Now hush and give us a minute. Quincy, Scarlett—you too. I love y’all, but I need to talk to my Reva.”
Her voice, once like a church bell ringing over a Sunday picnic, began to thin—trailing off like smoke from an evening fire. Reva could almost hear it slipping away with the next breath.
Reva’s mama hesitated, smoothing a crease in her skirt before nodding at her daughter. “We’ll be just outside. Don’t wear her out.”
When the door closed behind them, the room felt suddenly hushed. As if time had paused, just for the two of them.
Reva pulled the nearby chair close and took Grand Memaw’s hand, careful not to press too hard. “I’m here, Memaw. I’m right here.”
Her grandmother’s eyes glistened, but her mouth curled faintly with a private smile.
“I know you are,” she whispered, her voice barely more than a thread now. “That’s why I waited.”
Grand Memaw’s breath rattled slightly as she adjusted her head on the pillow. Her hand, soft as linen but shaking now, reached for Reva’s and didn’t let go.
“I reckon it won’t be long now,” she murmured, eyes fixed on something past the ceiling, as if she could already see beyond it. “Your granddaddy’s been gone near twenty years. Your daddy, too. And I feel them callin’ me home.”
Reva blinked back tears, her throat tight.
“But before I go,” Grand Memaw whispered, her voice barely more than a hush of wind across cotton fields. “There are things I need to settle.”
She turned her gaze to Reva, and suddenly, her grip tightened with surprising strength. “Sunnyside Acres.”
Reva’s heart stilled.
Grand Memaw’s eyes shone—clear, urgent. “That land... it ain’t just soil and trees. It’s blood. My daddy—your great-granddaddy, Jeremiah Shelby—he carved it out with his own two hands. Just a boy when freedom came. No shoes, no money, not even a last name. He got to choose. But he worked. First for sharecroppers, then for himself. Bought forty acres from a white man who thought the soil was too poor to grow anything worthwhile. But your great-granddaddy saw promise.”
She paused, catching her breath. Reva leaned in, letting the words soak through her like gospel.
“Pecans don’t come easy,” Grand Memaw went on, her voice growing raspy. “Takes patience. Years ’fore a tree yields anything worth shellin’. But Jeremiah planted anyway. Said he was planting for grandchildren he hadn’t met yet. Said we had to make something that would outlive us.”
Her lips trembled, then firmed.
“I watched my daddy build that farm. Watched your daddy sweat on that land, sunup to sundown, never complainin’. And I kept it goin’ long as I could.”
Tears slid silently down Reva’s cheeks.
“I heard Quincy talkin’ to that real estate man,” Grand Memaw said, her voice breaking now. “He’s gon’ sell it. Turn it into vacation rentals or—Lord knows what.” She shook her head, eyes burning. “He don’t see it the way we do.”
She squeezed Reva’s hand again, more fiercely this time.
“You do. I know you do. That land remembers who we are. It made us who we are.”
