“You’ve got to get over this, Sister,” Connie said. “It’ll break your heart when she leaves if you don’t. I’ve kept an amethyst in my pocket since we brought her home. I handle the stone and then touch her bare skin every chance I get, so that she might find healing for all the crap she’s been through,” Connie said. “I’ve got to admit, having her with me in the kitchen is like having a breath of fresh air in the house. So, what do you say, Kate?”

“You’ll get no argument out of me,” Kate said. “I like having her in the house, and just thinking about a baby here with us . . .” Her eyes filled with tears. “Words can’t even describe how much fun we’d all have.”

Betsy pulled a tissue from a box on the nightstand beside Kate’s sturdy four-poster bed and handed it to her. “Be careful or you’ll ruin your makeup and have to do it all over. Now that we’re in agreement, I’m going to make our traditional Easter breakfast. I’ll see y’all at the table in thirty minutes.”

Ginger had been dreaming about the first day she met Lucas at the shelter. He’d winked at her from across the room, and she’d smiled at him. A week later they were sneaking out after lights were out almost every night to go to the park a few blocks down the street to have sex. After two months had gone by, he’d landed a job that paid enough so that he could rent the tiny apartment above an old drugstore that had been turned into a café.

When she first opened her eyes, she was surprised to see bright sunlight flowing into the room through spotless windows. For a split second, she wondered if Lucas had cleaned up the place. Then she remembered where she was and that Lucas was dead. The Banty House was the best place she’d ever lived, so she couldn’t be sad about that. Guilt filled her at the realization that she didn’t have some kind of emotion concerning Lucas. He was, after all, her baby’s father.

She shook off the dark feeling and went downstairs to help Betsy with breakfast. She’d washed and rolled her hair on little pink sponge rollers the night before. Her last foster mother had let her take them when she was tossed out of the system like a piece of stale bread. Eighteen was the magic number, or else when she finished high school. She’d never realized true loneliness until she’d checked into the first shelter.

“Good mornin’.” Betsy grinned. “Don’t you look cute in those hair rollers. I remember back when Mama put my hair up in pin curls for special times.”

“They’re the only thing that will keep the curls in for more than ten minutes.” Ginger tied an apron around the top of her belly. “I didn’t know if I should get dressed before breakfast. I decided against it because I didn’t want to get anything on the pretty new dress that Connie fixed for me.”

“That’s why we all come to the breakfast table in our robes. We’ve got our undergarments on and are ready to just slip into our dresses and put our hats on.” She stopped turning strips of bacon and gasped. “I forgot your hat! You simply must have one, and it can’t cover up your beautiful curls. I’ve got the cutest little fascinator hat with a lovely white silk rose on it that will go very well with your new dress.”

Ginger had already learned not to argue with the sisters. She actually enjoyed having them dress her up like a Barbie doll. “Thank you for everything,” she said. “I know I keep saying that, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“You are so welcome.” Betsy went back to flipping bacon from one side to the other. “You’ve brought us a lot of joy.”

“Don’t all your guests do that?” Ginger asked.

“No, honey, they don’t. Most of the time, they are happy to have a good hot supper and a bed for the night, but they’re eager to get on the road the next morning,” Betsy informed her.

“I’m glad for all the sweet memories I get to make here until next week.” Ginger got out the plates and set the small kitchen table for four. “And I’m grateful that y’all have asked me to stay on until after I see the doctor on Thursday. It’ll sure be good to know my exact due date and maybe find out if I’m gettin’ a boy or a girl.”

“You mentioned wanting a girl,” Betsy said. “Will you be terribly disappointed if it’s a boy?”

“No, ma’am, long as it’s healthy and don’t act like Lucas,” Ginger replied. “I thought Lucas was like me, an orphan, until after we moved in together. I should’ve known that he wasn’t because he had a fancy cell phone that he never got a bill for, and he dressed better than the rest of us in the shelter.” Her thoughts went back to how excited she had been when she had first gotten a cell phone. It sure wasn’t a fancy one, and she had to keep buying minutes for it or it didn’t work.

“Was he difficult to live with?” Betsy asked.

“Not at first.” Ginger finished setting the table and poured orange juice in cute little glasses for all four of them. “He was funny, always upbeat, probably because he was always high, right up until we moved in together. I think he just wanted a woman around to hold down a steady job and cook and clean for him. It wasn’t until after we were living together that I found out he was as useless as”—she blushed—“as tits on a boar hog, as one of my foster fathers used to say.”

Betsy chuckled. “I hadn’t heard that in years, but I’ve sure known a lot of people just like that in my lifetime.”

“Who’s like tits on a boar hog?” Kate entered the room. This morning she wore a red gingham-checked robe that barely reached her knees and left three inches of slip showing at the hem.

“Lucas, my baby’s father,” Ginger answered. “I was saying that if it’s a boy, then I hope it’s not like him. I hope my son is willing to work for a living and won’t always be looking for a way to make quick and easy money.”

Kate pulled out a chair and sat down. “There’s folks like that for sure. Is Lucas’s family going to make a fuss to see the baby and have grandparents’ rights?”

Ginger shook her head. “I didn’t know I was pregnant when he died, but even if they did know”—one shoulder raised in a shrug—“they’d think I was just after their money, and they’d insist on a DNA test and all that. It’s best that I do this on my own.” The words sounded all right in her head, but the truth was that Ginger was scared his family might take her baby from her.

“They have money?” Kate asked.

“He told me that they did.” Ginger shrugged again. “But that was after we’d moved in together, and I never really knew if he was telling the truth about anything. According to his story, they cut him off when he wouldn’t listen to them, and he ran away from home when he was seventeen, but looking back that was a lie, because he had that fancy cell phone and he always seemed to have a few dollars to buy what he wanted. When he was killed, they came and got his body and took it back home for burial.” Ginger helped Betsy bring the food to the table and then sat down in her usual spot. “I tried to talk to them, but they told me to get lost and that they were glad we hadn’t gotten married.”

“I guess they would be,” Kate said. “If he’d married you, then you and his child would be entitled to his share of the inheritance. Your child still would be, you know, if you wanted to get a lawyer and ask for it.”

Ginger shook her head slowly from one side to the other. “I don’t want anything from them.”

“I’m here.” Connie breezed into the kitchen and took her place. “Say grace, Kate, before the cinnamon rolls get cold.”

Kate bowed her head and said a simple thanks for the importance of the day and for the food. “Now let’s see if Betsy has lost her touch when it comes to making our traditional Easter-morning cinnamon rolls. Have you been going to church recently, Ginger?”

“I don’t reckon that I’ve lost my touch with cinnamon rolls any more than you’ve lost your touch making apple-pie moonshine,” Betsy shot across the table at her sister.

Kate cut a section off the end of the steaming-hot rolls, put it on her plate, and took a bite. “They’re good enough to make you slap your granny.”

Ginger giggled as she held out her plate toward Kate. “What does that mean, anyway? And to answer your question, when I had to work, I’d go sit on the back pew in one of the churches on my way home. I’d just sit there on the back pew and look at the songbook.” She had loved the feeling of peace when she attended church.

“Well, at least you went,” Connie said.

“And ‘slap your granny’ means that something is so good that you’d slap your granny for a piece of it even though you knew you’d get your fanny whipped with a switch for being disrespectful to your grandmother,” Kate explained. “Betsy always makes the best hot rolls and cinnamon rolls in Medina County, but she did extra good today.”

“Thank you.” Betsy smiled. “I put a little extra love in them since Ginger is with us.”

“Then I vote we hog-tie Ginger and keep her forever,” Connie teased.

Ginger took her first bite. “You really should’ve put in a café or maybe a pastry shop. These are better than any I’ve ever eaten before. We should save one for Sloan to eat before he hides the eggs.”

Betsy beamed, and Ginger caught her sliding a sly wink over to Kate. They must have had some inside joke going, because she couldn’t figure out why her comment would put such a glow on Betsy’s face.