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sobered. “Is it still hurting?”
    “ Non , it eases.”
    “You know it’s what you eat, don’t you? All that shrimp.”
    “ Crevette ? How you mean the shrimps?” She studied her granddaughter with a smile dancing about her lips. Liza, as usual, wondered if Mémé was playing with her, pretending ignorance.
    “Too much shrimp or meat makes the gout worse. You need to stay away from seafood until it gets better.” She smiled sympathetically. “I know that’ll be hard for you.”
    “Yes, the shrimp is my favorite,” Rosaries agreed. “It will be hard but I will try less of it. The doctor says this too so I must listen. Enough of the pain. Come now and tell me about the family.”
    Liza held her grandmother’s arm close as they moved into her cozy, well-lighted kitchen.
    Placide’s Place had been built by Liza’s maternal great-grandfather, Renoi Boulanger, in the late 1800s after moving from Canada to the lower forty-eight. After his death, the house had passed down to his only daughter, Rosaries. She and her husband, Chayton Hinto, had shared it for more than forty years.
    The era of its construction and the subsequent years had given the house a worn elegance. Though built in the Deep South, it was laid out very differently from most Southern homes, which featured wide-open spaces. Placide’s Place, probably because it was built by a warmth-seeking French-Canadian, had small rooms that led one into the other or playfully skirted a logical connection. When young, Liza had delighted in losing herself in the confusing passageways and intriguing crawlspaces. She would then call out until Papa Chayton, a pure-blood Dakota Indian, would come find her. After guiding her into a main hallway, he would fold his arms and study her as if seeking answers, looking every bit the stereotypical cigar-store decoration. Liza would simply laugh and hug his legs, for his dark, leathery skin and long black hair was incongruous against his modern tie-dyed T-shirts and denim shorts.
    The kitchen was the largest of the original rooms and served as the heart of the home. It offered a huge hearth, the fireplace rigged with iron hooks for cooking in stewpots. The room had been modernized around this hearth, but upon first glance, a visitor easily could be thrust back into the nineteenth century. During family gatherings, everyone gravitated here, mostly during mealtimes, ignoring the more formal dining room less than twenty feet away. The scarred oak table was the site of many heart-to-hearts, especially as Liza dealt with the loss of her mother, Sienna, Rosaries’ beloved only child.
    As Mémé busied herself with filling the teakettle, Liza settled at the table and let her mind reminisce about those days and the talks that had been her salvation during that difficult time. The loss of Papa Chayton just months later had cast a five-year pall on the entire family.
    “Where are you going to put the window boxes?”
    Mémé shrugged. “They’re for the solarium because that plant smells so good. But for no place in fact.”
    “Particular.” Liza’s correction was so automatic that neither woman noted it.
    She glanced out the large window next to the table. From this vantage point, she could see the tree-shrouded roof of the Carson house. Her thoughts flew to Shay and their strange encounter.
    “Hey, Mémé . Have you met the people who moved in over at Carson’s?”
    “Hmm?” Rosaries lit the gas flame under the kettle and took a seat across from her granddaughter.
    “ Carson place.Qui est-ce qui habiter?”
    “ Pas que je sache . There’s a mystery there.” She shrugged. “From the…Blue?...this man comes and he say he looking for property.”
    They sat for some time in companionable silence, both looking out the window.
    Rosaries answered the call of the singing kettle and filled two cups before resuming her seat and her conversation. “He say he looking for private place, no persons close. Wants to know if that