“Hey, baby, what’s the matter?” Mitch walked to the sofa, crouched down.
“Just the heat.” The sick weakness was passing, and let her work up an embarrassed smile. “Made me a little crazy.”
“It wasn’t the heat,” Harper corrected. “And you’re not the one who’s crazy. Mama’s on her way. We’re going to wait for her.”
“You didn’t drag Roz away from work over this? Just how bad do you want me to feel?”
“Quiet down,” Harper ordered.
“Look, I don’t blame you for being mad at me, but I’m not going to lie here and—”
“Yes, you are. Lily doesn’t have to be fetched for a couple hours. One of us will go get her.”
Since her only response was a dropped jaw, he turned as David brought a tea tray into the room. “You can get Lily from the sitter’s, can’t you?”
“No problem.”
“Since she’s my daughter, I’m the one who picks her up, or delegates,” Hayley snapped.
“Color’s coming back,” Harper observed. “Drink your tea.”
“I don’t want any damn tea.”
“There now, sugar, it’s nice green tea.” David soothed as he set the tray down and poured. “Be a good girl now.”
“I wish y’all would stop fussing and making me feel like an idiot.” She sulked, but took the cup. “But since you ask, David, I will.” She continued to sulk as she sipped, then cursed under her breath when she heard Roz come through the front door.
“What’s the matter? What happened?”
“Harper’s on some sort of rampage,” Hayley said.
“Harper, you rampaging again?” Roz rubbed her hand over his arm as she brushed by him to study Hayley. “When are you going to grow out of these things?”
“Roz, I’m sorry for all this trouble,” Hayley began. “I got a little overheated and wonky, is all. I’ll put in extra time tomorrow to make up for today.”
“Oh good, then I won’t have to fire you. Now somebody tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“First, she was working herself up to a good case of heat exhaustion,” Harper told her.
“I overdid just a little, which isn’t the same as—”
“Didn’t I tell you to quiet down once already?”
She set the cup down with a snap of china on china. “I don’t know where you get off taking that tone with me.”
The glance he sent her was as mild, and as formidable, as his tone. “Since it’s not working, I’ll just tell you to shut the hell up. I got her into the shade, got some water in her,” he continued. “We talked a couple minutes, then we had an argument. In the middle of it, it wasn’t her talking anymore. It was Amelia.”
“No. Just because I said things I shouldn’t have—”
“Hayley, it wasn’t you saying them. She sounded different,” he told Mitch. “Different tonal quality, you could say. And the accent was pure Memphis. Not a trace of Arkansas in it. And her eyes, I don’t know how to explain it exactly. They were older. Colder.”
Everything inside Hayley sank and shivered. “It’s not possible.”
“You know it is. You know it happened.”
“All right.” Roz sat beside Hayley. “What did happen, Hayley, from your point of view?”
“I wasn’t feeling quite right—the heat. Then Harper and I got into an argument. He just pushed my buttons, that’s all, and I slapped back. I said things. I said . . .”