Chapter 55

“What's this?” she said.

“A little something to brighten your day, we hope,” I said.

She opened the envelope and took a few long minutes to digest its contents. “You paid my taxes,” she said. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“We can’t have Robbie's granny turned out of her home by the tax collector, now can we?” I said.

“George and I aren’t rich,” Mike said, “but if there’s anything you need that we can take care of, please let us help.”

He was talking to Mrs. Pickens, but he was looking at her caregiver, a middle-aged lady named Mary Hart. The woman nodded in understanding.

Robbie pulled his keyboard out of its carrying case, set it up, and played two or three simple little pieces upon which he had been working for weeks. His grandmother was very impressed and told him so at length.

“Your mama was a musician,” she said.

“She was?” Robbie said.

“When she was younger. That's how she went to college—on a music scholarship. She would probably have started teaching you about now.”