stood laboriously, and Britt went around the bed to help her untangle herself from the chair and position herself within the protective rails of her walker. Someone in Lavinia’s family had made a colorful little calico pouch that snapped on the side of the walker, and Britt stuffed a bag full of soft cookies she and the children had made into it.
“Bless you,” Lavinia said, leaning heavily on one hand to put the other arm around Britt in a hug. Then she started for the door, moving surely, but at a snail’s pace. “Here I go,” she said. “Like a turtle with her tail on fire. Out of my way. Watch my dust. That’s not an explosion you hear, it’s me, breaking the sound barrier. Hi, ho, Silver! Awayyyy...” Her voice trailed after her as she made her way down the hall.
Britt and Martha giggled.
“How are you today, Grandma?” Britt asked, settling herself on the edge of the bed again. “Do you really cheat?”
“Of course. She’s a better player—it’s the only way I can win.” She looked more pleased with herself than apologetic. Then she tilted back her head to study Britt through the lower half of her bifocals. “How are you? You look more like your mother every day. Except for the circles under your eyes.”
Britt delved into the bag she’d brought. “Well, I’m no spring chicken anymore, you know.”
“Thirty-two. Still a baby.”
“Thirty-three,” Britt corrected, handing her the current supermarket tabloids. “Here’s your Globe, Inquirer, Star, Shalimar, and a small piece of cheesecake.”
Martha frowned at her playfully. “Small piece?”
“Got to watch that waistline.” Britt put the cheesecake on her tray, pulled off the plastic wrap, then poured a cup of milky coffee from a thermos she’d brought.
Martha rolled a bite of cheesecake on her tongue and made an appreciative sound. Then she pointed at the cake with her fork. “You know, my mother used to love rich things. Torte with custard filling and meringue. And she made the most beautiful lattice crust you ever saw.”
This was a story Martha loved to tell, so Britt smiled encouragingly and listened patiently as time rolled away and the old woman focused with misting blue eyes on her childhood. “’Course, she was only ten years old when her family came here from Germany, so she remembered life there very clearly. She was scandalized when stores started carrying cake mix in a box. She and our neighbor, Mrs. Olson, made a pact never to bake anything that was prepackaged.”
“Hi, Martha!” An enthusiastic voice interrupted the old woman’s reminiscences. “That’s right, isn’t it? I’m trying to learn names today.”
Martha looked up with a bright smile, and Britt turned as a woman she guessed to be somewhere around her own age walked into the room. She was plump and red-haired, and was wearing the pale green uniform of the Worthington House staff. She spoke deliberately and with the childlike need to please of the developmentally disabled.
Martha beckoned her closer. “That’s right, Freddie. You’re doing very well. Come and meet my most favorite person in the whole world.”
Britt stood and Freddie came forward shyly.
“Freddie, this is Britt Hansen, my granddaughter,” she said, “Britt, this is Freddie Houser. Dr. Phelps just hired her a few days ago and she’s fitting right in. She helps me with my bath.”
Freddie beamed at the praise.
Britt offered her hand. “I’m happy to meet you, Freddie. I’m glad to know you’re taking such good care of Grandma.”
“I work very hard,” Freddie assured her. “And I try to do everything just the way Mrs. Finklebaum showed me.”
“Freddie?” One of the other aides appeared in the doorway. With a wave and a smile for Britt and Martha, she asked Freddie, “Can you come and help me with Mrs. Norgaard?”
“Okay.” Before she left, Freddie whispered to Britt conspiratorially, “I’ll take special care of Martha, don’t you worry.”
“Thank you, Freddie.”
As the aides disappeared down the hall, Martha shook her head sadly, pulling Britt closer. “Poor Freddie,” she said quietly. “She lived at home until her mother died. Lavinia told me Phyllis had been diagnosed as terminally ill, but lately had been in a kind of remission. Then, suddenly, she just died without warning. Now Freddie’s all alone. Dr. Phelps hired her to help out around here and she’s trying so hard.” She sighed. “Imagine being not quite up to snuff and having nobody.”
“That would be tough,” Britt commiserated. “Well, she really seems to like you, so you keep encouraging her. Now finish that cheesecake so I can take the plate with me.”
Martha tucked back into the treat with fervor. “My mother used to make something kind of like this. Though she never liked using cow’s milk. She always wanted a goat, so that we could have goat’s milk, but my father raised dairy cows and was horrified at the idea. She insisted goat’s milk was healthier and tasted better. He said it tasted like—” She stopped abruptly and grinned. “I won’t tell you what he said it tasted like. She tried to tell him goat’s milk could be delicious if the goat ate the right things, and that it was easier to digest. Often, people who are allergic to dairy products can still drink goat’s milk. But he wouldn’t hear of it and she never did get a goat.”
“I had goat’s milk a couple of times in college,” Britt said, trying to remember the circumstances. “We were on a health kick, I think, to get in bikini shape by the summer. We’d been impressed in class with how low in fat and...”
Something clanged in her brain.
Goat’s milk. Lower in fat than cow’s milk. Snob appeal. Gimmick!
Martha ate and chatted while Britt’s heart began to pound and her brain ticked over with the idea. At the moment, yogurt was the ordinary consumer’s fair-haired child. Goat’s milk yogurt would probably bring them running. No. Would it? Would they go for it? Of course. All she had to do was think it through carefully and find the right approach.
She had to make some. Now. Today.
* * *
A BLOND EYEBROW went up disbelievingly. “You’re going to make what?”
“Goat’s milk yogurt,” Britt repeated, taking her friend and neighbor, Judy Lowery, by the wrist and dragging her across the yard toward the pen where she kept three Alpine goats.
“You’ve got to be joking. You ever tasted the stuff?” Judy was a writer who kept the goats for company. She was a newcomer to the Tyler area and a cynic, but a wonderful friend.
“I’m going to scope it out in detail at the library, but my grandmother says goat’s milk can be delicious if they’re properly fed. Can I rent one of your goats for a couple of days? Long enough to get milk and make yogurt and try a few recipes?”
Judy, half a head taller than Britt, put her hands on her friend’s shoulders and said gravely, “Why don’t you come inside and lie down? I’ve seen this coming. You’ve blown a fuse. I knew this was—”
“Go
