Harold Lumley needed to check out his mother’s reported lapses in judgment. He had received a call from the executive director of the Calloustown Community Center—a place where Ruth Lumley had volunteered for the past six years reading to the children of migrants, offering English lessons to the workers, and basically being a joyful person in a variety of capacities. She’d refereed Liga Pequeña basketball games up until her hip replacement surgery and had taught a roomful of Latina women how to cook a number of Southern staples when it came to funeral foods, from potato salad to chicken pot pie. Ruth Lumley’d conducted seminars on how to open bank accounts, pass the DMV’s written test, and talk to a child’s teacher without having the teacher feel threatened. She had offered baton-twirling lessons so the little girls could one day feel good about themselves as majorettes. The woman—Ms. Pickens? Ms. Pickering?—had told Harold over the phone that, although she didn’t want to pry into the Lumley family’s way of treating their elderly relatives, perhaps he should drive down and observe his mother’s recent peculiarities.
