Mae Miller, suffering an aneurysm-induced coma, lies in a hospital bed. Clarence, her husband of fifty-four years, is at her side. For Mae, this is only one of many times she has had to battle death, beginning with the loss of her mother and infant brother to a tornado that tore their small tenant farmhouse apart. The tornado ripped seven-year-old Mae's infant brother from her arms and ripped a hole in her heart. Years later, drought devastates the family farm and drives a wedge between a teen-aged Mae and her dad. Mae moves west to live with her grown sister. Clarence, a sharecropper's son,...