‘Where’s he getting this stuff?’ he asked J.C.

‘From literature that comes with th’ spray tan deal.’

Wanda whipped around with the coffeepot.

‘Is that you, Mr. Skinner?’

‘It’s me, all right.’

‘Just back from the Sunshine State?’

‘Just back from A Cut Above,’ said Mule, ‘where they have the amazing, not to mention revolutionary, spray tan technology. Why be pasty when you can be tan?’

‘It is not the season yet for people to be tan,’ said Wanda. ‘We get tan in summer when we garden and play golf. If this weather keeps up, we will have snow in here before the leaves turn.’

‘So you garden?’ said Mule. ‘And play golf?’

‘I kill plants and can’t hit a ball. I was usin’ a general example.’

‘So,’ said Mule, ‘are you goin’ to do a little something to, you know, live up to your new name? To, like, make people feel good?’

‘How people feel is their business, not mine. If they like to feel good, fine. If they don’t, fine. I’m here to give you a decent cup of joe and a great hamburger.’

He raised his hand. ‘I’ll have the hamburger.’

‘Same here,’ said J.C.

‘Okay, that’s what I’m havin’,’ said Mule. ‘All th’ way, but hold th’ onions.’

‘All the way comes with onions,’ said Wanda.

‘Right, but hold ’em.’

Wanda rolled her eyes. ‘I was warned.’

‘Who warned you?’ asked J.C.

‘The poor woman who owned th’ place before I bought it. She said th’ turkeys will make you crazy.’

‘Double fries on th’ side,’ said J.C. ‘And double aioli.’

‘And you, Father?’

‘Pickle. No fries.’

‘Lovely,’ said Wanda. ‘One more thing, Mr. Skinner. We’re supposed to be pasty in autumn, that’s what autumn is for, to rest our faces from the harmful rays of the sun.’

Wanda moved on.

‘She has not rested her face in a coon’s age, I can tell you that,’ said Mule.

J.C. stared into his empty coffee mug. ‘What ever happened to the waitress with a heart of gold?’

‘Lunch is on me,’ said Mule, waving the chit.

•   •   •

‘GO HOME and get some clothes on, buddyroe.’ He slapped Mule on the back as they left the café.

‘And wash that stuff off!’ said J.C.

‘Won’t wash off, that’s how you get your money’s worth. It has to wear off.’ Mule zipped his fleece-lined jacket, grinned, headed to his vehicle. ‘I don’t care what you turkeys say,’ he hollered from the curb. ‘I’m tan, you’re pasty.’

‘You’re goin’ to like Thursday’s main feature,’ said J.C.

Wind rattled the scaffolding, hammered them as they walked across Main.

‘Don’t count on it.’

‘You’re goin’ to like it big time. It was Vanita’s idea. She’s a sharp little writer. Adele’s making news next week. Front page, four-color. Don’t miss it.’

‘Great. Can you talk about it?’

‘I could, but then it wouldn’t be news.’

He was impressed that the Muse editor never scooped himself.

‘So,’ said J.C., stopping off at the bank, ‘you still don’t want to hear what’s goin’ on at Lord’s Chapel?’

‘Out of my precinct.’

‘Talbot has a habit, you know. Women. Paid.’

‘Enough,’ he said, meaning it.

Since he’d sat in a car most of yesterday and running today was not going to happen, he would compromise with a power walk up Lilac, and around the block to home.

Abe Edelman, owner of Village Shoes, peered out the window and threw up his hand.

The marching band . . .

‘Hey, buddy.’ He kept going, breathing hard.

‘What’s with the Mustang?’ said Dooley.

‘Carburetor, heater, radiator, clutch.’

‘Don’t get another old car.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a new one. What do you think?’

‘BMW X1.’

‘You’re lookin’ for something hot to drive when you come home.’

Dooley’s cackling laugh.

‘What else do you have in mind?’

‘You’d like a Jeep.’

‘I don’t need to go off-road or splash through mud puddles.’

‘What are you doing? Running?’

‘Walking.’

‘So you want a boring vehicle?’

No, he didn’t want boring; life was short and getting shorter.

‘What’s the least boring vehicle to get me to Wesley, and down the mountain on the rare occasion, and over town in bad weather?’

‘A Mini Cooper, Dad. Clubman hatchback. Plenty of room for Barnabas. Twenty-seven miles per gallon around town, thirty-five on the highway when you come to see me in Athens. Cynthia would love it.’

‘Very small,’ he said, thinking of eighteen-wheelers, propane tankers . . .

‘You don’t need big to run to Wesley.’

‘What about emissions? Maybe a Prius . . .’ He wouldn’t mention the meeting with the bishop, not now.

‘Mini Cooper, Dad. I’ll go online and shoot you some info.’

‘I don’t know.’ His head was spinning, he was freezing.

‘Trust me,’ said Dooley.

Someone had stopped by Happy Endings since he’d passed earlier. Strips of paper were taped to the window. Where no tape secured the paper, the wind passed beneath; hand-printed words shuddered and danced.

We read to know we are not alone. CS Lewis

Children are made readers on the laps of their parents. Emilie Buchwald

Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book. Thos à Kempis

Pray for Hope!

•   •   •

HE WANTED TO BE A SHEPHERD; he wanted to serve others. He was hardwired for that—that would never change—and here was his opportunity. Why was he wrestling with it?

Timmy had laughed and handed over the pacifier—a sacrifice, the gift of himself to the stressed-out bald guy with the worried look on his face.

He needed to do that—hand it all over. Right away. Now.

How long had it been since he’d sat on the stone wall above the valley and prayed through a sunset? It seemed years.

•   •   •

‘AN AMAZING THING HAPPENED,’ said his wife, putting eggs in the fridge.

‘Tell me.’

‘Irene McGraw wants to give us those wonderful portraits, all five, for the hospital auction in June. She says they make her sad, she needs to let them go.’

‘This is hardly an art-buying community,’ he said.

‘We’ll have to depend on the Florida crowd, bless their hearts.’

The Florida crowd had bailed them out more than once—a new furnace for Lord’s Chapel being one example. As for donating the Mustang, he didn’t know how that would fly in view of the diagnostic. ‘Are those self-portraits of her as a child?’

‘She says the self-portraits are in the eyes of the subject.’

‘Who’s the subject?’

‘She didn’t say, she didn’t seem eager to talk about it. If I were a dealer, I’d put quite a price on them, but of course she doesn’t have a name in the art world.’

She poured two glasses of juice, passed one to him. ‘She really shouldn’t donate them, they seem so personal to her.’

‘A great start for the auction,’ he said. ‘Well done. What’s the plan for the campaign?’

‘A new wing.’

‘Wow.’

‘We’re going for a new wing with twenty more beds, which will make forty-five.’

His wife was beaming. ‘I’m believing we can auction Irene’s paintings for big money, plus raise enough to meet the goal.’

Should he pitch in and give a hand? He’d been a donor for twenty years, had even been asked to serve as the director at one time. It was his favorite charity, hands down, but his mother’s money was running out and his gifts in the future would be comparatively modest. After years of giving, he was, in effect, spent. He couldn’t think about it now.

She was talking hospital business while searching his face for some clue to his thinking about yesterday. But he had no thinking to speak of.

‘I’ll certainly bid on one,’ she said.

•   •   •

DRIVING HOME from the hair salon in Wesley, Esther Cunningham could see that the sunset would be a whopper. She didn’t usually notice such things—that was the kind of stuff Ray got a kick out of. Excited as a kid, he’d say, Look at that sunset, Honey Bun! Or, Hey, Doll Face, get a load of that apple tree in bloom! Or, How about that rock over yonder, see th’ nose an’ all, it looks just like Muhammad Ali.