When they reached the double door of the emergency room, he looked around. Sammy was coming, anyway.

‘Caught in a garbage truck compactor. They’re gettin’ ready to fly him to Charlotte. He’s seventeen years old.’

Robin opened the door and, even with staff moving about the bed, he saw the patient clearly. The room dipped. He reached for the doorjamb, held on; Sammy turned and fled.

•   •   •

HE REPOSITIONED A FEW of the larger branches in the truck bed, needing time. He had prayed for the boy, the doctors and nurses, all of it masking a kind of interior howl. Hospital patients had come and gone in his life, but nothing had rocked him quite like this. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, opening the truck door.

‘Why’d you do that? Why’d you make me do that?’ Sammy shouted.

‘I didn’t need to see that, they won’t any reason t’ make me see that. That’s some kind of God that’d do that to somebody, that’s some kind of God you think so much of. No way would I do that t’ nobody, hurt somebody like that!’

Yelling, sobbing, then opening the passenger door and getting out and shouting into the cab.

‘Is it all jis’ lies? I thought you was all about th’ truth. Dooley says you’re about th’ truth, but how can you be about th’ truth if God is all about lies? I don’t git it, I don’t want t’ git it, I ain’t goin’ t’ git it!’

And there came the stream of vitriol the boy had grown up with.

‘An’ him bein’ seventeen—was that some kind of setup t’ teach me a lesson about bein’ good like Dooley, or good like Kenny, or good like you? I don’t see why I ever ended up with you, anyhow, how come I had to end up with you?’

Uncontrolled weeping.

He held the anger away from himself and did not enter into it; he could not enter into it. ‘My dear brothers,’ Saint James had written, ‘take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.’ He had listened, and he would say nothing.

Then Sammy, slamming the door and storming away, headed for the highway.

Probably for the first time in his life, Sammy Barlowe had started to feel something more than his own pain.

•   •   •

HE SAT VERY STILL for what seemed a long time, trying to collect the pieces hurled into the air and falling.

Then he started the truck and drove out of the hospital lot and onto the highway.

Grace may be a no-brainer for God, but for him it was clearly impossible to deliver. If mock grace was going to bring anything to the table, the heart must be kept free of malice. But how? Yank out the bitter weed, and in a flash, back it comes, and more of it. He found there was even a type of repulsion to be rooted out of his feelings, this having to do with Sammy’s general hygiene and the way spitting was used as a nonverbal form of in-your-face loathing. And yet this was the package that had been set before him.

He didn’t know how to help Sammy make something of himself in the competitive world of pool. It was beyond his powers. All he and Sammy had was the card currently dealt: the restoration of a garden gone wild. Together, they were making a place for the human spirit to find ease, if only for a fleeting moment. He’d learned that even the fleeting moment counts for something, counts for much. In a fleeting moment, Paul was convicted on the road, Charles Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed, Lewis’s ‘land of longing’ was left behind at the moment, Lewis said, ‘when God closed in.’

Who was he, anyway, to tamper with the damage of a young life? All he knew to do, for now, was keep his mouth shut, and in the silence let the Holy Spirit do the talking.

Outside Wesley’s town limits, he pulled off the highway a few yards ahead of Sammy; left the motor running, waited. Sammy climbed back in the truck.

There was nothing to say. He drove, kept his eyes on the road.

They rounded the curve across from the lawn-mower repair.

‘God A’mighty.’ Sammy slumped forward, elbows on knees, his face hidden.

The trees a riot of color; the brilliant red of the staghorn sumac . . .

Chapter Eighteen

I’ve been wondering how to tell Irene,’ said Cynthia. ‘What do you think?’

‘I suggest you keep it simple and make sure she’s sitting down. Irene, you have a sister. Don’t hurry to the next piece of business, but don’t tarry, either. Then say, A twin sister. One piece of information at a time. Things will develop from there.’

‘Easy for you, darling. You’ve been delivering surprises to people for decades.’

‘Let’s catch our breath,’ he said, ‘and pray the prayer that never fails.’

They held each other and spoke the few and familiar words, and she drew back and looked at him and smiled. ‘That’s better.’

‘All will be well,’ he said.

‘I regret never seeing any of her films. I did a search, she’s a three-time Oscar nominee. We could be the only ones left standing who don’t know her work.’

He was busy getting out of his lace-up church shoes and into his loafers. ‘She may find that refreshing.’

‘I wouldn’t think so. This dress is so dowdy, I have no idea why I bought it. How’s my hair?’

‘Perfect.’

‘But you didn’t really look.’

‘I don’t have to. Your hair is always perfect.’

Wrong word. She liked her hair to appear ‘tossed by a breeze,’ she once said.

He went to his sock drawer, which shared space with his handkerchiefs, and took one from the pile of fresh inventory.

‘I hate to wear a coat over this dress, it will smash the collar, but it’s freezing out there.’

‘Wear a coat,’ he said.

The bookstore had tissues, a staple item that went wherever a parson set up shop—but a little backup never hurt. He took another handkerchief, this one a gift from Walter, and monogrammed; he would make sure it didn’t stray. ‘Your green coat would be good.’

‘My green coat? With this? Ugh.’

His wife was beside herself. Moving from the quiet domestic life into the private drama of a three-time Oscar nominee was disconcerting. How did they manage to have such a big life in such a small town?

•   •   •

HE WOULD HAVE ROUGHLY fifteen minutes with Kim, something she requested, before Cynthia arrived with Irene.

Because Kim could be recognized, he hurried her into Happy Endings as the limo drove away. He switched on a single lamp in the Poetry section, choosing not to use the main store lights.

She was dressed simply. Dark pants, dark sweater, gold earrings. In truth, much like Irene often dressed.

They situated their chairs so he could see the door. ‘Is your father living?’ he asked.

‘He’s in skilled nursing and doesn’t know me. Division in our family has had, if you will, a way of multiplying. Our mother divided from her children, the children divided from each other, my father now divided from his mental powers.’

‘You have no children, I believe you said.’

‘No children. And no husband after three marriages. I am by nature impulsive. I’ve often acted in haste and regretted it—another reason I’ve taken my time in following through about Irene. I’m shaking, Father. Completely undone.’

‘Let me pray for you.’

‘Please. I need help of any kind. I was raised Catholic, but somehow it never stuck. I couldn’t imagine that God would be interested in me.’

‘He’s more than interested in you. It’s a pretty radical notion, but he actually made us for himself, for his pleasure. He wants to hear from you anytime, about anything. Try to know that.’

He took her hand and prayed then, against the fear he felt throbbing in her palm.

As he looked up, he saw Cynthia and Irene walk by the display window.

‘God be with us,’ he said. He didn’t let go of her hand as they went to open the door.

He heard Kim’s sharp intake of breath, saw the incredulous expression on Irene’s face. The glass door between them became a kind of mirror in which each of the two women saw herself in the other.