‘Even now, the way I speak is just a surface thing, I can do it, but the old way is still there and I’m always trying to hold it back. Sometimes I get really tense from holding it back; it’s like trying to hold back who I am.’

‘And who are you?’ said Cynthia.

‘That is so hard. Deep down, I guess I’m the girl who grew up livin’ sometimes under a house that was fallin’ down, with a sick mama who turned her head to whatever my daddy done . . . see there?’ Lace put a hand over her face. ‘Once in a while, it just pops out.’

‘We sure love that girl,’ said Cynthia. ‘If memory serves me, which it often doesn’t, she’s that amazing person who got a scholarship to one of the finest universities in the country.’

Cynthia put her arm around Lace. ‘Don’t ever be ashamed of that lovely girl under the house who educated herself from the bookmobile. She had grit and backbone if anyone ever had, and she’ll be there for you through thick and thin.’

‘Great good is written all over those hard times,’ he said. ‘God sent Absalom Greer to tell you about the one who loved us first; he sent Harley to give you refuge when you needed it; he sent the Harpers to give you the home you wanted and never had . . .’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I do know, and I’m really thankful.’

‘You and Dooley have much in common,’ he said.

‘Sometimes too much. But if we’re patient and talk things out, we can usually say, Okay, I get it, I understand why you did that. I think you know that Olivia arranged for us to see a counselor. Two whole years and we still go when we can, we even work with him on the phone. It helps, it really helps. Would you like to have your present now?’

‘Yes!’ said his wife. It was a day of presents.

Lace went to the outsized portfolio she’d brought along, and unzipped it. ‘Don’t look. Close your eyes.’

The clock ticking. ‘Okay, you can look!’

He and Cynthia drew in their breath at the same moment. A Greek chorus.

Every remaining freckle. Every red hair. The light in his eyes. The crooked grin. The works. Lace was holding a life-sized portrait in oil of Dooley Barlowe Kavanagh, from the waist up, wearing a T-shirt that read LOVE IS AN ACT OF ENDLESS FORGIVENESS.

A surge of feeling. ‘Well done,’ he said.

‘Remember the little Baptist church on the way to Meadowgate from Holy Trinity?’ said Lace. ‘The message on the shirt was on their wayside pulpit one morning; we all liked it.’

Cynthia embraced Lace, held her tight. ‘You’re so gifted, so gifted. Hard to find the words.’

‘I had the shirt made for him,’ she said. ‘And one for me, too. It reminds us both.’

Barnabas came over to look, wagged his tail. They inspected the brushstrokes, the candor of the eyes, the facial expression which Lace found ‘a little dubious.’

‘Let’s hang it as is, no frame to distract the eye,’ said Cynthia. ‘But where?’

‘Over the mantel!’ he said.

Agreed.

He toted in the ladder and removed the mirror.

‘I think of Harley,’ he said, handing the mirror down to Lace.

‘Never a jot of formal education, but he wanted more than anything for you to have it. He was proud of every step you took, every book you read, and then you turned around and started teaching him, and it was literally life-changing. He says learning American history from you was better than going west with Lewis and Clark.’

This amused her. She handed up the canvas.

‘I went to see him before I came over,’ she said. ‘He is so adorable. He had his teeth in; I hardly knew him. I said, Harley, who was the Indian woman who traveled with Lewis and Clark? That is really an unfair question because her name just drives people crazy trying to pronounce it and it’s been years since Harley studied the expedition. He didn’t hesitate a minute. Sock-ah-ja-wee-ah, he said. So I said, What is another name for the prairie hen? and he said, Grouse—an’ they got four toes on each foot!’

They sat at the kitchen island and admired the portrait ‘forty ways from Sunday,’ as his mother would have said, and split one of Winnie’s napoleons three ways.

•   •   •

‘HE DON’T EVEN TALK LIKE Dooley n’more. It’s like he’s somebody else, like that stupid dirtbag dean’s kid over at Bud’s. What’s Dooley tryin’ to prove, anyhow, always thinkin’ he knows it all? He thinks his money makes him some kind of big shot, some kind of god? He wants a truck, he gets a truck, he wants a cue stick, he gets a cue stick.’

The snow in these mountains was a lovely thing. The heater in Harley’s truck was another lovely thing.

‘I don’t care if I live or die, it don’t matter to me, I know I don’t want to be like Dooley or you or Harley or nobody else, I want to be like myself.’

Come, Holy Spirit.

‘I believe you’re missing something here,’ he said. ‘You think all good things just fall into your brother’s lap and are there for the taking?

‘Let me tell you about Dooley. He helped raise four kids, remember? Walked you to school because there was no car to go in and no bus out that way, and nobody else to do it.

‘And how about putting food on the table? He was ten years old, but he saw it as his job, and he managed that scary responsibility as best he could. Nobody starved to death, you’re all still here.

‘And yes, Miss Sadie provided money for his education, but do you think Dooley went off to that fine, expensive school and got by on money?

‘Dooley didn’t know how he was going to get by. He wanted to run away from that school, he wanted to come home where the love was. But he toughed it out with all those guys with privileged backgrounds and fast cars, who laughed at him and called him a hillbilly. He dug down deep, where most of us have to go in this life, and he found gold. He found a way to do more than just get by, he found the guts to go against all the odds and, with God’s help, make something of himself.

‘And maybe you think school is a piece of cake for your hotshot brother, that he just breezes through and has a good time. You would be wrong. School is hard. That’s what makes it good. And because he has two more years, plus vet school, that makes it double hard—and double good. Because when he gets through, he’ll have a way to help ease some of the suffering in this world.

‘You brought us a kitten. You wanted it to have something to eat, a good home, a safe place. That’s what Dooley wants for the animals he’ll spend his life treating. A few years ago, a pony gashed its belly on a barbed-wire fence. It was dying. Dooley helped save its life. Barnabas was struck by a car and would have died, no question. But Dooley and Lace knew what to do and that good dog is still with us.

‘You said that when Dooley wants a cue, he buys a cue. And he just bought a beautiful stick for you. Is this the hotshot brother who considers himself a god? Looks to me like it’s a brother who’s thoughtful of your needs, a brother who wants the best for you because he loves you. Actually, you’ve got two brothers who fit that description. Two!’

He pulled into the parking lot of the nursery and turned off the ignition.

‘I hope you’re listening to me, Sam. You’re about to lose your place at Miss Pringle’s because you’ve openly defied the few things asked of you. You’ll be on the street, and for what?

‘Most of your life, you’ve been up against it, and it looks like that’s where you want to stay. You didn’t have a choice when you were younger, but now you do.

‘Do you want to shoot great pool or would you rather be dead?

‘Do you want to build beautiful gardens or would you rather be dead?

‘Do you want people to love you, really love you and care about you, or would you rather be dead and miss all that?

‘You can’t have it both ways.

‘If you choose life, if you choose to honor yourself and others, too, I’ll help you get on with it. Harley will help, Kenny will help, Cynthia, Miss Pringle, a lot of people will help.