After dinner, he drove his old Dodge Ram over to St. Mary’s and plowed the driveway. And listened to some thrash metal while he did. Ginette heard a muted version of the loud, thrashy music as she passed by the church. And wondered why anyone would ever want to listen to music like that.

When Chad finished plowing, he shoveled the path to the front entrance of the church, poured some sand on the steps so people wouldn’t slip, and then went inside and made sure the heat was working. And then he swept a little and made sure the bathroom was clean and made sure Father Tom had vestments and that there were candles and that everything was ready for Clair Gudreau’s funeral the next morning.

When he was sure everything was ready, he closed up the church and headed outside to his truck and was about to get in and head home when a Ford F-250 pulled into the church’s parking lot. The F-250 belonged to Chad’s best friend, Randy Lowery, who got out of his truck and seemed agitated. Randy had a brown paper bag in one arm and a flashlight in his other hand.

“Hey,” called Chad.

Randy didn’t answer and turned and started heading toward the snowbank behind the church.

“You okay?”

Randy didn’t answer again.

“Hey, where ya goin’?” Chad asked.

“I need a beer,” called Randy. He had a six-pack of Natural Light beer in the bag he was carrying, and he didn’t want to drink it in the church parking lot, because that just didn’t seem right.

Chad grabbed his flashlight from his truck and followed Randy, who had climbed to the top of the snowbank and was climbing down the other side.

When Randy reached the base of the other side of the snowbank, he plunked himself down on a snow boulder, jammed the butt of his flashlight into the packed snow so it could serve as a torch, and looked out over the cemetery behind St. Mary’s—which looked no different than the potato fields that surrounded it, because the snow was deeper than the headstones were high.

Eventually, Chad plunked down on the snow boulder next to the one Randy was sitting on, jammed his flashlight into the packed snow, and asked, “Are you okay?”

Randy scoffed and looked out across the cemetery and into the Norsworthys’ potato fields.

“What’s up?” asked Chad.

Randy made a pshh sound and shook his head. “Things with Yvonne went about as bad as they coulda gone.”

“Oh. Sorry, pal.” Chad watched his best friend take a swig of his beer. “If it makes you feel any better, my date with Sally didn’t go so good, either.”

“Naw,” grunted Randy. “Don’t even. There’s no way it was anywhere near as bad as my night, so…”

“Mmm, I don’t know—”

“It was bad, Chad. Bad!”

“I hear ya, but—”

“Yeah, but you’re not listenin’!”

“No, you’re not listenin’, Randy, ’cause I’m tryin’ to tell ya that I had a pretty bad time, myself!” exploded Chad, surprising himself, because he wasn’t an explosive guy.