Instead of keeping quiet and letting things die down like I ought to have done, I said, “Isn’t it okay that someone likes me?”

“Sure! Just not him!”

Tolliver would rather I got together with Barney Simpson or the Pastor Doak Garland? “Why not?”

There was a long moment of silence while Tolliver struggled with that question. “Because he, well, he actually stands a chance with you,” he said. “Other guys don’t because we’re always traveling and you aren’t going to see them again, but he understands the lifestyle and he has to travel, too, with Xylda.”

I opened my mouth to say, So you don’t want me to have anyone? But a power beyond me shut my mouth. I didn’t say anything. This was closer to the bone than I’d imagined Tolliver would get, and I was scared to take it any further.

“He’s younger than me.” I had to say something.

“Not too young,” my brother said. We’d changed sides in the Manfred argument, I realized. Suddenly, I was trying not to smile. I realized the pain pill I’d taken at the cabin was definitely working. I had the blooming warm sense of well-being, the chatty feeling of affection for all mankind. If I ever became addicted to any pharmaceutical, pain pills would be my drug of choice. But I didn’t plan on becoming addicted. Once the pain was gone, the pills would be. I had to watch myself, after the example my mother had set me.

“The trick to avoiding these pills is not to get hurt,” I said seriously.

Tolliver had a little trouble catching up to this conversational line, but he got there. “Yes, you don’t want to end up in the hospital again,” he said. “For one thing, you can’t do your share of the driving while you’re on them.”

“Oh, yeah, like you care,” I said.

He smiled. I felt better. “But I do,” he said.

The lot of Mount Ida Baptist Church was already full of cars. One of the local cops was directing the overflow parking. Tolliver asked if he could drop me off right in front of the church, and the cop nodded. I got out of the car awkwardly and stood just inside the vestibule, waiting. As other people passed me and went in, I glimpsed Twyla sitting at a table just inside the door. She had a clear plastic box in front of her, a box with a slot cut in the top.

There was a sign on the front of the box that read “Please help our families bury their children.” It was already half full of bills and change.

Twyla glimpsed me, too, and made a beckoning gesture. I maneuvered through the doors and went to sit in the vacant folding chair beside her. She leaned over to give me a half hug.

“How you doing, girl?” she asked.