Ten miles south of Baton Rouge, Addis clicked on the turn indicator.

“Gas?” Rudd asked.

“No, I want to show you something.”

“What?”

“Won’t take long,” he said.

He exited the interstate and followed the signs to Duplessis. Before they hit town, he turned off the state highway and on to a dirt road.

“Where are we—”

“Just hold on,” he interrupted.

The car bounced past a falling-down shed. The road led over a hollow and cut through the woods. Rudd noticed a wooden sign nailed to a post. The words were hand-painted in white: “For Gloria,” above an arrow that pointed in the direction they were traveling.

Addis stopped the car in front of a ramshackle house. Smoke was coming out of the chimney. A horse was tethered by the front of the house. The front porch was crammed with junk: bashed-in television sets, beat-up furniture, rusty farm equipment. A chicken coop was on one side of the house, a barn on the other. Addis honked the horn and got out of the car. She followed and nearly stepped on a rooster running by.

A thin, elderly black man in overalls came out of the house.

“Mr. Addis!” he yelled.

“Mr. Pearson!” Addis shouted back.

The man stepped off the porch and grabbed Addis by the shoulders.

“I heard on the radio,” he said, “you were down in the city, but … My, oh my, what are you doing here?”

“Taking a few days off.”

“Guess you got it coming. I’ve been crying my eyes out. Just crying like a baby. Even this morning when I got up and heard this other fellow on the radio talking about it. I know it’s an unholy world, but what makes someone want to go and do something like that?”

“Let me introduce you to a friend. Mr. Anthony Pearson, this is Holly Rudd.”

Pearson took her hand.

“A pleasure, miss,” he said.

“Do you have time for a quick tour?” Addis asked.

“You know the answer, Mr. Addis. C’mon.”

Pearson led the pair to the barn.

“Mind them horse droppings,” he said to Rudd. “The nag’s got intestinal problems.”

Above the entrance to the barn was another handmade sign that read, “For Gloria.” Rudd looked at Addis and silently mouthed, “What is this?” He ignored the question, took her by the arm, and walked into the dark barn. Pearson hit a switch and a series of spotlights turned on.

The barn was full of shining sculptures of angels. Wherever she looked, Rudd saw another piece. Cherubic angels. Wise-old-men angels. Voluptuous women angels. She saw a soldier with wings, a little boy with wings, a farmer with wings. She guessed there were several hundred angels crammed into the barn. They all glittered. She looked closely at the nearest one—a woman with wings holding a baby—and saw the surface was aluminum foil.

“And see over there?” Addis asked.

“My god,” Rudd whispered.