“I’ve got to go, Mrs. Hollowell.” She gave me an apologetic look.

“I’ll talk to you later.”

By the time I’d crossed the porch, I heard the door closing.

“What was that about?” Sister wanted to know. “Who was the old guy?”

“Her father-in-law. I may be wrong, but my guess is that this is his house and they live with him. I think Betsy’s got her hands full, you ask me.”

“Did you see the floors?”

“No, I didn’t see the floors.”

But I had seen enough to know that the version I had had in my mind of the young Mahalls’ small-town life, neighbors, ordinary jobs, everything fine except for the lack of children wasn’t the truth. Not by a long shot. I admitted as much to Mary Alice.

“You’re not like me, Mouse,” she said. “You tend to pigeonhole people.” Then, as we started up Chandler Mountain, “God, I hope none of those snake handlers are up at the church. They’ve all got to be crazy as bedbugs.”

I ignored this. However crazy handling poisonous snakes might seem to us, I remembered what Betsy had said about her aunt, that she was trying to touch God. That deserved respect.

There were no cars or trucks at the church except Monk Crawford’s paint van, which still stood in his driveway. Luke and Richard hadn’t gotten there yet.

I held up the key. “You want to go in?”

“Reckon they have a bathroom?”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Then I want to go in.”

We got out and crossed the gravel walkway between the church and the house. I put the key into the lock and turned it.

“I’ll bet the bathroom’s where they keep the snakes,” I said when I noticed Sister was dancing from one foot to the other.

“Shit, Patricia Anne!”

I moved aside. “Well, go ahead. Just watch your step.”

Sister hesitated. “You’re just saying that, aren’t you?”

Of course I was. But I wasn’t entirely comfortable stepping across the threshold.

The ordinariness of the room we entered was reassuring, though. Sun shone across a white vinyl floor. The walls were painted a pale yellow, and the windows were framed with white lace curtains. A green-and-yellow-plaid sofa and two matching chairs in early-American design faced a large TV. Several magazines were arranged neatly on a pine coffee table and brass eagle lamps centered each end table. The brick fireplace had a gas space heater in it, and across the mantel were what appeared to be family photographs.

Sister was reassured enough to go down the hall and yell back, “I found it, and it looks all right.”