“What I like about you, May McCorkle, is that you don’t lie. You have something on your mind, you say it right out, and if you don’t, you say that, too.”

“I was wondering, if you think it’s proper for me, being single soon and all, to be going to the red hat group that Grace and Amelia and the others formed? Amelia invited me, and I’ve been to a couple of meetings.”

“What do you do at the meetings?”

“Not much. We have lunch in a restaurant. We wear purple clothes and red hats. It’s come from a poem a woman wrote about being old and wearing purple and red and not giving a hoot. We eat, and talk, and sometimes tell jokes.”

“Do you tell jokes?”

“Goodness, no. I ain’t never been one to remember jokes.”

“I don’t see the harm in your going for lunch with the ladies. They’re fine women, and you’ve told me how much you admire them.”

“Sometimes the jokes are what I’d call slightly…” May blushed.

“Do they offend or embarrass you?”

“I can’t rightly say they do. They’re not really off-color. A lot of folks wouldn’t even think they were off-color.” She stopped. She was making this sound worse than it was. “I guess it’s more that I don’t understand them, and I feel foolish. I laugh like I understand, but I don’t.”

He smiled at her, that warm and caring smile she lived for. “I am not much good at telling jokes, either, and half the time when someone else tells a joke, I don’t get the punch line. If you have fun with the ladies, enjoy yourself, and don’t let a few jokes you don’t understand stop you from being part of the group.”

“You make me feel that my life is all right. That I did the right thing leaving Billie.”

“I hope that you feel you did the right thing, whether I think it’s good or not. It’s what you want for your life that matters, May, not what I want.”

May rose. “I gotta go now, Pastor Denny.” She stood in the doorway clutching her purse, sweat beading her upper lip. “See you next Saturday, then?”

“That’s fine, next Saturday. Same time.”