“Sarina, I made it very clear who my son is and what he’s done. The shame is his, not yours, and as I told them, it would please me very much if you and Sarah made your lives here with us. In time, when you’re able to, I suggest you divorce Zachary and make a new life.”

She was weeping now, great sobs coming from behind the handkerchief.

Max rose, came to her, and put his arms about her. Sarina collapsed against him. They stood like this for a time, until her crying ceased, and she stepped away.

“Feel a bit better?” He smiled at her.

Sarina nodded. Her eyes were red, her face puffy. “Thank you, Max.” She turned and hastened from the room. Max sat in his big chair and clicked on the TV.

Max’s action in the church changed Sarina’s life. Within a week she was inundated with letters and phone calls. Cards arrived wishing her well. Invitations came to tea, to lunch, to join this or that organization or women’s group. But best of all, a young woman, Lucille Binder, who’s infant was the same age as Sarah and whose husband was in Iraq, called, and within no time the two became friends.

“It does not take but one friend to make one happy, does it?” Sarina said to Hannah, who agreed.

44

Jose and Anna’s Restaurant

It was a festive evening. Music floated the length of Cove Road. Cars lined the road and two busloads from a retirement community to the south of Asheville deposited passengers in front of Bella’s Park and drove away to park in the lot at Elk Plaza.

Jose, splendid in his jacket of many colors, welcomed all comers and escorted them to reserved tables. There would be three sittings tonight, with the earliest at four in the afternoon, another at six-thirty, and for those choosing to dine later, a sitting at nine.

The room was warm and welcoming in rust and ocher, rose and orange, with touches of yellow, and people praised the atmosphere. Jose beamed. In the kitchen Irena, Anna, and Irena’s son Pedrito cooked, while Pedrito’s wife, Lucia, and his daughter Adalena served the diners.

The menu included lemon-marinated shrimp, toasted corn empanadas (hot, crispy meat-filled pastries), llapingachos (potato-and-cheese pancakes), and patacones (squashed, fried green bananas). There was Lorca soup (potato soup with cheese and avocado), and fish-and-vegetable soup (listed on the menu as chupe de pescado). Popular dishes, more palatable to Western palates, included seco de pollo (stewed chicken over rice with avocado slices), beefsteak smothered with onions, and for the vegetarians, pollo sin pollo (all vegetables and no chicken). The offerings were different, and interesting.

Every sitting was filled. Jose, well known to many of the guests, beamed and welcomed all with wide smiles and gestures. At the end of the evening, when the cash was counted in Hannah’s office, the celebration continued.