“It’s relaxing to swing. Takes one back to being a kid, I guess. You’re up high. You can see over the railing, see everyone passing by.”

For a time they exchanged pleasantries: how things were at Caster Elementary School, where Brenda was the principal; that they were glad winter was behind them; news of children and grandchildren. Grace had learned that here in the South one did not rush things; one relaxed and allowed conversation to unfold.

Finally, Brenda asked, “So what’s on your mind, Grace?”

“I’m almost embarrassed to say.”

“Well, you just go ahead and say it anyway.”

Grace hesitated a moment. “I had lunch with Velma last week—”

Brenda waved her hand. “Say no more. Velma’s been all over the place chatting about May with anyone who will listen.”

“That’s not like Velma.”

“No, it’s not,” Brenda said.

“Then you know what people are saying about May and Pastor Denny?”

“I’ve heard things.”

“I got the sense that Velma doesn’t like May. She mentioned that May was odd back in high school. What did she mean by that, do you know?” Grace asked.

Brenda kicked the porch floor and sent them swinging higher. “I was in class with May and June. June got all A’s, if I remember right, and May, well, May was a dreamer. Not odd, just a dreamer. She’d stare out the window. She wrote poetry she wouldn’t show to anyone. Besides her sister, she didn’t seem to have any friends. People called her stuck-up, but I think she was just real shy.

“When we were busy snickering and making eyes at boys, May was sitting in the library reading Romantic poetry: Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth. I know this because one of her kids got in trouble one time, some silly thing, and she had to come to my office.

“‘He’s a good boy,’ she told me. ‘Shy, and quiet, and likes to read, like I do.’ May went on to tell me that she’d devoured books of poetry when she was in high school, but her son was fascinated by pirates of the Caribbean.”

“A gentle boy, Edward, not bombastic like Billie, and May loved him the most of her kids. I think he went on to work in medicine, a lab technician or a radiology technician, and lives in Georgia somewhere.” Brenda shook her head. “May should have gone to college and made something of herself, become a librarian or a teacher. Instead she walked right out of high school to the tune of the wedding march. Ida loved the idea that her twins were marrying brothers. June got a fairly decent, hardworking man. Billie was a bum from day one. I never liked him. I don’t think May did either.”

“She married him.”