Bree hadn’t been prepared for this, and before she found her voice, she heard Toby speak up. “I’m Toby Wheeler,” he said. “And this is Bree.”

“Welcome, Toby and Bree,” the woman said. “God has blessed us bringing you to join us today.”

“Whatever,” Toby muttered under his breath as the congregation delivered a chorus of “amens.” But unlike her cynical ward, Bree felt herself begin to relax.

The service began in earnest. She was used to cool, cerebral religion, but this was hot religion, loud in supplication and praise. Afterward, she lost count of the number of people who came up to greet her, and not one of them asked what a paleface like herself was doing in their church. A woman talked to Toby about their Sunday school program, and the minister, a man Bree recognized from the gift shop in town, said he hoped they’d come back.

“What do you think?” she asked Toby as they headed back to her used Chevy Cobalt.

“It was okay.” He pulled his shirttail out of his pants. “But my friends are at Big Mike’s church.”

The only friends he talked about were a set of twins who weren’t on the island now. Myra hadn’t done him a service by keeping him so isolated. “Maybe you could make some new friends here,” she said.

“I don’t want to.” He jerked open the car door. “I’m calling Big Mike and telling him I’m going to church with him next week.”

She waited for the familiar weight of defeat to claim her. But it didn’t happen. Instead she grabbed the car door before he could slam it shut and leaned down. “I’m the boss, I like this church, and we’re coming back next week.”

“That’s not fair!”

He tried to wrestle the door away from her, but she held on, and in the same tone she’d heard Lucy use, she staked her ground. “Neither is life. Get used to it.”

“ALL SHE CAN THINK ABOUT is black, black, black,” Toby complained to Lucy, those thickly lashed golden eyes flashing in outrage. “Like that’s all I am. This black kid. Not even me. She’s prejudiced. She’s a ray-shist.”

“Racist,” Bree called out from behind the counter where she was nailing a new set of shelves in place after moving her precious bumblebee Christmas ornaments to safety. They’d been such a success that she’d placed a second order.

“A racist,” he repeated. “Just like Ames in Roots.”

“The sadistic overseer.” Bree popped up long enough to explain.

“Right.” Lucy smiled. Bree had been watching the old miniseries with Toby this week, and it was hard to say which of them was more caught up in it. “Kids need to know about their heritage,” Lucy said. “Being African American is part of your heritage just like it is my brother Andre’s.”