His legs were giving out, he didn’t want to kneel on the ground, and he leaned too hard against the window. It opened slightly. A breeze got through the hedges and blew in through the window. The draft pulled at the curtain, it started to billow out, and something . . . the shadows it made on the wall, the dark hedges around him, the story he’d just heard . . . frightened Ryder. He lost his balance and sat down hard on the ground. His sleeve caught on the hedge and suddenly he was terrified. He pulled the sleeve so hard the poplin ripped and down dribbled out. He yanked it free and ran to his bike and pedaled as fast as he could up the lane toward town. The wind was against him and made the going hard, but he didn’t stop until he reached the town square.

He stopped on the far side and looked at his church across the park and then around him at the center of the town he’d grown up in.

The Town Hall built in 1880 was on the one side, the library built in 1925 was on another, the WPA-­built post office was on the third, and his church closed the square.

It had been built in 1792; it was the oldest and most beautiful building in town—in the whole state, he thought, maybe the world. He looked up at its steeple, which was light gray against the dark gray sky.

“What happened?” he whispered. “What the hell happened? Nothing,” he answered himself. A draft had blown a flowered curtain that covered a jerry-­built plywood box, and he’d gone mad. “Mad,” he said out loud. The black man was crazy, he decided. He’d listened to him because he was tired, bored with his life, under too much pressure. But he didn’t believe any of the explanations he gave himself. There was something behind the flowered curtain. And he knew if he hadn’t run away, he would have seen it.

A cold spring wind blew the crocuses flat. The coffins were covered with iris and black tulips and all three were lowered at the same time. Willa’s sister and Tom’s mother held Tom’s arms as he half walked, half staggered to the limousine. Rachel tried to say something to him but his face twisted when he saw her and he said, “No, Rache. What’s the use? Don’t talk . . .” and he kept going. He was almost past her when he said, “Good-­bye, Rachel.”

She stood alone and bereft a few feet from Willa’s grave. The wind blew her skirt and upended folding chairs. She sobbed and pressed Kleenex against her eyes. Reverend Ryder touched her arm.

“Don’t use that, Mrs. Levy, the lint gets in your eyes, makes it worse.” He held out a clean folded handkerchief and she took it and wiped her eyes.

“Is your husband here?” he asked.