"I've got two boys," said Ray Porter, considering that sufficient empathy.

He was buttering Jonathan's breakfast spaghetti when the phone rang. His hand was on the receiver before it rang again.

"Hello?"

"I hate to tell you this . . . ," said Emma.

"I already know," he said.

"How'd you know?"

"Harley called me last night."

"How'd he know?" she asked, sounding irritable.

"He was there."

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," she said, "but I'm talkin' about Gene Bolick havin' a brain tumor."

" What?"

"He keeled over again yesterday, they sent him down to Baptist Hospital and did a MRI scan. That's why he's been actin' so peculiar, it was that tumor pressin' on his brain."

"Dear Lord!"

"Here, I wrote down what it is, I have to spell it. M-e-n-i-n-g-i-o-m-a. It's way down deep towards th' base of his brain."

"Is it operable?" He realized he was holding his breath.

"Let's see. Where'd I write that down? Here it is on my shoppin' list. No, they can't operate, it's too far down in there. The doctor said unless it gets bigger, leave it alone."

"Do you know anything else?"

"Nothing except I hear Esther's a basket case. Ray Cunningham drove 'em down to Baptist and called back to give th' report. I know it's none of my business, but . . ."

"But what?"

"Like I say, it's none of my business, but I think you ought to come home."

Come home. Come home.

It went around in his head like a liturgical chant.

But how could he go home? As far as he could figure, there wasn't a soul who could take Jonathan in. Everybody was working, away for the summer, or too old to trot after a three-year-old. And there was Janette, who needed him, or so he believed, and Cynthia's parish tea coming up at Dove Cottage in three weeks, and the vestry meeting, and the Ella Bridgewater issue, and his responsibilities to the Whitecap Fair Planning Commission. . . .

"This is home!" he said aloud. But he couldn't force himself to believe it. Bloom where you're planted, he'd read on a plaque at Mona's. And wasn't he trying?

In truth, he was longing for Mitford. Longing to see his boy and encourage him and cheer him on and help him pack for school and tuck a few Kit Kats in his suitcase, and sit with Gene and Esther and pray about this terrible thing that had come against them. . . .

He wanted to lay his head on his pillow in the yellow house and walk Barnabas down Main Street and pop into the Grill and surprise everybody. He wanted to dash up to Fernbank and discover what new tricks Anna and Tony were doing with garlic, and visit Uncle Billy and Esther Cunningham, and see his rosebushes, some of which would be more fragrant and richly colored now than in June. . . .

Sleep-deprived and numb with exhaustion, he drove south to the Toe in heat that was ninety degrees and rising.

He didn't know what he expected, but Otis Bragg's office was definitely nothing to write home about. It was, in fact, smaller than his own office in the church basement, and covered with a film of dust from the gravel operation next door. An air conditioner hummed and rattled in the window.

"Well, now!" said Otis. He removed a large cigar butt from his mouth and spit into a wastebasket. "I'd say it's either money or politics that brings you runnin' to th' Toe."

"I didn't know money and politics were necessarily two separate entities."

Otis growled with laughter. "I like a priest with a sense of humor. Seems like the church is a callin' that turns a man sour if he don't watch out."

Father Tim sat down without being asked. "I have come about money."

A strange sadness crossed his parishioner's face. "That's what always sends clergy to my door."

He looked at the short, round man before him, and was oddly moved. He would come back again when he didn't have his hand out; he'd come back just to visit, to say hello.

Otis leaned forward and squinted at him. "What can I do for you, Father? You look like you wrassled alligators half the night."

"There are plenty of alligators out there, only one of which has put Janette Tolson in the hospital with severe depression."

"We heard that. We hear you've got her boy."

"She's having a rough go of it. And there's no insurance in the family. I thought if you'd be willing, I'll see that St. John's matches what you feel led to give."

Otis rolled the cigar butt between his fingers.

"How do you figure St. John's to be dolin' out money for a thing like this?"

"Janette's one of the body, we're her church family. I figure we can put on a fund-raiser, even do something special at the fair-I don't know, but we'll match what you give."

"What if I gave, say, five thousand bucks? Think you could match that?" Otis clamped the cigar in his mouth, narrowing his eyes.

"Well." He was startled. He had expected some largesse, but . . .

"I don't know if we can raise five thousand. I suppose I was hoping for . . . I don't know, maybe a thousand, tops."

"Father, you goin' to rise in this world, you got to think big."

His bishop, Stuart Cullen, firmly held that philosophy; why couldn't he?

"Thanks, Otis. God bless you! Five thousand is more than generous, it will go a long way in helping Janette's children recover their mother."

"I hope I don't ever run across th'-I'll watch my language, out of respect-th' son of a gun. I despised him from the minute I laid eyes on 'im." Otis spit furiously into the wastebasket. "Always struttin' around preenin' hisself, makin' th' choir sing those mid'eval hymns that go back a hundred years."

"Well, there's some good news, Otis. I think we've found our organist."

"Fine, fine, glad to hear it. You just keep up th' good work, you hear?" Otis punched a button on his phone. "Agnes, write th' preacher a check for five thousand, make it to St. John's." He pitched the unlit butt in the wastebasket and stood up. "Now you're in th' Toe, let me show you around my little operation."

Father Tim wanted to decline, but thought better of it. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to see the results of what it means to think big.

"Miz Tolson is not sleeping," said the nurse, clearly displeased.

"She just likes to keep her eyes closed." He wanted nothing more than to crash and sleep, himself.

At the door of the room, the nurse whispered, "I hope you'll speak to her about cooperating. She's been acting like she swallows her pills, but we just found out she spits them in her pajama drawer!"

"I'll do my best," he said.

He sat quietly for a time, saying only, "I'm here, Janette." She had her back to him, and didn't move or acknowledge his presence.

His head fell forward twice as he dozed off, then recovered himself. He was here for a purpose, and he'd better get to it. "Janette?"

No answer. Well, then, he would speak to her as if she were listening; he would speak to her heart, her spirit, and let the chips fall where they may. He'd learned a few things about depression, his own as well as that of others. He'd learned that even when the soul seems fallow, there's a vulnerable spot that can be seeded. Whether the seed flourishes was God's job. "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase," St. Paul had written to Corinth.

He took the Book of Psalms from the bag.

"I brought you something. You may not be able to read it for a while, but keep it near. It's King David's songs-they're about joy and praise, loss and gain, about his battles with the mortal enemy, and his battles with depression.

"Let me read to you. . . ."

As a child, the most comforting thing he knew was being read to. He figured it worked for everybody.

" 'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

" 'When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

" 'Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. ' "

He sat silent for a moment.

"David had many foes, Janette, the human kind as well as the foes that have come against you: anger, bitterness, fear, maybe even resentment toward God.

"When I read the psalms, I read them as personal prayers, naming the enemies that come against my own soul.

" 'For in the time of trouble,' " David says, " 'he will hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me: he shall set me upon a rock.'

"Let Him hide you, Janette, until you gain strength. He will set you upon a rock. Please know that."

He listened to her quiet, regular breathing. Maybe she really was asleep. He prayed silently for the seeds to fall on fertile ground.

"I've marked this psalm for you, the thirtieth. Hear this with your very soul, Janette. 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.' "

Without turning in the bed, she raised her hand slightly, and he stood, and held it.

He had gone deep into his pockets with the Wesley bondsman, but Dooley was at home with Harley, and that's what counted.

"People look at me different," said Dooley when they talked the following evening. "While I was baggin' their groceries, I could feel their eyes borin' a hole in me."

Dooley's vernacular always returned when he was angry, tired, or frustrated.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Even in a small town, word doesn't travel that fast. Just be yourself. You didn't do anything wrong and you have nothing to apologize for." Couldn't he say something wiser, more profound than that? "Keep smiling!" he said, sounding lame and feeling worse.

"Lace's mama just died," Dooley said.

"I'm sorry to hear it." Lace's mother, ill and failing for years, had never given loving support to her daughter, but had demanded it, instead, for herself. "Have you called Lace?"

"She hates my guts."

"Call her, send her a card, something. She's lost her mother and this will be a blow, no matter what the circumstances were. I'll do the same."

"I wish . . ." Dooley hesitated.

"Wish what?"

"I wish you an' Cynthia would come home. Well, I got to go."

Click.

"Man alive! What's this?"

"It's my new iced tea recipe," said his wife. "Do you like it?"

He raised his glass in a salute. "It's the best I ever tasted. I didn't know you could do this."

"I didn't, either. I never knew how to make good iced tea. So, with our parish party coming up, I asked the Lord to give me the perfect recipe."

"That's the spirit!"

"Do you honestly like it?"

"I never tasted better!" he exclaimed, stealing no thunder from his mother, whose tea represented the southern ideal-heavy on sugar, and blasted with the juice of fresh lemons.

"I woke up yesterday morning and was bursting with all these new ideas about tea. It was very exciting."

"Hmm," he said, gulping draughts of the cold, fruity liquid. "Tropical. Exotic." He swigged it down to the last drop. "Two thumbs up," he said. "But I'm not sure everybody would understand where the recipe came from."

She shrugged. "If He gave William Blake those drawings, why couldn't He give me a simple tea recipe?"

"Good point. What's in it?"

"I can't tell you."

"You can't tell me?"

"No, darling, I've decided to do something very southern-which is to possess at least one secret recipe." She looked pleased with herself.

"But you can tell me."