"What's that? Bum luck?"

"Well, yes, in a way. May I speak with Uncle Billy?"

She turned from the phone and squawked, "Bill! Bill Watson! It's our old preacher!"

He thought she might have put it another way.

There was a long silence.

"I'm sorry, son."

Dooley sighed. "I know. It's OK. Really."

"I'm going to try and have the court date set during the time I'm home for the wedding. You'll be home then, too, so I believe everything's going to work out just fine."

"Great," said Dooley, sounding relieved.

"Have fun these last days. How are Poo and Jessie?"

"Really good!"

He heard the sudden tenderness in the boy's voice.

"And your mother?"

"She's really good, too, she got a raise at Hope House."

"Glad news! You're always in our prayers, buddy. God cares about your needs."

"OK, 'bye." said Dooley. "Wait. That woman upstairs ..."

"What about her?"

"She plays the dern piano mighty loud. Me'n Harley are thinkin' about knockin' on th' ceiling with a broom handle."

And he'd been worried about Dooley's music aggravating his tenant. "I wouldn't do that. Hang in there."

"I got Lace a card."

"Great! I did, too."

"It was hard as heck to pick out, there are millions of cards."

"True. What did it say?"

"Nothin.' It was blank."

"Aha."

"I just wrote in it, 'I'm sorry.' "

"Couldn't be better."

"I signed my whole name, in case she knows anybody else named Dooley."

"Probably not."

"Well, I got to go, Avis wants me to clean out th' butcher case. Gross. I told him I'll pick up anything but liver, he has to do that. I mean, you can feel liver all the way through those weird gloves we have to wear."

"Please!" he said, bilious at the thought.

It wrenched his heart to say goodbye. But what were hearts for, in the end? A little wrenching now and then was far, far better than no wrenching at all.

He was trying to forgive Bill Harvey. In the scheme of things, the bishop's attitude was hardly worth his concern. Why couldn't he blow by it, forgive and forget? Of no small concern, however, was the hardness that would come in if he didn't forgive this slight. He was to drag it into the light and expose it before God and get it over with.

He dropped to his knees in the study and prayed silently. The early morning breeze pushed through open windows and puffed the curtains into the room.

There was a tap on his shoulder.

"What are you doin'?" asked Jonathan, standing next to him in rumpled blue pajamas.

He rose from his knees and picked the boy up. They thumped into the chair, Jonathan in his lap. "I was praying."

"Why?" Jonathan snuggled against him.

"That I might find God's grace to forgive someone."

"Why?"

"Because if I don't forgive this person, it will be unhealthy for me, and God won't think much of it, either."

He loved the chunky, vibrant feel of the boy on his lap, the warm, solid weight against his chest. Exactly the way God wants us to come to Him, he thought, his spirits suddenly brightening.

"I don't want p'sketti no more. No p'sketti."

"Good! Hallelujah! What do you want?"

Jonathan pondered this, then looked up at him. "I don't know."

"Well, if you don't, who does?"

Jonathan poked him in the chest with a chubby finger. "You find somethin'."

"Please."

"Please."

"Consider it done."

He and Cynthia had been transplanted, that was all. He knew from years of digging around in the dirt and moving perennials from one corner of the yard to another what transplanting was about. First came the wilt, then the gradual settling in, then the growth spurt. That simple. What had Gertrude Jekyll said to the gardener squeamish about moving a plant or bush? "Hoick it!"

God had hoicked him and he'd better get over the wilt and get busy putting down roots.

He went out to the porch, whistling. Glorious day-his fair wife sitting contentedly in a rocker, Jonathan rigged with a straw hat and playing in the garden with his dog, and an afternoon romp in the ocean on the family agenda.

He sat in one of the white rockers and kicked off his loafers. "Ahhhh!" he sighed.

"Timothy, you have that wilderness look again."

"What wilderness look?" he asked, as if he didn't know.

"That John the Baptist look."

He had been in denial about it for some time, now, until his hair had fanned out over his clerical collar like the tail of a turkey gobbler. He just didn't seem to have what it took to break in a new barber.

"I hear there's a little shop next to the post office, Linda's or Libbie's or Lola's . . . something like that."

"Aha." No, indeed. He'd cut it himself with an oyster knife before he'd put his head in the hands of another Fancy Skinner.

"I'll hold out for a barber, thank you," he said, feeling imperious.

He checked the answering machine when they came in from the grocery store.

"Father? It's me, Puny."

Puny didn't sound like herself.

"I don't know how to tell you this."

This was definitely his least favorite way for a phone call to begin.

"I just got to your house and realized I'd left th' door unlocked for four days!"

"Speak to Ba!" one of the twins pleaded.

"How in th' world I did a dumb thing like that, I don't know, I'm jis' so sorry. But I've looked and looked, and nothin' seems missin', so I think it's all right, but I know how you count on me to take care of things, and I jis' hate lettin' you down on anything."

"It's OK!" he said aloud to the machine. He loved that girl like his own flesh. "Don't worry about it!"

"I know you sometimes don't lock your doors, but I always do because I'm responsible for things here, and I jis' hope that . . . anyway, we're real sorry you aren't comin', we all looked forward to it a lot, and I hope you'll not think hard of me for leavin' your door unlocked."

"Speak to Ba, speak to Ba!"

"Oh, for Pete's sake, Sissy, you'll wake up Sassy, here!"

"Ba! Come home, we got puppies. Come home, Ba!"

"Say 'bye, now. Tell 'im you love 'im."

"Love you, Ba."

"Tell 'im you love Miss Cynthia."

"Love Miss Cynthy."

"That was Sissy. Sassy's still asleep," said his industrious house help. "We've got an awful mess of puppies in th' garage, four little speckled things, I don't know what they are, oh, mercy, I'm prob'ly usin' up all your tape, now here's th' good news! Joe Joe's been promoted to lieutenant! That's right under th' chief. How d'you like that?"

He liked it very much indeed.

"We thought you was goin' home," said Roanoke.

"Change of plans. Where's Ernie this morning?"

"Him an' Roger's gone fishin'."

"Captain Willie?"

"Nope. Over to th' Sound."

"You're minding the store?"

"You got it," said Roanoke. Father Tim thought he'd never seen so many wrinkles in one face. Roanoke Clark, it might be said, looked like he'd been hung out to dry and left on the line.

He didn't exactly relish the idea of spending one-on-one time with a man who didn't like preachers. Then again, it was only six-thirty in the morning, and not a darned thing to do at the church office, since he'd already done it all for the trip to Mitford.

What the heck. He thumped down at a table, unwrapped his egg biscuit, and took the lid off his coffee.

"So . . . how's business?"

"We had a big run this mornin', it slacked off just before you come in."

He ate his biscuit while Roanoke read the paper and smoked.

"What about a good barber on the island? Know anybody?"

"Don't have an official barber on th' island. Have t' go across."

"Seems a waste of time to be running back and forth to the mainland just to get your hair trimmed."

Roanoke appeared to be talking to the newspaper he was holding in front of him. "Lola up by th' post office, she'll give you a trim. You won't need t' go back 'til Christmas."

"Who's Lola?"

"Lola sells fish san'wiches, cuts hair, you name it."

He shivered. "Is that where you get your hair cut?"

"Once every two months, whether I need it or not."