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heart overflowed with gratitude for my Creator — for how he had begun, during my college days, to change my heart, and for how he had shone ever-brighter beams of light into my heart’s darkest recesses, for how the lantern he had lit nearly a decade before still shone. One of the evidences of that illumination became clearer to me that evening — just like the stars in the sky. I found my heart aching for a man I had only just met — a man likely to go on trial for his life because he had stolen the life of another man and polluted, if not stripped away, the future of that man’s wife.
    I bowed my head and prayed for the handyman — that even in his dark, dank jail cell his heart might someday be freed, that even in his incarceration he might be unshackled, and that in his darkness a light might begin to dawn.

chapter four
    SATAN AND BACON
    I t was Saturday morning and I had risen early, fixed myself a cup of coffee, and settled into my favorite armchair to read the Bible. I called the old overstuffed chair my “quiet time chair” — while Barb quite heartlessly referred to it as a “hunk of junk.” Nevertheless, the longer I practiced as a family doctor, the more I felt the need for the advice and guidance of the Great Physician. My morning time with him had become a necessity for me — a source of daily comfort and guidance.
    â€œDaddy?” said a little voice coming from the kitchen.
    I heard the shuffling of Kate’s feet as she walked across the kitchen floor.
    â€œIn the living room, sweetheart,” I called out to her.
    As she walked in, I felt myself smiling like a Cheshire cat. After all, my girl was walking — nearly normally! And without any of the clunky braces she had worn for several years. Her surgery at Duke Medical Center, the subsequent weeks in a full leg cast, and the months of laborious physical therapy were paying off handsomely.
    When Kate was first diagnosed with cerebral palsy at six months of age, the pediatric neurologist predicted she would never walk or talk. Now she could do both — and quite well. She ran over to me, and I scooped her onto my lap.
    â€œWhat’s on your mind, precious?” I inquired.
    â€œBreakfast!” she exclaimed.
    I smiled. “How about a breakfast date? Just you and me!”
    Kate squealed. “Super Swain’s?”
    â€œYou bet. Let’s go!”
    After dressing quickly and quietly, we walked toward our yellow Toyota while Barb and Scott slumbered. We headed out the driveway and down the backside of Hospital Hill toward Everett Street — one of the two main thoroughfares in Bryson City.
    Our town was proud of its two traffic lights, two elevators — one in the Federal Building and the other in the hospital — two bridges across the Tuckaseigee River, and, most recently, our first two national chain fast-food establishments — a Pizza Hut and a Hardees hamburger joint. But I, for one, was always more comfortable supporting our local restaurants. Besides the three most famous ones in town — the Fryemont Inn, the Hemlock Inn, and the FreyRandolph House — our family enjoyed Sneed’s Restaurant, Na-ber’s Drive-In, Family Restaurant, and J. J.’s Ice Cream Shoppe. But more times than not, when we weren’t at home for breakfast or lunch, we’d be at the grill run by Becky Mattox at Super Swain Drugs.
    When we walked into the grill that morning, Becky was the first to see Kate. She shrieked to her husband, who was the pharmacist, “Oh, my goodness! Look who’s walkin’ into our store, John!” Suddenly I realized this was the first time I had brought Kate to the store since her surgery.
    Both Becky and “Doc” John, the longtime proprietors of the drugstore and grill, quickly walked out from behind the counter to proudly watch and comment on Kate’s new skills. It was Kate’s turn to smile from ear to ear as