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think?”
    â€œWould you approve of that?”
    She was backing him into the kind of corner he was trying so hard to avoid. “If he’s what you want, of course I do. You wouldn’t pick him if he wasn’t a good man,” Cyrus said.
    â€œI would always try to choose good people as friends. Sam’s a decent man. He would like to be more than a friend to me.”
    Cyrus shifted. He breathed harder. Millie got up, made a perilously fast turn on his thighs, and plopped down again.
    Madge smiled. “She doesn’t appreciate tension, that girl. You’re tense.”
    â€œAnd you’re not?” he snapped back and wished he hadn’t. “Forget it. I don’t have any right to ask that. And I shouldn’t be interfering in your private life.”
    She rubbed her brow. “What’s happened to us?” she said. “Every time we’re together and we’re not working on something, we start digging at each other.”
    â€œNo,” he said and laughed. “We’re just having a bad day and there will be more of the same. Until they catch whoever killed Jim, there won’t be any peace for anyone in Toussaint.”
    â€œNo—he—I can’t believe it. He loved this church. He must have gone there for a few quiet minutes, same as he always does—did.”
    â€œYes.” Cyrus thought of walking up the path toward one of the side doors into the building with Jim at his side. “I went into the church with him yesterday. I’d left my clipboard there. The last thing he said was that he’d be at the meeting Bleu was holding.”
    Madge’s mouth trembled and she pressed her lips tight together.
    â€œI know, I know,” he said, trying to comfort her as best he could from where he was. Getting too close to Madge was dangerous. They both knew it.
    She covered her face with her hands. “Me, I don’t know how we carry on after something like this.” Hervoice came to him, muffled by her hands. “We do it over and over when the hurt comes. Each time we console each other and we think evil things won’t happen around us again. But they do. It’s no good thinking you’ve had your share of unhappiness. It feels like too much already, but more comes along soon enough. Why is that, Cyrus?”
    Her hands rested on the desk now, and her tragic, puzzled face turned toward him. She wasn’t asking a rhetorical question. Madge wanted him to explain why his God, and hers, let these things happen.
    â€œYou know it doesn’t work that way,” he said. “What happened to Jim is man’s making. Don’t try to find another reason.”
    When Madge’s tears came, they broke in sobs and she swung her chair around, away from him, so he couldn’t see her cry. He stood up, holding the dog under one arm.
    â€œForgive me,” she said. “Just let me calm down. I’ll be fine.”
    She would be fine. Would she? Would either of them ever be fine?
    Swiftly, he put the dog down and moved behind her chair. Awkwardly, he patted her back, then stood beside her and rubbed the nape of her neck.
    Madge got up. She turned to him, her eyes awash and shimmering. A pretty, dark-haired woman with a big heart. And he had failed her completely.
    She walked straight into him and rested her face and fists against his chest. He felt her tears dampen his black shirt.
    He felt as if she tried to burrow inside him, to hide and be kept safe.
    A useless man wasn’t a man at all.
    Putting his arms around her was what any friend woulddo for her, and he did. Sometimes he forgot how small she was. The top of her head didn’t reach his chin. With hands that betrayed him by their jerky efforts, he smoothed her back through her cotton blouse. She moved her arms at once and put them around him. She held on tightly.
    Cyrus bowed his head. With one hand, he stroked her hair. “Be quiet, Madge. Inside, be