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down for playtime. Everyone has to do it. But young families aren’t staying like they used to,” Ted said. “And, well, we’re traditional.”
    Grace’s first impression of First Covenant was underscored by the scent of age. Dust motes glittered through shafts of light beaming through the high, murky-colored windows. The books in the pew were cracked with age and the few well-used pages of the common liturgy dog-eared and brown. The sanctuary felt clammy and neglected. The organ loft creaked as though housing the ghosts of a long-absent choir.
    Crashing organ music wheezed from on high, making Grace jump. She rubbed goose bumps while Eddy hung on her arm like he often did with adults until a sharp rebuke from Randy stiffened his little spine. He sat stick straight against the hard back of the pew and stared straight ahead.
    The first five rows of old wooden and handsomely carved pews were empty. That must have been the expensive rent district back when pew fees were charged. She hid a smile, set the hymnal on her lap, and reached across Eddy to pick up a yellowed pamphlet from the holder on the back of the pew in front of her and paged through it.
    The organ swelled to a cranky volume and then cut off dramatically as the elderly minister shuffled to the altar from a side room to begin the service.
    After her first worship experience in the staid Covenant Church, Grace could never explain to the Marshalls that she missed the fiery preaching of her hometown church, the thwack of the Bible on the simple wooden lectern that aroused anyone who dared to doze during the second hour of the service. Joyous faith was life in Woodside. It did not appear to be so in East Bay.
    She laughed drily, inwardly. She might have tried to run away from life, from God, but she’d clearly not been thinking straight at the funeral. God was here, all right. He was sleeping in the front row. Would any other church be different? Grace shifted on her feet while she looked around and listened to the latest change in medication or planting garden story or pet news.
    At least they didn’t seem to need to shake hands during the service and she could avoid the few who wanted to afterward by clasping her Bible with both hands and nodding a lot.
    She returned in the evening to endure the second service with its accompanying curious looks, the dried hymns and monotone sermons, and the repetitive litanies, her due penance for her behavior back in Woodside…with grace.
     

 
Chapter Five
     
    “You can not miss picking blueberries for any thing,” Shelby Brouwer insisted. “We’ll be lucky to find some late raspberries this year, it’s been so dry. Asparagus, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, blueberries, peaches, then pears and apples.” She counted on her fingers, gleeful. “We have a freezer in the basement. We missed cherries and the early raspberry season already. Please, Grace, you have to.” Food was a constant topic since her appetite returned with a vengeance after the initial morning sickness and discomfort of her pregnancy.
    Her expression changed to a frown, her moods jumping up and down lately. “I hated it that Davy wouldn’t let me out to the Cherry Festival.”
    “What’s that?” Grace asked, intrigued. Her life in Tennessee had all been rounds, clinic, social visits, family. She’d never been interested in more than the flowers in her yard.
    “After the Fourth is the National Cherry Festival. In Traverse City. The Cherry Capital of the World, you know.”
    Grace laughed. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t. But it sounds like fun.”
    “Nobody told you about it, did they?”
    “Everyone has other things to think about. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. I don’t expect folks around here to coddle me, you know. I have to learn my own way around.”
    “They’re practically keeping you prisoner.”
    “It’s not like that. You of all people should know that Ted needs extra help right now. Next year, Shelby. It’s an