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Daddy knew that God's beloved children wouldn't go looking for salvation in freezing cold water.
    So by the middle of June, Daddy's sermons were running a good fifteen minutes longer than normal, and the choir's singing of the final hymn seemed never ending. Daddy wouldn't give the poor choir a rest until he was convinced he had collected as many recruits for the Almighty as possible, which can be a tedious task in a town where 99 percent of the population has already committed itself to the Lord at least twice. He would stand in front of the pulpit, rocking back and forth as the choir sang softly behind him, and remind his flock that the time had come for them to reexamine their lives because tomorrow could be too late.
    These were particularly trying times for Brother Fulmer and his aching stomach. He knew the meatiest pork chops and the freshest fried tomatoes at Morrison's Cafeteria over in LaFayette were going to be gone by the time he got there. I always considered him to be one of the most faithful men in town because not once did he sneak out the back during the closing hymn just so he could get to the cafeteria ahead of the Presbyterians, something the Bostleman brothers did with great regularity, claiming they needed to get their aunt some food before her blood sugar level dropped again.
    Sometime after my ninth birthday, Daddy started asking me if I was ready to accept Jesus into my life as my Lord and Savior. I think I would have preferred he'd taken me shopping for my first bra than talked about something as personal as my salvation. “Not yet, Daddy,” I'd say, avoiding his eyes for fear that I was disappointing him.
    “Are you sure, Catherine Grace?” he'd say. “I mean, you'll know when it's time. You'll feel it in your heart. Are you sure you haven't felt anything in your heart? A stirring of any kind?”
    I think being the preacher and all, he was eager for me to make my walk with the Lord a public one. Truth be told, I wasn't sure I was ever going to be ready for that journey. Everybody else who walked down the red-carpeted aisle at Cedar Grove Baptist Church and into my daddy's open arms was crying and shaking, acting like they were possessed or something. I didn't feel anything like that, and I wasn't so sure I wanted to. I mean, I hadn't really known Jesus to go out of his way to do anything special for Catherine Grace Cline.
    But for a preacher's daughter, I guess this transformation was as inevitable as all the other changes a young girl must endure, except this one happened without any advance warning—no pimples, no tender breast buds, nothing. Martha Ann and I were minding our own business, sitting on the back pew of the church so Daddy couldn't see Martha Ann reading the hymnal and me drawing on the backs of the offering envelopes. My friend Lolly Dempsey slipped in next to us halfway through the sermon, and we started playing a three-way game of hangman.
    Lolly's mama and daddy were the only two people I knew who never came to church, not even on Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday. Lolly's daddy would drop her off right in front of the church, barely stopping his Chevy truck long enough for Lolly to jump out the door. I imagine he thought if he hesitated for more than a second, Daddy might try to save his soul, too. He was probably right.
    None of us were paying much attention to what Daddy was saying except when he pounded on the top of the pulpit for added emphasis. Then we'd look up as if to say, “Amen to that.”
    Mrs. Roberta Huckstep was perched on the piano bench, preening like a beauty contestant as she waited for Daddy's cue to start playing. Betty Gilbert, the regular church pianist, had gone to Macon for three weeks to visit her sister, and Mrs. Huckstep was reveling in her new, albeit temporary, position. She missed as many notes as she hit but since she's completely deaf in her left ear, she kept smiling, thinking she sounded like some kind of famous concert pianist.
    When Brother