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and let the little ones devour it. Ray leaned in, and Sondra smiled seeing him staring, frozen.
    Yet her peace wasn’t as prevalent two hours later as she sat with the other church ladies gathered in her den. Twenty women packed around like sardines. Twenty women she was supposed to be leading, guiding with spiritual truth. Did she dare tell them she hadn’t even read the book they were supposed to be discussing? Thankfully Mattie Mae had.
    “Mattie Mae, tell us what you got out of the book,” Sondra had said. One question and she knew she could sit back for ten minutes and just let Mattie Mae go.
    But it wasn’t that easy to relax. Mostly because she could hear the kids in the other room. She’d begged Zoe to babysit, and her daughter had finally agreed . . . after the promise of a twenty-dollar bill and a trip to the mall.
    A child’s scream erupted and Sondra was sure it was Beck’s. She looked back over her shoulder, looking at Allyson and noticed she hadn’t even flinched at the sound. Instead Allyson stared straight ahead listening to Mattie Mae talk as if it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Sondra wondered if Allyson was sleeping with her eyes open. Or stress paralyzed. She’d heard that was a thing.
    From the corner of her eye she saw Zoe waving her arms, trying to get her attention.
    She glanced over. Zoe’s long hair hung down and a small toddler was wrapped around her leg, tugging, pulling, trying to make her tumble. A half-dozen other kids played in the den, thankfully under some semblance of control . . . for the moment. A text message popped up on the cell phone in Sondra’s hand, lighting the screen, and she glanced down.
    Zoe / 10:51 AM
    MOM, HOW MUCH LONGER!!??!!
    Sondra typed out a response, hoping no one noticed. She offered Mattie Mae a smile and nodded.
    Sondra / 10:51 AM
    OYSTER BOON!
    Then she glanced over at Zoe. Zoe looked at her phone. What? She mouthed.
    Sondra pressed her lips together, pushed her finger into the typepad and typed out another quick message and pressed SEND.
    Sondra / 10:51 AM LKDBVAHIOUBNVWJOSD V
    She glared at her daughter, hoping Zoe would pay attention to her text message and stay patient. Sondra glanced around the room. At least twenty women from church filled the space. Young, old, married, single. They were a faithful group. They sat on couches, her dining room chairs, and even extra chairs that Ray had brought over from the church. Reading together was a benefit, but gathering together—sharing each other’s lives—was most important. Single lambs tended to stray. She knew that from experience.
    The book club was one event that all the women of her church looked forward to, and she didn’t want to disappoint them.
    Couldn’t disappoint them.
    ***
    Allyson knew Mattie Mae Lloyd was talking, but the words only partly filtered in. For this one moment in the day she was sitting in a chair without kids climbing on her, tugging at her, or trying to brush her hair. She’d dressed and had put on makeup. The kids always knew they were going somewhere when she put on makeup. And for these thirty minutes she’d take what she could get. Peace. Sort-of quiet, if one could ignore Beck screaming in the other room. And hopefully a bit of wisdom too.
    “Ya’ll, it changed me,” Mattie Mae was saying. “I mean, it is profound. I mean, I only read the introduction, but it is revolutionary in my life. Revolutionary.”
    Allyson smiled at Mattie Mae, and tried to think of the last time she’d actually read a book. Reading books was something she aspired to do, but she had three kids, so yeah she didn’t read books. That was another benefit of being in a book club. It made her feel as if she did.
    “I can feel it. Every time I go to the mall there is a parking space right out in the front,” Mattie Mae drawled. “There’s never a parking space right there in the front. But there is ya’ll, every time. I’m not talking about the old one. I don’t shop