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butts.”
    She rummaged in the cabinet above the sink. “I thought I had six packs left.”
    “You keep track now?”
    “With a thief like you in the house, ’course I do—hey! I had another whole carton! Brady!”
    “What? Don’t look at me! Like I’d steal a whole carton from you! That’d be a little obvious, wouldn’t it?”
    “It is obvious! Now where is it?”
    “I swear, Ma, I know nothing about it.”
    “You’re a liar.”
    “Okay, I’m a liar. I stole ’em and sold ’em to Petey and his friends.”
    “I’m sick of you being smart with me, Brady. I ought to—”
    “What’re you gonna do, smack me? I wish you would.”
    “Just tell me where my other carton is.”
    “I told you—”
    “Yeah, you even swore, like that’s gonna make me believe you. Now come on, those aren’t cheap.”
    “I didn’t take ’em, Ma. But I will tell you this: I forgot to lock up before we left this morning, so . . .”
    “So someone came in and stole my cigarettes and nothing else? And they didn’t take them all, just one carton? What do you take me for?”
    “You don’t want to know.”
    Oldenburg
    While Grace stayed with Patricia Pierce and settled into one of their guest rooms, Thomas rode with Paul to the Oldenburg Rural Chapel a couple of miles away.
    “I’m embarrassed by how it looks,” Paul said. “But with so few people, we just don’t have the funds to keep it up. Truth is, most of what is done I’ve had to pay for. The others haven’t been blessed like Patricia and me, but on the other hand, I can’t finance everything. Wouldn’t be right. And wouldn’t teach these people how to do for themselves.”
    A teenage boy was mowing the grass in front of a plain, redbrick building with a Norman Rockwell steeple. In the sanctuary, several women were dusting and vacuuming, and they looked embarrassed to have to greet the new pastor in their work clothes.
    Thomas was impressed by the sanctuary; he’d never seen anything like it. Old burgundy drapes and a wood-stained cross provided the only contrast to white pews, white walls, white doors, white trim, white ceiling, white platform furniture—including the pulpit—even white light fixtures.
    “It’s really quite beautiful,” Thomas said. “I can’t wait till Grace sees it. Clearly someone designed it this way on purpose.”
    Paul grimaced and nodded toward the pastor’s study, and Thomas followed him in. “You can camp out here any time you want, even if you’re planning messages for the other churches.”
    Thomas assumed he would preach the same sermon several times each week but didn’t feel obligated to explain that.
    Paul pointed to a side chair and then sat behind the desk himself. “You want the truth about that sanctuary? That was my doing.”
    “You’re an interior decorator too? Well, it sure is—”
    Paul held up a hand. “Fact is, redoing that space was the cause of our second-to-last split. There was so much bickering over colors and schemes that I just put my foot down, said I wasn’t going to give another dime if people couldn’t grow up. We picked the color of the drapes out of an offering plate, had a contest—won by the women’s missionary society—to see who got to pick the color of the cross, and made the rest of it white.”
    “You don’t say. Who would have guessed it would have turned out so—”
    “Well, I like it too, but it dredges up bad memories. We lost more’n a hundred people that time. Tell you the truth, most of them said it wasn’t how the sanctuary turned out that bothered them. It was how much power they thought I had.”
    Thomas nodded. “That is often an issue with people.”
    “Lost the pastor, too, though I was in favor of that. The new guy wasn’t much better and didn’t last long, and we’ve been without ever since. You’re going to be a breath of fresh air.”
    “I’ll trust the Lord to help me do my best.”
    “You do that, and I’ll be behind you a thousand percent.