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told me.
    She’s nothing like May , a tree chimed in. I really don’t know what you’re thinking .
    â€œ Shh ,” I whispered. “I know she’s not May. And I never said she was coming with me.”
    The sign hanging over Pastor Frank’s porch had been flipped from a blue OPEN to a red GO HOME . Beer bottles littered the wooden floor near several rocking chairs at the entrance, looking empty and lonesome. I picked up a few bottles and turned them upright. Thank you, Ben , one said. Thank you for noticing us .
    Shifting the backpack on my shoulders, I looked at the dark windows. “You didn’t go here much in the last year,” I said to Daddy.
    â€œYeah. The doctors didn’t think it was good for me, I guess. Told me to cut back.”
    Maybe you should’ve cut back on other stuff, too , I wanted tosay, but didn’t. I also wanted to point out that it was strange how Daddy had died from smoking too much, and now he was a pile of ashes. I must’ve had that thought a million times over the last month.
    I didn’t know my daddy’s cancer had come back so bad. On the day he died, he told me to stay home from the hospital, saying, “See you in a little bit,” on his way out the door. He told me it was nothing at all, just a little tiny scrape of a tumor. Then he’d said something else, probably quoted a golfer, and I didn’t even listen because I’d been sick of golf being better company than me.
    He knew , a still-fallen bottle told me in an accusing voice. He knew he was gonna die and you didn’t see it . It was in his last words to you and you shut your ears.
    Yep, the porch said. Same way he shuts his ears when people talk about May at school.
    I looked away from them both. “May Talbot told me that her daddy never goes drinking here.”
    â€œColoreds aren’t overly welcome at Pastor Frank’s. I’m sure they’ve got their own places for drinking and dancing.”
    I crept past the porch and around the side of the cabin. “Could he have come if you’d brought him with you?”
    â€œI wouldn’t. I have a heckuva lot of respect for Mr. Talbot, especially carrying on after his place got burned down. And I think that folks who get a stink eye about me buying my pigs from Mr. Talbot should be boiled in their own stupidity.But buying a man a beer won’t change anything. When it comes to that kind of thing, Putters keep their heads down. Can’t hit a solid golf drive off life’s tee without keeping your eye on the ball.”
    Shifting gravel and a low scratching noise came from around the cabin’s corner, and I slammed myself against a wall. A tail flicked into sight, and I relaxed. Barn cat, nothing more. Probably smelled the meat in my backpack. A window clicked open in the bedroom over the bar, and a grizzled and grumpy Frank stuck his naked torso into the evening air. “Someone there?” I heard another click. It was the safety being released on a loaded shotgun.
    I held my breath.
    â€œWe’re closed, goshdarnit! Get outta here!” Frank slammed the window shut.
    A thought occurred to me. “Hey, Daddy?” I whispered. “Even if he quit being a pastor, stealing Frank’s money can’t be too good for getting you into heaven, can it?” And it wouldn’t be too good for me either, if I got caught.
    Daddy huffed and seemed to consider the situation, and I could picture one finger going to his lip. That was his Considering look. “It’s not stealing,” he said finally. “When Frank opened his bar and caught hell from the town for leaving the church, I let him eat free whenever he came to the café. Felt sorry for him at first, and then when I said he’d need to start paying, he always said he’d pay his tabwith me when everyone else settled their tabs with him.
    â€œThat’s at least five sandwiches a week for going on ten