By the Light of a Thousand Stars

By Jamie Langston Turner

Beyond the Sorrow,
Belief Awaited....

Catherine had vowed long ago to be the kind of mother she'd never known herself, but somewhere along the way things became muddled. One by one her three children rebelled, leaving her outwardly perfect family in disarray. As if their household isn't disrupted enough, Catherine's strange sister-in-law moves in--uninvited.

Into the chaos steps a new neighbor, as different from Catherine as any woman could be. Catherine is both appalled and fascinated by the unique way Barb's family interprets life's trials, and she is inexplicably drawn to them. When tragedy strikes, she finds herself longing to discover the secret to their joyful, contented lives.

A Christy Award Finalist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781441204387

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July 29

DOTTIE

1

A Few Short Years

Lying on her daughter’s bed, Dottie Puckett heard sounds as if they were magnified a hundred times that day. She heard the usual things you’d expect to hear—an airplane, distant traffic, the air conditioning turning on and off. And she heard other things, too—a high-pitched motorized whine from somewhere nearby, the chatter of a squirrel outside the window, a tree branch brushing against the gutter, the coursing sound of water through a pipe, her own breathing.

Sounds told you a lot. Today they told her that people and things were going about their normal business in spite of what had happened here at this house only three weeks ago. Though everybody thought she was mild-mannered and good-natured, Dottie knew that what she felt right now was closer to anger than anything else. Not that she was angry at the planes and cars and water pipes, for goodness’ sake, but why is it, she thought, that I have to go on breathing in and out when Bonita is lying in a box a mile down the road?

A mile down the road. They had made a short day’s walk out of it one time, she and Bonita. It couldn’t have been more than three or four years ago. Bonita would have been twelve or thirteen at the time. Dottie had packed a lunch for them of cold chicken left over from supper the night before and pimento cheese sandwiches, and the two of them had walked down one Saturday in early spring to pay a surprise visit to Birdie Freeman, whose house stood right next to Shepherd’s Valley Cemetery along Highway 11. They could have driven, of course, but the whole point of it was to take a springtime walk. They meandered a bit on the way, detouring into a wooded area to look for birds building their nests, a subject that had fascinated Bonita at the time, and stopping to peer into the windows of an old abandoned farmhouse next to an empty field, trying to imagine things about the people who had lived there. Bonita had picked a bouquet of wild hawthorn and forsythia growing at the side of the house to take to Birdie.

If Birdie hadn’t been home, they already had it planned that they would take a turn through the cemetery, eat their lunch by the willow trees, and start back home. But she was home, hanging out towels and sheets on her clothesline. They heard her humming as they approached. Her small hands were brisk and efficient with the large white sheets. Dottie had motioned to Bonita, putting her finger to her lips, and they had stood watching Birdie a full minute or two before she knew they were there.

Even though she didn’t want to think about it now, Dottie remembered how joyfully Birdie had greeted them, scolding them for bringing their own lunch, then pulling them into her house to see the new braided rug she and her husband, Mickey, had made by hand from old fabric scraps. Birdie had fixed herself a sandwich and had eaten lunch with Dottie and Bonita by the willow trees behind the cemetery. And though Dottie especially didn’t want to think about this part, the three of them had walked through the cemetery before it was all over. Bonita had read the names and epitaphs aloud, and Birdie had loved the one that read A Saint on Earth as He Is in Heaven.

If someone had told the three of them that spring Saturday that within a few short years two of them would be buried right there in that very cemetery, they wouldn’t have believed it. It was far too unlikely. But the unlikelihood of that paled in comparison to the way Birdie and Bonita had both died.

Dottie took hold of the bedspread beneath her and crumpled a handful of chenille in each fist. She breathed in deeply and held it while she slowly counted to ten. Don’t say the word died, she told herself. Don’t even think. Just listen. Stop remembering things. She decided to close her eyes so she wouldn’t be distracted by the things she saw in Bonita’s bedroom, not that there was much left of Bonita in the room. Only her furniture, really, and the curtains they had made together last summer when they were redecorating her bedroom for her sixteenth birthday. Right before she squeezed her eyes shut, Dottie saw in a blinding flash the pink ruffled valance on the window facing the front of the house. Don’t think about it, she thought. Don’t think about how Bonita tore that ruffle out and resewed it three times to get it even. Just listen.

She couldn’t have said how long she lay there with her eyes closed. She might have fallen asleep, for when she opened her eyes again sometime later, the angle of sunlight coming in through the windows seemed different. She glanced around for a clock but knew there wasn’t one in here. But as she had no idea what time it had been when she had slipped off her shoes to lie down on Bonita’s bed, a clock wouldn’t have told her how much time had passed. The words echoed inside her head. Time passing time passing time passing time . . . The passing of time, which had once seemed so important in marking off small accomplishments and segments of life, now seemed utterly meaningless. Time passed, and what it took with it couldn’t be retrieved.

Think of Bible verses, Dottie told herself. Though she knew reams of Scripture by heart, the one that sprang first to her mind was the old standby. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. A picture of the three of them eating lunch under willow trees behind the cemetery came into her mind. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Again she clutched at the bedspread. She felt no restoration of soul, couldn’t see any righteousness for all the brambles that had overgrown her path. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. She heard herself cry out and immediately clapped her hand over her mouth. All her life she had recited these verses, yet now, when it counted most, the truth seemed to elude her. She felt the cold, hard presence of evil in the shadow of Bonita’s death, and instead of comfort, she felt that her soul had been beaten with a rod and staff. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. . . .

She couldn’t continue. She had to stop this. A sudden, desperate dread of what was to come seized her. Where was her faith? Was this how it was going to be for the rest of her life? Lay hold of Scripture, she told herself, and as she cast about frantically for another passage, the words of Job’s wife suddenly shouted in her mind: Curse God, and die. But just as swiftly Job’s reply offered itself: What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? He had told his wife she was speaking as a foolish woman. And that’s just what you’re doing, Dottie told herself. You’re speaking as a foolish woman. Again she thought of Job’s answer: Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?

Oh, but I would gladly give up a thousand good things I’ve received from God’s hand, thought Dottie, if only I could have Bonita back. Again the smothering thought came to her that had first come to her at Bonita’s funeral: For the rest of my days on earth, I won’t see Bonita. I won’t hear her voice or touch her ever again for as long as I live. She bit her lower lip until she felt pain. They had told her that Bonita hadn’t felt any pain, that in all probability she had died instantly.

Things had seemed so simple before. Had anybody asked her how to suffer great loss, she would have quoted verse after verse, stringing them together like shiny beads. God is good, she would have assured the person, his merciful goodness endures to all generations, all things work together for good, and the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Good, good, good, good—a pretty little bracelet to wear. Here. Put it on and finger the beads whenever you feel a little uneasy, like good luck charms, and soon all the bad feelings will go away for good.

She felt ashamed of herself, a deep, searing sense of guilty failure and betrayal. How could she live her whole life believing the Bible as the bedrock of truth and then turn so suddenly, disgracefully doubtful? She remembered something her pastor had once said. Untested faith is easy. So this is the hard kind, she thought. Tested faith. She knew she wasn’t scoring very high on the test so far.

She thought again of Job’s reprimand to his wife and remembered the end of the verse: In all this did not Job sin with his lips. The words repeated themselves, and even though it wasn’t much, she saw the dimmest, slimmest shape of something to grasp. She felt the faintest stirring, as of a rope cast into the floodwaters, and she reached for it, though she couldn’t see its source. She knew, of course, that strictly speaking her thoughts had already disqualified her from living up to Job’s example. But couldn’t she with God’s help remain true and faithful in her spoken words? She wanted it to be said, In all this did not Dottie Puckett sin with her lips. That wasn’t being irreverent, was it?

She thought of the psalm that kept repeating the same phrase over and over. She couldn’t remember which psalm it was nor the exact phrase, but she was forming a plan. She would make her days like that psalm, affirming God’s goodness over and over. She would do or say something as part of everyday life, then repeat the phrase, do something else, say something else, then repeat the phrase. Even while she was doing things, she would repeat the phrase. Maybe it would keep away those other thoughts. His mercy endureth forever—that was the phrase she would use. All day long she would say the words and keep the thought before her. Hang on to it, she told herself now. Don’t let go. Hold it fast.

Suddenly she heard a door open and her husband’s voice. Dottie? There was a pause and then footsteps coming through the kitchen. Dottie, sugar? Dottie didn’t answer but lay very still. She hadn’t meant for Sid to find her lying on Bonita’s bed. He had taken great care to keep her out of Bonita’s bedroom, locking the door and putting the pathetic little stick of a key in the back of his top drawer in a black velvet box with the cuff links he never wore. It hadn’t taken Dottie long to find it once she had set her mind to it. She knew Sid only wanted to protect her, and she didn’t want him to know she’d gone looking through his things and sneaked in here. She should have talked with him about it first. He would have listened to her. He always did. Unlike what she heard about many husbands, Sid was a good listener. He would have unlocked the door for her if she had only asked.

He went through the whole house calling for her. She heard him pick up the phone in the kitchen and call down to the Texaco station. It was only a few hundred yards from the house. He could have opened the side door and yelled just as quick. Hey, Max, she heard him say over the telephone, did you hear your mama mention going somewhere today? I can’t find her here in the house anywhere. A few moments of silence, then, Well, no, I don’t expect she’s out there, but I’ll take a look. I’ll be back over directly. You okay for a couple more minutes? It never had worried Dottie before when Sid left Max at the station by himself, but now she found herself imagining all kinds of things that could happen. Max was a big boy for his age, but he was still only eleven.

She waited tensely for the sound of the back door. As soon as Sid went outside, she was going to get up and go into the bathroom. She’d just have to make Sid think he had overlooked her earlier. Or better yet, she could go out on the front porch. Of course, he would wonder why he hadn’t seen her there when he had walked over from the station, but she could think of something without telling an outright fib.

But instead of hearing the back door open, she heard Sid’s steps return to the hall. Dottie? he said again. He paused as if ready to turn back, but then with a sinking heart Dottie heard him coming down the hall toward Bonita’s bedroom. She looked at the doorknob and begged silently, Don’t turn, please don’t turn. If she had only thought to lock the bedroom door again from the inside—that was a careless oversight. Of course, she hadn’t expected to stay in here so long. She had thought she’d come in for just ten minutes or so and be out well before Sid came home for his afternoon Coca-Cola, which she knew was actually just an excuse for him to check on her.

Sid’s footsteps stopped outside Bonita’s bedroom, and Dottie saw the knob turn slowly. She knew exactly what expression would be on Sid’s face as he swung the door open and saw her lying on the bed. She turned her head to the window so she wouldn’t have to see his face. His mercy endureth forever, she said to herself. After all, she wasn’t doing anything wrong, really. Why should her heart be beating so hard? She heard him make a noise deep back in his throat.

Oh, Dottie, sugar, he said in a wounded voice. He entered the room slowly, his rubber-soled work boots making little squeaks against the hardwood floor with each step. He reached the edge of the bed. What are you doing in here, sugar?

He sat down on the bed and laid his hand over hers. She knew if she pulled his hand to her face, she’d smell axle grease, motor oil, gasoline.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment as he patted the back of her hand gently. Then he repeated the question. How come you’re in here?

I’m thinking, Dottie said. His mercy endureth forever. I had to face coming in here sometime, Sid. We couldn’t keep the door locked forever. She still wasn’t looking at him. She knew it would make him feel bad, but she couldn’t resist adding, "I don’t know why you had to go and strip her room of everything that was her."

Through the window she saw a bird, something large and hawklike, soaring across the summer sky. Summer—what a horrible time to suffer, when the sky was so blue and grass so green and the sun so close to the earth. She wondered for a moment whether it was still July. The accident had happened on July 6. That was the last date on the calendar she had been aware of. She tried to figure it out. Yes, it would still be July—sometime near the end, probably. It must have been close to three weeks ago, but it could as easily have been four or only two. She could imagine herself a year from now thinking, Was it fifty weeks ago or only five? His mercy endureth forever.

Sid stopped patting and pressed his hand against hers. Dottie turned her hand over so that their palms were touching. She swallowed hard, still looking toward the window, and said, Oh, Sid, it’s just so hard to—

He didn’t let her finish. I know, sugar, I know, he said. You’re doing so well, and I’m so proud of you. We’re going to get through it. We will, sugar, I promise. God’s not going to let us down. He touched her chin with his other hand, and she turned her face toward him. You’re doing good, Dottie, he said tenderly.

Though she shouldn’t have, she felt a sudden hot flare of irritation. Those were the exact words he had kept saying a year ago when he had taught her to drive a car with a standard transmission. You’re doing good, sugar. I’m so proud of you, he had said over and over as the little Honda had lurched around the streets of Filbert and Berea.

I’m not learning to drive a car, Sid, she said now and immediately wished she could take back her words. His mercy endureth forever. For one thing, she could tell from the look on Sid’s face that he didn’t even know what she was talking about. No doubt he was wondering what driving a car had to do with anything.

He let it drop, though, then smiled at her and said, Guess what I did this morning before you woke up.

What?

Planted those iris bulbs Dennis Abernathy gave me. Planted them out by your beauty shop sign. Then, as if she didn’t know where her own sign was, he added, Right at the end of the driveway where you’ll see them as soon as you pull in.

Dottie thought of the damp, lumpy brown paper bag that had sat by the back door for weeks and weeks. One day in June, right after Dennis Abernathy had brought them by, she had looked inside it and felt a shiver go over her. It will be a miracle if those ugly, deformed-looking things ever bloom into irises, she had thought at the time and then rebuked herself at once for her flippant use of the word miracle. Of course they’ll bloom, she had told herself. Millions of beautiful flowers come from dirty brown bulbs just like these. That’s the way God planned it.

This was just the kind of thing she used to delight in drawing a lesson from before Bonita’s accident. She could just hear herself saying something like See, God always brings something lovely out of the worst circumstances!

You know, sugar, Sid said, then paused, as if struggling for the right words.

Dottie had a sudden wild fear that he was going to try to make such a parallel himself, and she felt a smoldering retort on the tip of her tongue before she remembered that Sid’s mind didn’t generally work that way. He saw things as what they were, not what they represented, and there was something reassuring in that now. His mercy endureth forever.

I’ve been wondering if it might not be a good idea . . . Sid stopped to nibble on the inside of his lip, then started over. Have you given any thought to when you might start taking customers again? The words came out in a rush. Sid looked away from her quickly, then back again. Every part of his thin face—his sad, earnest eyes, his pinched mouth, his furrowed brow—was pleading not to be taken wrong. Ladies keep calling, he said. They want to help you, sugar. They’ve been bringing things by for weeks now, you know, and nobody blames you a bit for wanting your privacy and keeping to yourself, but—he appeared to be making a supreme effort now—well, maybe it’s time to let ’em come in, sugar. Maybe it’s time to get your hands busy with something and . . . He shrugged at her apologetically. Oh, I just want what’s best for you, Dottie, he said.

From somewhere deep inside her, she didn’t know where, Dottie found the strength to say words she didn’t want to say but knew she should. She sat up and swung her feet to the other side of the bed from where Sid was still sitting. Well, I don’t know, she said slowly. Maybe you’re right. She got up and pulled her knit top down over the waistband of her pants, then walked around the bed to put on her shoes. Sid had evidently pushed one of them up under the bed, and he fell to one knee, scrambling to find it for her.

Here, sugar, raise your foot, and I’ll put it on for you. He held her foot tenderly, then squeezed it and bent forward as if ready to kiss it.

Dottie felt a small pricking of pity for Sid. She hadn’t exactly been very receptive to his attempts at affection lately. Holding her foot, it was as if he were saying, I’ll take any outpost I can get into.

She wiggled her foot impatiently. Hurry up, Prince Charming, I need to make a phone call, she said, and he quickly slipped her shoe on. She had no idea who it was she meant to call. She hadn’t even intended to say that. So who would it be? If she had to start again, which one of her customers would she want to take back first? And no sooner had she asked the question than Lily Beasley’s face came to mind. She realized suddenly that she missed Lily. Her husband worked for Sid off and on at the gas station, and Lily had been a regular customer of hers for over ten years now. Yes, she’d call Lily Beasley and tell her she was opening her shop up again next week and wanted to see her first. Lily was one of the nicest women she knew.

She walked into the kitchen, Sid trailing along behind her.

See your bonsai, sugar? he said, and she saw that he had moved the little tree to the windowsill above the sink. I’ve been watering it for you every day.

It looked healthy, which seemed unfair to Dottie. Just one more example of everything going about its normal business while her world fell apart. At least it wasn’t blooming—that would have been too much.

She picked up the phone and dialed Lily’s number, surprised that she could still remember it. As it rang, she lifted her eyes to Sid, who was still standing in the kitchen doorway smiling at her.

I’m so proud of you, he whispered, and less than a second later she heard Lily’s voice on the other end of the line.

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. His mercy endureth forever. Hey, Lily, this is Dottie, she said. Can you talk a minute?

August 23-September 5

CATHERINE

2

Our Lowly Estate

One Wednesday morning in late August, Catherine Biddle was sitting at the only stoplight on Highway 11, just three miles away from Dottie’s Be-Beautiful Style Shoppe, when she almost turned around and headed back home.

A question had just come into her mind: Why am I doing this? But in the few seconds that it took for her to note that the stoplight had changed to green and to move her foot to the accelerator, Catherine had thought of her answer—in fact, of three answers. First, because she needed a trim and set; second, because Nancy had been getting careless lately; and third, because—Catherine prided herself in the fact that she wasn’t one to deny real motives the way some people did—because she was curious. Curious about how the likes of Dottie Puckett would handle death. Anyway, she couldn’t have turned around and gone home if she’d wanted to. She’d have to get gas first. The little red needle was below empty.

Passing a strip of stores the people of Filbert called the shopping center, she glanced into the rearview mirror and reached up a hand to try to fluff her bangs. If the truth were to be known, Catherine’s auburn hair was probably her greatest source of pride. What Nancy had been thinking of when she had attempted this new style, Catherine couldn’t begin to fathom. She hadn’t even asked Catherine if she wanted to try it but had just up and done it, snipping away while Catherine had sat innocently with her back to the mirror describing her new dining room ensemble, totally unaware that Nancy was in the act of ruining her looks. She’d have to tell Dottie to do whatever she could with the botch-up.

Catherine clutched the steering wheel of her Buick Park Avenue with both hands as she drove past the stretch of woods where a car had wrecked last year—had left the highway and plowed right into the trees, the paper said. The driver had had a heart attack and had killed his wife while he was at it. In fact, Catherine had met the woman at Dottie’s beauty shop one day three or four years ago, long before the wreck. Birdie Freeman was the woman’s name. Catherine had recognized the name right away in the newspaper account of the wreck and had immediately called up a picture of the mousy-looking little woman. Actually, mousy was putting it mildly. Birdie Freeman had had absolutely one of the homeliest faces Catherine had ever seen. A terrible overbite and a hairstyle from the Dark Ages—just a single long braid coiled and pinned on top of her head.

Birdie Freeman had been leaving Dottie’s house that day a few years ago when Catherine had been arriving, and Dottie had introduced the two of them. "Birdie just dropped by to leave me some of her famous apple dumplings and this, Dottie had said, holding up what looked like a tiny little tree in a pint-sized container. She tells me pretty little white blossoms are going to burst out all over these twiggy branches one of these days." Dottie had turned the plant around, studying it from every angle.

It’s a bonsai, Birdie Freeman had said. A Serissa, that’s its real name, but I like its other name better—Tree of a Thousand Stars. Isn’t that pretty? She had reached over and patted the bonsai as if it were a well-behaved baby. The blossoms look like tiny white stars, you see, she added.

Catherine had frowned at the little tree. There sure wasn’t much to it. Well, I wouldn’t lay any bets on it, she had said. It doesn’t look like it has any intention of blooming. Catherine couldn’t count the number of plants she had bought, hoping they’d bloom and finally throwing them in the trash when their leaves turned yellow and limp.

Birdie Freeman had clapped her hands and laughed. Oh, you’ve got to have faith! Just wait and see! Then as she made her way out the door, she had whirled around. Say, how would you like one for yourself? she asked Catherine. I have plenty more where that one came from. It’s as easy as pie to start a little slip from a cutting.

No, thank you! Catherine had said. I like a plant that has some pep to it.

Birdie had laughed again. Well, let me know if you change your mind. I wish I could stay, Dottie, but I’ve got to run. And she had left. Catherine had felt like calling after her and asking the poor little woman why she didn’t stay and let Dottie do something with her hair.

Catherine was passing the Shepherd’s Valley Cemetery now, and, as she always did, she glanced at the house just beside it. One of her neighbors had told her after the wreck that Birdie Freeman had lived right next to the cemetery on Highway 11, so Catherine knew it had to be that small white house with the black trim. She couldn’t help wondering if that sorry-looking little tree had ever bloomed as Birdie had promised. Probably not.

Somebody else had moved into the house now—somebody with a lot of children from the looks of things. Two of those low-slung plastic tricycles cluttered the front sidewalk, one of them turned over on its side, and miscellaneous bright-colored toys were strewn all over the yard. A tire swing hung from an oak tree. Some days when Catherine passed this way she could see three or four little children zipping around the yard, and sometimes a woman was sitting on the front steps with a baby in her lap. She had often wondered if that woman had any idea what was ahead of her when her children got to be teenagers.

Farther on Catherine passed Sawyer’s Plywood and a Dairy Queen on the right, then just past the Sunny Dale Feed and Seed and a ramshackle produce stand she passed the Texaco station that Dottie Puckett’s husband ran. Immediately past that was a gravel driveway marked by a lopsided mailbox upon which was painted in white letters SID PUCKETT. Catherine couldn’t believe that the Pucketts hadn’t changed mailboxes after what had happened right beside it only six weeks ago, but she was positive this was the same old mailbox they’d always had.

Next to the mailbox was a small handmade wooden sign that read Dottie’s Be-Beautiful Style Shoppe. Signaling to turn left, Catherine looked closely at the road and the grassy area alongside the mailbox for signs of the accident. She thought she might see skid marks or upturned earth, but she didn’t. Evidently somebody had come along and fixed things up. Catherine turned into the driveway and slowed almost to a stop, surveying the house at the end of the long gravel drive. It never ceased to amaze her how tacky some people’s tastes were.

What could have been an ordinary-looking house stood out against the open fields like a red flag—only, of course, it was blue. And not a nice, conventional pastel blue or even a slightly bolder Williamsburg blue, but the frivolous blue of a robin’s egg. Why, the house was only a step away from turquoise! Catherine Biddle couldn’t imagine the day when she’d sink so low as to live in a house that was the color of an Easter egg.

As she drove slowly down the driveway, the crunching of the gravel under her tires irked her. Why couldn’t the Pucketts put in a regular paved driveway like civilized people? The gravel was just another sign of the low standards some people had. Even the sound of the word was ugly—gravel. Catherine opened her mouth and said the word out loud, making it as ugly as she could with a sharp, nasal twang.

It irked Catherine, too, to think that she would have to get gas at the Texaco before she drove back home. She wished she had noticed that the car was on empty before she had left Berea. Give Dottie ten dollars for doing my hair, she thought, then turn around and give her hick husband another three or four—there goes almost fifteen dollars just lining the pockets of people who couldn’t tell the difference between sterling and silver plate if their lives depended on it.

But it couldn’t be helped. She wouldn’t let Nancy touch her hair again after the mess she had made, and the only other girl who did hair over in Berea was named Swee-yung Chan. Catherine wouldn’t even shop at the drugstore in Berea because it was owned by a Taiwanese family, and she sure as sure wasn’t going to let some Oriental give her a shampoo and set.

Catherine’s husband, Blake, had told her about the foreigners years ago before they moved to this part of South Carolina, told her there were all kinds of them—Koreans, Germans, Poles, Japanese, French. And more of them poured in every year, it seemed, most of them drawn to the area because of some big industry, like Michelin or Hitachi or BMW or one of the textile mills. Well, they won’t bother me, Catherine had told Blake, as long as they keep to themselves and leave me alone! That was her motto in life: Leave Me Alone. And that was the very rule Dottie Puckett had so frequently violated when Catherine used to be her regular customer.

She pulled up next to the large fading sign beside the carport. Just like the smaller one by the mailbox, this sign read Dottie’s Be-Beautiful Style Shoppe, but this one was in a ridiculously fancy black script with little curlicues springing up from the letters like overpermed hair. Catherine remembered Dottie saying that someone at her church had made the sign for her years ago when she first opened her shop.

Catherine parked next to a dark gray Chevrolet but sat for a minute while the dust settled, still peeved about the gravel driveway. Some people just didn’t care about making things nice for their company. It sure couldn’t be the money. Sid Puckett had to be doing a good business at the Texaco, seeing it was the only gas station along Highway 11 and only three miles off the new highway now. And everybody knew Dottie brought in a good bit off her beauty shop, even more now that she’d gone up from eight dollars to ten.

Before she got out of the car, Catherine took out her brush and tried to swoop up the sides of her hair. She sure didn’t want Dottie feeling sorry for her having a hairdo that looked like somebody did it blindfolded. She opened the car door and waved both hands in front of her face as if driving away smoke. Maybe Dottie was looking out the window right now and would see her and then suggest to Sid that they put in a real driveway.

Hoisting her purse strap higher on her shoulder, Catherine slammed the car door and stood glaring at the sign. Why, it wasn’t fading; it was just coated with dust, that was all. Catherine walked right up next to it, reached up, and traced the B with her index finger, then studied the thick smudge on the tip of her finger. Well, it looked like Dottie Puckett’s standards had slipped during the two years since Catherine had been here last. She used to be real neat and particular.

Of course, Catherine had to admit as she followed the sidewalk up to the side door, it had been a dry summer, and Dottie and Sid had had other things on their minds lately besides a dusty sign. Walking up the steps, she felt a sudden thrill of expectation mingled with a peculiar reverence. To have the opportunity to see the effects of great sorrow on someone else—well, it wasn’t fun, of course, but it was . . . interesting.

And it was even more interesting in this case because of all the things Catherine remembered from her years as a weekly customer of Dottie’s. All those years of sitting in Dottie’s black vinyl swivel chair and listening to her virtuous talk. All the years of eluding Dottie’s invitations to visit the Willing Workers Sunday school class or come to a potluck supper at the Church of the Open Door, where she attended. All the years of deflecting Dottie’s gentle but insulting questions about her soul, as if that were anybody’s business.

Catherine stopped just a moment, her hand firmly grasping the doorknob, and reminded herself again of the final insolence that occurred over two years ago, the day she had vowed never again to come to Dottie’s shop, to drive all the way to Greenville for a hair appointment if she had to.

Catherine had always wondered if Dottie even realized what she was saying at the time. She had looked so simple and blank after she had said it. Catherine could still feel the rush of blood to her face, the hot prickling on the back of her neck as she heard Dottie’s words. When it happened, Catherine had been holding a cheap pink plastic hand mirror, still sitting in the swivel chair, studying the back of her hair—always the final act in the weekly hairstyling ritual—when Dottie had bent forward, her plump hands clasped under her chin. Catherine, she said, smiling, "won’t you please think about what I’ve been saying? I want you to be happy, and so does God. One of God’s gifts to His children is joy. He loves us, and He regards us in our lowly estate."

As she recalled now, she had shot out of the chair, dropped her eight dollars on the little rolling table that held Dottie’s perm rollers and tissue squares, and said, I’ll thank you not to include me in your lowly estate!

All the way home she had fumed. Dottie Puckett could consider her own estate as common and low-down as she liked, but she’d better think twice before she lumped everybody else into the same class. Lowly estate indeed. Catherine’s family, the Ashtons, had been just a step shy of aristocrats back home in Biloxi, Mississippi. They had owned a small yacht, employed two housemaids, and even boasted a coat of arms. Her father had been a trial lawyer, and her mother had never lifted a finger around the house.

Catherine herself had studied art and drama at Ole Miss and still remembered all her lines as Amanda Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie, a performance during her senior year that the newspaper review had described as an admirable effort, especially in light of Miss Ashton’s youth. Catherine had always wished they had left out that part about her youth—it somehow made it seem less complimentary. And she also wished they had substituted the word success for effort. Nevertheless, it had been the high point of Catherine’s whole life, and even though she still played the role of Amanda Wingfield every few years over at the Abbeville Opera House here in South Carolina, nothing could compare to her glory days in college. Dottie Puckett might come from poor white sharecropper stock, but Catherine Ashton Biddle surely didn’t!

Catherine opened the door now and heard the jingle of the bell hanging from the doorknob on the other side. She stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of the beauty shop, thankful that if Dottie had to have a gravel driveway, at least she had had sense enough to have a small window unit installed to keep her customers comfortable in the hot months. The beauty shop was empty, but Catherine heard voices through the open door leading into the kitchen. Be right there! called one of them, and Catherine recognized it instantly as Dottie’s. She hadn’t heard Dottie’s voice in more than two whole years—not counting all the times Dottie’s words had played in her mind—yet it was a voice she knew she would recognize instantly anytime, anyplace.

Looking around, Catherine saw that the Be-Beautiful hadn’t changed a bit in the two years since she’d quit coming here. The shop was actually just an addition on to the side of Dottie and Sid’s house, a single little room with only the bare necessities—one sink with a sprayer hose, one hair dryer, a small couch scattered with a few back issues of Grit, Reader’s Digest, and Guideposts, a counter with a large mirror, and a black swivel chair.

She noted that the salmon pink walls were still decorated with the same foolishly outdated pictures and posters as before. Dottie had told her once that Sid had found the posters rolled up together in the corner of a junk store outside Clinton. Soft ’n Lovely Shampoo—It Caresses Your Tresses, announced one, the words coming from a cartoon bubble above the head of a fresh-faced Donna Reed look-alike. Another one praised the Luxurious Holding Power of Silken Strands Spray Mist and pictured a teenaged girl of the sixties wearing a pastel peach mohair sweater. Catherine had always felt as though she were stepping back in time when she came here.

It struck her now that everything was the same—the same yellow gingham curtains at the windows, the same Coca-Cola clock on the wall above the hair dryer, the same Quaker State wire rack Sid had cleaned up and brought over from the Texaco for Dottie to store her shampoos and styling gels in. Catherine walked over to the counter where Dottie had all the implements of her trade laid out. Now here was something different. The picture of Bonita and Max that Dottie used to keep right here beside her appointment book and the telephone was gone now.

Well, Catherine Biddle, it’s good to see you, honey, Dottie said, hurrying in from the kitchen, her other customer trailing behind, blinking at Catherine stupidly. I was just showing Muriel here the cake Lily Beasley made us. You and Muriel know each other, don’t you? Catherine lifted her chin and gave a short nod as Dottie continued. I’ll show you the cake after we finish. That Lily is just an artist when it comes to decorating cakes. You remember her, don’t you? Her husband, Benny, is the mechanic who works with Sid.

Catherine nodded again. She remembered Lily Beasley all right. A Negro woman who used to have her hair appointment right after Catherine’s, who would usually come while Catherine was sitting under the dryer, as a matter of fact. Catherine had disapproved of the familiar way she and Dottie cut up with each other, almost like sisters, and she had finally changed the time of her appointment so she wouldn’t always be running into Lily Beasley.

"I swanee, you never did see the likes of that cake, Muriel said, her cheeks flushed with excitement. I couldn’t any more do a thing like that than the man in the moon! Shaped like an open Bible with gold all around the edges of the pages and Psalm 23:4 written out in real writing just as even and steady as can be—and a red ribbon down the middle, only of course it’s not a real ribbon at all. It’s all done with frosting!"

Muriel’s hair was wound tightly on small wire rollers, and she spoke in a breathy voice, panting a little between every few words. With the white towel draped about her neck, she reminded Catherine of a boxer between rounds.

Dottie smiled at Catherine. Long time, no see, she said. You still look like somebody that’s stepped right out of a magazine.

It was the same smile as before, sweet and girlish for a woman Dottie’s age and size, but her eyes looked darker and smaller than Catherine remembered, set deeper into her broad face, giving the effect of something slowly settling over time. Was this just a natural sign of aging, Catherine wondered, or had this happened over the past month and a half? Is this how death and sorrow had stamped its mark onto the face of Dottie Puckett? How well she recalled Dottie’s green eyes, so unnaturally bright that day she had chirped, "One of God’s gifts to His children is joy."

And how well she remembered the anger that had seethed within her as she sped down Highway 11 back toward Berea. It was easy for Dottie to talk about happiness and joy, to wish it on other people, to smile and nod and talk about things like love and God. She had an easy life. Catherine remembered passing a dilapidated cabin along the highway that day and catching sight of the stooped backs and wide straw hats of two old people hoeing, like a scene from another era. She had wondered briefly what they would say if informed by Dottie that God regarded them in their lowly estate. Catherine could have helped them think up a reply: Oh, is that so? Then why doesn’t He do something to show His regard? Why doesn’t He send somebody from Publishers Clearing House out here with a check for a million dollars?

Dottie just took happiness for granted, Catherine had thought as she had flown down the highway that day. Even though she knew for a fact that Sid Puckett hadn’t even finished high school, it didn’t seem to matter one iota to Dottie. And Catherine had to admit that even though he had about as much class as a scarecrow, at least Sid had manners. He looked at Dottie like he thought she was the homecoming queen and he had the good luck to be her freshman escort. He was always doing things for her, like taking her out for supper at C. C.’s Barbecue over in Filbert and bringing her bouquets of wild violets in April, which she used to put in a little Mason canning jar, of all things, and set on the counter among her combs and scissors. Of course, he wasn’t much to look at—pale and slight. The two of them looked as mismatched as could be, but still, he did treat Dottie right.

Dottie didn’t have any idea what it was like to be stuck with a cantankerous husband, one who accused her of nagging and picking and overreacting. One who kept telling her that a husband had a right to expect certain things out of a wife, things like loyalty and support, like cheerfulness and contentment. One who didn’t have a shred of appreciation for her old family name and the fact that she still had her figure. Here he was still harping after all these years about what he called her snobby ways.

For being so book-smart, Blake certainly was a dunce about how to run a family. Surely it didn’t take a genius to figure out that you couldn’t take a woman like Catherine out of the grace and glamour of Old Biloxi and plunk her down in the sticks of South Carolina and then expect her to be happy! Or that you couldn’t leave town for long stretches at a time and expect your kids to grow up perfect and everything to run like clockwork at home.

Well, you aren’t so contented yourself, she had shouted at Blake during one of their arguments, or else you could accept me the way I am! And he had left home again right after that on another one of his business trips to negotiate a production contract or attend some management seminar, trips Catherine was sure were not always necessary.

She remembered her lines from The Glass Menagerie: Gone, gone, gone. All vestige of gracious living! Gone completely! I wasn’t prepared for what the future brought me. Catherine had never dreamed when she was reciting those lines in college that twenty years down the road she’d be looking back on a life as disappointing as Amanda Wingfield’s, that she, too, would have a husband who had begun to fall in love with long distances.

But Dottie Puckett thought happiness grew on trees. She used to mention some detail of her happy childhood almost every time Catherine had a hair appointment, talking about her parents as if they’d been canonized! She’d had no way of knowing, of course, that Catherine’s own recollections of childhood were far from happy, that her most vivid memory was of the day after her sixth birthday when her mother had raised herself up in bed, pointed a shaky finger straight at Catherine, and said, You’re the reason I’ve been in bed for six years, and as Catherine had fled the room she added, I wish you had never been born. If she had shouted it, it might not have been so devastating, but she had whispered it, and even at the age of six, Catherine had known that while the things you shouted usually came off the top of your head, the things you whispered most often came straight from the heart.

As clear as day she could remember running straight to her father’s study after leaving her mother’s bedroom. Normally when the door to his study was shut, as it was that day, Catherine and her sister knew not to disturb him, but her six-year-old mind had been in such upheaval that she hadn’t even thought about the rules as she burst in. Her father had been working on a case and was hunched over his desk. From the banker’s lamp with its green glass shade, a pool of yellow light fell on the papers and books cluttering the desktop. She had stopped a moment at the door, searching for hope in her father’s face.

But she could hardly see his face as he scribbled on a legal pad. She couldn’t have put it into words at the time, but all she needed, really, was a minute of love, or less. A few seconds would have done. She just needed to hear certain words from his mouth. She had stepped forward quietly, and when she was close enough to reach out and touch his arm, she had whispered, Daddy, do you wish I had never been born? Had he shoved his papers aside and taken her into his lap, things could have turned around. The open wound couldn’t have been closed up and healed immediately, of course, but maybe it could have been stanched and bandaged so that the scar would have been small. She had often wondered about this.

As it was, he had sighed and lifted his eyes to the ceiling for what seemed like forever to Catherine. When he had finally looked at her, something in his eyes, before he even spoke, told her that hope was not to be found here. The white part of his eyes was shot through with tiny veins of red, and he appeared to be looking right through her to the wall on the other side of the room. Catherine, he said, and her heart fell, for everything had depended on that one word. If he had said Cathy, the room would have exploded with sunshine.

I’m right in the middle of the most important case of my life, he said to her. She remembered it word for word. Whatever it is you want to know, go ask your mother. Whatever she says is fine with me.

Well. So much for that. Catherine knew exactly what her mother would say, had already said, in fact. And her father just said he agreed with whatever her mother said. So all was lost. In the space of five minutes, she had stood on the edge of the world and then fallen off. She left her father’s study, went to her bedroom, and closed her door. She then picked up a doll she had gotten as a birthday present the day before and twisted its head off.

I want you to be happy, and so does God, Dottie Puckett had said to her that day two years ago. And just how did she know that? Catherine had wondered. Had God faxed her a personal message about her customers, a private revelation of His plan for each one? Would Dottie find cause for happiness if her own mother had hated the sight of her? If her father had looked right past her as if she didn’t exist? If she had been yanked from a genteel environment on the Gulf Coast without even being asked if she wanted to move? If her husband had then gone off and left her every chance he got and the children she had vowed would be the happiest children on earth had turned on her?

"One of God’s gifts to His children is joy," Dottie had said. Catherine couldn’t help wondering, though, what Dottie’s thoughts on happiness were these days, now that she had learned what it was to suffer. Did she feel that God was regarding her in her lowly estate as a grieving mother?

Catherine realized that Dottie had gotten Muriel settled under the hair dryer and was now standing over by the sink, holding a red plastic cape out to the side like a pudgy matador, looking at her expectantly, as if she had said something and was waiting for an answer. And does God want you to be happy, too? she felt like asking Dottie now. Does He want you to have joy? Is that why he snatched your daughter away? She stalked over to the sink.

You’ve got a mean streak running clear through you, Catherine. Blake had said that to her one time. But she knew it wasn’t true, not really. There were other adjectives that applied, such as curious, inquisitive, persistent, frank, opinionated—but not mean. But Blake had taken to calling her Cat for short and would do so right now if he knew she was here at Dottie’s. She could just hear him: Sniffing out another tragedy, huh? Prying and poking, trying to make somebody else hurt.

Oh, sure, sometimes she wished she could grab back things she said or undo certain actions, but who didn’t? She remembered Tom’s lines from the end of The Glass Menagerie about all the ways he had tried to forget his failures. But he couldn’t do that. Nobody could. You couldn’t blow out the candles of your past. That was part of life. You had to keep on going and make the best of your mistakes. You sure couldn’t go around afraid to open your