Chapter 5: Papers on the Bar

On Sunday I went to church after all, but not to apologize.

Dutch had fixed the truck by Saturday night, and he had printed my papers on the office printer without asking what they were.

"Dissolution of marriage," he read off the top sheet. "You'll need a clerk to stamp that."

"I'm having it served first."

"On who?"

"On a man who loves an audience."

He set the stack down in front of me, squared the edges, and looked at me for a long moment.

"Don't go alone."

"Come with me, then."

He shook his head.

"I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't," he said, and that was all I got.

So I drove myself to the clubhouse in a clean blue blouse with the papers in a folder on the seat beside me.

The lot was full.

It was Sunday afternoon, when the club ate together, and the whole place smelled of smoke and brisket.

I walked up the porch steps past the shelf by the door.

The scuffed black helmet was still there, with the name scraped off the back.

Forty or fifty people turned around when I came in.

Conversation stopped, a pool cue clicked once on a ball, and then the room was silent.

Cade stood at the end of the long bar with a beer in his hand.

Tawny stood beside him with her hand in the crook of his arm, wearing my vest.

Behind the bar, the older woman who ran the kitchen, the one everyone called Mama, set down a rag and watched me.

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