“She gave forty years of quiet service to our altar guild.”

I brushed my hands off on the sides of my black skirt and straightened up.

“Pastor, do you remember the spring the Rountree family packed up their house and moved to Tyler?” I asked.

Pastor Higgins let his hands fall to his sides, and his fingers curled in sharply.

The leather Bible he’d been carrying under his arm slid out from his coat and hit the ground with a loud, flat thud.

Its thin white pages fanned open in the dirt right next to my shoes.