Three

      THE TOWN OF Arcadia was situated along the countryside in that way that many small, Southern towns were. It began with small, one-story wooden houses asleep in the middle of wide, flat yards along the sides of a two-lane blacktop that winded among dense pines, cedars and white oaks. Here and there, fields of corn or soybeans were found in the spring and summer. Only bare earth in the winter.

      After a couple of miles the fields became smaller, the houses more frequent. Once one entered the town proper they found only two streetlights, a clunky organization of roads and streets and dead ends cluttered with old, exhausted homes. The only new houses in Arcadia were those that had been rebuilt after hurricanes. They glimmered in fresh paint and new wood and made a person imagine that, perhaps, something new could actually happen in this old town.

      But new things did not come to this town. Not until the Returned.

      The streets were not many and neither were the houses. In the center of town stood the school: an old, brick affair with small windows and small doors and retrofitted air-conditioning that did not work.

      Off to the north, atop a small hill just beyond the limits of town, stood the church. It was built from wood and clapboard and sat like a lighthouse, reminding the people of Arcadia that there was always someone above them.

      Not since ’72 when the Sainted Soul Stirrers of Solomon—that traveling gospel band with the Jewish bassist from Arkansas—came to town had the church been so full. Just people atop people. Cars and trucks scattered about the church lawn. Someone’s rust-covered pickup loaded down with lumber was parked against the crucifix in the center of the lawn, as if Jesus had gotten down off the cross and decided to make a run to the hardware store. A cluster of taillights covered up the small sign on the church lawn that read Jesus Loves You—Fish Fry May 31. Cars were stacked along the shoulder of the highway the way they had been that time back in ’63—or was it ’64?—at the funeral of those three Benson boys who’d all died in one horrible car crash and were mourned over the course of one long, dark day of lamentation.

      “You need to come with us,” Lucille said as Harold parked the old truck on the shoulder of the road and pawed his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. “What are folks going to think when you’re not there?” She unfastened Jacob’s seat belt and straightened his hair.

      “They’ll think, ‘Harold Hargrave won’t come in the church? Glory be! In these times of madness at least something is as it always has been!’”

      “It’s not like there’s a service going on, you heathen. It’s just a town meeting. No reason why you shouldn’t come in.”

      Lucille stepped out of the truck and straightened her dress. It was her favorite dress, the one she wore to important things, the one that picked up dirt from every surface imaginable—a cotton/polyester blend colored in a pastel shade of green with small flowers stitched along the collar and patterned around the end of the thin sleeves. “I don’t know why I bother sometimes. I hate this truck,” she said, wiping the back of her dress.

      “You’ve hated every truck I’ve ever owned.”

      “But still you keep buying them.”

      “Can I stay here?” Jacob asked, fiddling with a button on the collar of his shirt. Buttons exercised a mysterious hold over the boy. “Daddy and me could—”

      “Daddy and I could,” Lucille corrected.

      “No,” Harold said, almost laughing. “You go with your mama.” He put a cigarette to his lips and stroked his chin. “Smoke’s bad for you. Gives you wrinkles and bad breath and makes you hairy.”

      “Makes you stubborn, too,” Lucille added, helping Jacob from the cab.

      “I don’t think they want me in there,” Jacob said.

      “Go with your mama,” Harold said in a hard voice. Then he lit his cigarette and took in as much nicotine as his tired old lungs could manage.

      * * *

      When his wife and the thing that might or might not be his son—he was still not sure of his stance on that exactly—were gone, Harold took one more pull on his cigarette and blew the smoke out through the open window. Then he sat with the cigarette burning down between his fingers. He stroked his chin and watched the church.

      The church needed to be painted. It was peeling here and there and it was hard to put a finger on exactly what color the building was supposed to be, but a person could tell that it had once been much grander than it was now. He tried to think back to what color the church had been when the paint was fresh—he’d most certainly been around to see it painted. He even could almost remember who had done the job—some outfit from up around Southport—the name escaped him, as did the original paint color. All he could see in his mind was the current faded exterior.

      But isn’t that the way it is with memory? Give it enough time and it will become worn down and covered in a patina of self-serving omissions.

      But what else could we trust?

      Jacob had been a firecracker. A live wire. Harold remembered all the times the boy had gotten in trouble for not coming home before sunset or for running in church. One time he’d even come close to having Lucille in hysterics because he’d climbed to the top of Henrietta Williams’s pear tree. Everybody was calling after him and the boy just sat there up in the shaded branches of the tree among ripe pears and dappled sunlight. Probably having himself a good old laugh about things.

      In the glow of the streetlights Harold caught sight of a small creature darting from the steeple of the church—a flash of movement and wings. It rose for a second and glowed like snow in the dark night as car headlights flashed upon it.

      And then it was gone and, Harold knew, not to return.

      “It’s not him,” Harold said. He flicked his cigarette on the ground and leaned back against the musty old seat. He lolled his head and asked only of his body that it should go to sleep and be plagued by neither dream nor memory. “It’s not.”

      * * *

      Lucille held tightly to Jacob’s hand as she made her way through the crowd cluttered around the front of the church as best as her bad hip would let her.

      “Excuse