ave Voyant was a man full of stories, and in love enough with his voice to tell them. Mile after mile he talked, sometimes sending Cullen into such fits of laughter they nearly ran off the road. He told of his big break into sports journalism, covering the story of a spectator who got conked in the head by a fly ball.

“Guy was in a coma for three days, and I was the only one with the story. Had an inside scoop.”

“What was her name?” Lilly asked. She sat between them in the front seat. A bit crowded, but nobody complained.

“A gentleman never tells,” Dave said, hat over his heart. He’d spotted Babe Ruth’s talent when he was pitching at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, convinced Eddie Cicotte to come clean about the 1919 scandal, and was single-handedly responsible for the career of Duke Dennison. “Any bozo can type up a bunch of scores and statistics. It takes an artist to get the story behind them.”

And he wanted to write Cullen’s. For even as they traded driving duties, they traded tales, and Cullen found himself again relating his past. The father who disapproved of a baseball career but got him a choice spot anyway. The humiliation of going from a high school star to a major league joke. Walking away from it all to go to war.

But he wouldn’t talk about the war. Not in front of Lilly. He tried searching his mind for any kind of beauty to share. Any bit worthy of being put into her mind and found nothing.

The distance and the day flew by with the words, and it was late afternoon when both the car and the conversation came to a spluttering halt twenty miles outside of Roanoke.

“This is my fault,” Cullen said as the three worked together to push the car off the main road. Neither Lilly nor Dave disagreed. “It’s what happens when you depend on a driver. Miles always takes care of these things.”

“Do you remember the last petrol station?” Lilly asked.

“At least five miles back,” Dave said. “Might be one closer up ahead, though. You a gambling man?”

“No,” Cullen said. The idea that he would survive even a five-mile walk was gamble enough.

“You can stay here, Moonsie. Dave and I can go.”

Dave pulled on his jacket. “Somebody needs to stay with the car. And I don’t want to be slowed down by those shoes of yours, Lilly, my love. As fabulous as they are. So if I can leave you two lovebirds without a chaperone, I’ll be back after a while.”

He wasn’t twenty paces away when Lilly said, “I like that guy.”

“He’s a brilliant writer.”

“I could be a brilliant writer.”

“Lilly, put your mind to it, and I think you could be anything you want.”

“Ah, thanks, Moonsie. It’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all day.”

The quiet settled in around them. Cullen stretched out across the front seat, Lilly the back, and aside from the occasional inquiry about the time, neither spoke. He’d never imagined one could enjoy silence with a woman.

It had been just over an hour when a blue pickup truck pulled up in front of the Peerless, and Dave hopped out of the cab. He grabbed a metal can with a long spout from the flatbed in one hand and held up a cardboard case of Coca-Cola in the other.

“Enjoy life.” He handed a bottle to Lilly, Cullen, and the driver of the truck, a tall, lanky man with skin so dark it glistened almost blue. Dave introduced him as Johnny.

“Much obliged.” Johnny drained the bottle with three enormous gulps followed by a healthy belch, then took the gas can from Dave and proceeded to fill the car.

Cullen drank his too, not enjoying the beverage as much as the others; the fizz wasn’t pleasant to his throat. But Lilly sat atop the car taking sweet, satisfying sips, beaming after each one. Behind her the trees were taking on the tinge of their fall colors, and the setting sun framed her in golden light. The picture was one worthy of a magazine ad, and he enjoyed the drink a little more.

“That’ll do you for now.” Johnny slapped the car’s hood. “And you just remember what I told you. ’Bout fo’ miles up, red fence markin’ the path. Tell ’em Johnny D sent you, and they fix you up right.”

“I will, indeed.” Dave shook his hand.

Cullen, too, reached for Johnny’s hand, holding a folded bill. “For your trouble.”

“Hear now, mistuh. Wasn’t a trouble. You was in my path, is all. But I reckon I can put it in the plate at church on Sunday.” Johnny tucked the bill into the front pocket of his coveralls and headed for his truck, calling over his shoulder, “You remember what I tol’ you!”

The tires of the truck spun in the loose gravel, and the final gun of the engine took it to the road, just as the empty Coca-Cola bottle flew out the window.

Lilly winced at the sound of the broken glass. “He coulda got a penny for that bottle.”

Cullen finished his drink and tossed the bottle into the backseat. “What’s four miles up?”

“Well, I have two bits of news for you. First, I used the phone at the station and called in. Congratulations, your boys won today, and the Series is all tied up. Tomorrow decides it all.”

Cullen let out the closest thing to a whoop! he could manage. “What could be better than that?”

“We have been invited to a barbecue.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh, yeah.” Dave lost his deep, cultured baritone in favor of a deep southern tone. “Place called Lickey’s. Pulled pork, baked beans, collard greens, and sweet tea. Mmm, mmm.”

“Sounds fabulous!” Lilly dropped down into the backseat. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t know,” Cullen said. “We’ve lost so much time already.”

“We’re driving all night anyway,” Dave said. “What’s another hour or so?”

Lilly leaned over the seat, her face inches from his. “Come on, Moonsie. You’re not afraid to add a little color and spice to your life, are you?”

“Of course not.” Cullen pulled the car onto the road. “But I am glad that Mother’s somewhere on a train.”

He slowed the car considerably after three miles, and Dave hung over the edge of the door keeping an eye out for the red fence marker. After two false sightings, they passed it, and as Cullen turned the car around, he realized why and stopped the car at the turn.

“Headlight’s out.”

“You’re kidding.” Dave hopped out and walked to the front. The grim expression on his face confirmed the theory. “Broken.”

That explained the sound of broken glass when Johnny’s truck pulled out. Not a bottle hitting the ground, but a rock hitting his headlight.

“So where does that put us?” Lilly asked.

“Puts us here for the night if we can find someplace close,” Cullen said as Dave got back in. “It’s not safe to drive like this—not when I don’t know the roads.”

“You know,” Dave said, “if I knew I was hitching a ride with Odysseus, I would have waited for the train.”

“Relax,” Cullen said. “We’ll be on the road at first light, get you to a station, and you’ll be at Forbes Field by game time.”

The turn at the red fence marked the beginning of a twisting path cut through trees, and more than once Cullen wondered if this wasn’t some sort of scheme to get a rich white man’s car off the beaten path. He’d never admit such doubts to his fellow dupes, but he did pray with each turn: Lord, forgive my doubt in the kindness of strangers and keep us safe.

Soon enough his fears were allayed by the scent of pork and the sound of music. The final turn brought them into a clearing where a shack straddled a stream. Light poured from its windows as well as from lanterns dangling from the trees.

“Oh, man!” Lilly was bouncing in her seat. “You, Moonsie, are in for the night of your life.”

He pulled his car in with the gathering of others—most of them looking like they’d been brought there to die. Before long a welcoming party—a group of six men of varying sizes and shades of black—emerged from a gathering on the other side of the stream. Dave went out to meet them as envoy.

“Good evening, gentlemen. A man named Johnny D said we might be able to get some supper here.”

“Did he, now?” Their spokesperson looked like a wall of dark brick, arms straining beneath the sleeves of his shirt. “An’ how do you know Johnny?”

“Helped us out a while back. He told us right how to get here.” Dave looked around. “That’s his truck.”

Cullen decided this wasn’t the place to mention that the man had also broken his headlight.

“Well, I’m guessin’ a friend of Johnny’s is a friend of our’n.” The Brick Wall’s change of heart probably had as much to do with Lilly’s long-legged emergence from the car as much as the offstage endorsement of Johnny. “I’m Will Lickey and behind me is my empire. Y’all are welcome.”

“We’d like to pay, of course,” Cullen said, holding his voice steady.

“Ooo-wee, look at you. God bless you, son. That happen in the war?”

“Yes,” Cullen said, oddly at ease with the confrontation.

“Had two brothers go over there. One came back without his legs, and the other didn’t come back at all. You thank God every day you’re livin’. Unnerstan’?”

“I do.”

“Now, it don’t seem right takin’ money from y’all for the pleasure of feedin’ ya, but I ’spose I can add it to the plate at church.” He held out his hand, the palm light in the darkness, and Cullen peeled off a few bills, having no idea of their value.

They followed the men down into the base of the shallow valley and into the shack, where the lamplight made impressive shadows on the walls. A four-piece band was in full swing—an upright bass, a guitar, a single snare drum, and a saxophone. The music was without lyrics, sounding like it was born from the shadows cast on the wall—dark and erratic. Men and women danced on a dedicated floor, their bodies in full motion, connected sporadically at the hand, the waist, the cheek.

Cullen felt Lilly’s hand take his.

“Dance with me, Moonsie?”

“I don’t think so. I—”

Before he could finish, she’d moved on.

“Davey? Dance?”

“Sure, sugar. But how about we eat first?”

They walked straight through to a door on the opposite side and emerged to find a gathering of about thirty men and women. Their ages ranged anywhere from eighteen to eighty, and their skin a spectrum of copper, cocoa, and ebony. When they all seemed to turn at once, he was glad for Lickey’s escort.

“These here’s friends of Johnny’s. Feed ’em right.”

A young woman came forth with three glass jars. “I’m Arlene. Follow me.”

“Yes, m’am,” Dave said, and Cullen understood his enthusiasm. She was young—probably Lilly’s age—and her sepia skin reflected the lamplight. Hers was a body of curves, and walking behind her gave the impression of following a pendulum covered in lavender silk. She brought them around the back of the shack where, on a shelf built right into the side, two barrels sat. One big, the other bigger.

Arlene handed each one a jar and pointed to the first barrel. “This here’s sweet tea. This other one”—the smaller of the two—“is Lickey’s special sweet tea. Folks here like to mix ’em.”

“Thank you.” Cullen took his glass and tried to keep his expression neutral as Lilly filled her jar.

She held up her hand as if taking a pledge. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve learned my lesson. New leaf turned and all that.”

“Well, I’m carrying around the same old leaves I ever have,” Dave said before holding his glass under the spigot of the special barrel, filling it a third of the way up before finishing it off from the second. He took one sip and then a staggering step, letting out a sound somewhere between a wolf and hound.

“I tol’ you it was special,” Arlene said, her hand on her generous hip.

“And you did not lie.”

“Now you all go inside and find a seat. If there aren’t none, kick someone out. Tell ’em Arlene said so, and I’ll bring you your food.”

Cullen hoped it wouldn’t come to that. After all, they’d lost their brick escort. But inside, the band had abandoned their instruments, and most of the patrons had stepped out. They managed to find a table, and one of the men he remembered from the greeting party scrounged up three chairs. Minutes later, Arlene arrived with three bundles of newspaper. To his surprise, she set each bundle down and unrolled it to reveal supper: a generous pile of pulled pork, two slices of white bread, a spoonful of something yellow, beans, and greens.

“That’s my mama’s creamed corn.” She leaned over the table and spoke straight into Dave’s ear. “Makes some men cry.”

He didn’t know about crying, but Cullen’s mouth was definitely beginning to water, and it seemed only one thing was missing. “Where can I get a fork?”

Arlene leaned farther across the table. “That what your bread is for.” To demonstrate, she pulled off a corner, ran it through the corn on Dave’s paper, and placed a bit of pork on top—all of which she popped into her mouth. She chewed with the same rhythm as her swaying walk, then swallowed. “Get it?”

“Got it.”

“You just let me know if you want more.”

Although they were the objects of understandable stares, they were largely left alone as they ate, a fact Cullen appreciated as all of his senses were wrapped up in the food in front of him. None of it tasted like anything he’d ever had before, and as he ran his bread along the paper, wiping up the last of the creamed corn, he asked Lilly if she thought there was any way he could convince Eugenie to cook and serve like this.

“Now, that I’d like to see.” And though the comment was light-hearted, there was an underlying sadness to it too. “Be sure to send me a picture postcard of her face when you ask her.”

“Who’s Eugenie?” Dave was on his third serving.

“Our maid—I mean, his maid. His mother’s maid.”

Dave chewed, swallowed, and took another sip of his special tea. It was the second serving of that. “Okay, folks, it’s time.”

Cullen felt uneasy. “Time for what?”

“For you two to spill. How did we get here? What’s the story?”

“Oh, it’s a doozie,” Lilly said. “You sure you’re up for it?”

“Oh yeah.”

She turned to Cullen. “Mind if I tell him?”

“That depends. It’ll be off the record?”

“Brother, I couldn’t write it down if I wanted to at this point.”

His words had an almost pleasant slur, making Cullen think that maybe Dave wouldn’t even remember them in the morning. “Go ahead.” Cullen sat back and listened to the past days unfold through Lilly’s eyes. Her hand fluttered and her inflection adjusted itself to the characters—four in all, including Eugenie, whom she always represented with a dour expression and hunched shoulders. She left nothing out—not her inauspicious arrival, the beach, his mother, or the vision.

Dave’s fingers moved with an invisible pencil.

“Healed? That’s what she said?” And Lilly confirmed it, pantomiming an underline on the table. “And what do you think of that, Moon?”

Dave had been calling him by the familiar moniker all day, and as long as he dropped the “Blue,” Cullen was almost flattered.

“Doesn’t matter what I think. She’s forgotten all about it, so I can too. I guess we’ll never know.”

Lilly slapped the table. “What do you mean ‘we’ll never know’?”

“I mean, under no circumstances am I going to walk onto that field. You know I’ve only gone along with this to humor her. Now I’m off the hook. I took a gamble, and I won.”

“C’mon,” Dave said, cajoling. He pointed to the phone on the wall. “One call to McKechnie, he’s a pal of mine. I once wrote a heartwarming piece about his third baseman without revealing the fact that the guy had five different girlfriends in four different cities. He owes me a favor.”

“No. I started my baseball career with some guy who owed a favor to my father. I’m not visiting that again.”

“But Betty Ruth—what if it comes back to her someday? And she asks you?”

“I’ll tell her we went, and it didn’t work.”

“But that will be a lie.”

“I lie to her every day when she’s in her spells.”

“This seems so much worse,” Lilly said. “This is a lie about God. You can’t do that. You can’t just say God didn’t do something when you haven’t even given Him a chance.”

The band resumed their place on the makeshift stage, and the saxophone let out a long, wailing note. Instantly the floor was packed with people, and this seemed like the last place anyone would talk about the wonders of God.

Dave had been chewing thoughtfully, eyes tracking them like a spectator at a tennis match. At Lilly’s statement he reached for his notebook. “I might just use that …”

“This is not a story,” Cullen insisted.

“But if it was, and Davey here wrote it, you’d have something to show Betty Ruth, in case she remembered again.” They now had to shout over the music.

Dave held up his hands as if projecting a headline. “Maligned Rookie Vet Seeks Second Shot. That has a ring to it.”

“I’m not seeking a second shot.”

“What are you seeking then, Moon?”

“I’m not seeking anything.”

“Oh, brother. I don’t think that’s true.”

Arlene sashayed by at that moment, proving irresistible to Dave, and the two joined the crowd on the floor. Gray hair and paunch aside, he moved as well as any other man out there, and soon he was sharing his prowess with three women.

“I could never do that.”

“Sure you could, Moonsie. It’s just a matter of moving. Come on.”

She took his hand, and there he was, someplace as foreign as if she’d taken him to Mars. The air was thick with smoke, as most of the dancers had a cigarette hanging from their lips, and between that, the heat of the bodies pressed all around, and the feel of Lilly against him, he fought for every breath.

“Like this.” She took his hand and bent her body to his. “Like you’re bowing or something.” He complied. “Now move with me.”

He tried, closing his eyes and listening to the unfamiliar music. She whispered a little “Da-da, da, da” in his ear, an attempt to reinforce the rhythm, but they were doomed. He was moving on borrowed feet at best, and he could feel nothing but the sensation of his scarred cheek pressed against her perfect, smooth one.

“This is silly.” As he spoke, his flesh moved against hers.

“Just give it a try, Moonsie. For me.”

So he redoubled his efforts. After all, when would he have this chance again to hold her this close? In fact, he doubled that too, pulling her body closer to his, until more of him touched more of her. On the stage, the guitar player sang a story about a woman who did him wrong, and he tried to concentrate on the lyrics so he could ignore the thoughts going through his mind.

But as the music went on, more bodies came to the floor, pressing him closer and closer to Lilly. The music turned slow, sensual. Dave had narrowed his attention to Arlene, who was pressed against him like a circus act. Nobody would care—nobody would know—that he and Lilly weren’t doing anything close to dancing. They simply moved, not even room for smoke between them.

He put his lips to her ear. “This has to stop.”

She turned to him, her lips as close as their bodies. “Let’s go outside.”

Somehow, they made their way through the crowd and outside, where the night air had grown cold. A welcome feeling to his overheated body. They touched only in the fact that she held his hand, but within a moment she was pressed up against the side of the shack, pinned there by a body he seemed no longer able to control. Her hands were around his neck, drawing him close.

“No, Lilly.”

“Just give it a try, Moonsie. For me.”

“You don’t want this.”

“How do you know what I want?”

He closed his eyes, summoning the same strength he’d needed when he stood stock-still in a cloud of burning gas. He wouldn’t be responsible for undoing the work that God had done in her life. In her heart. “I don’t want this. Not here. Not with you.”

She smiled. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to. Let’s go to the car.”

From the snatches of conversation he heard, every person they passed had their own idea of where he and Lilly were headed, and his face flushed with their implications. If he heard them, doubtless Lilly did too, though she seemed to take it in stride.

“Backseat,” he ordered, and once she was in, he shut the door.

She rolled down the window and poked her head out. “What’s your plan, Stan?”

“We’ll wait here, until Dave comes to his senses. Then we’ll take our chances on the road.”

“Well, get inside the car. I promise I won’t bite. I just thought you might want to kiss me a little is all.”

“Well, I don’t.” At least not a little. “Get some rest. It’s going to be a long night.”

He got on top of the car’s hood and fixed his eyes on the shack. He could go back and pull Dave away, but his protective instinct prevented him from leaving Lilly alone in the car. So he waited, lying back on the hood, staring at the stars. Bits and pieces of conversation floated around him, the voices as warm and full as the food in his stomach. Every now and then he heard laughter and, always, music.

This would be a perfect time to pray, if he could shut everything else out. He tried, choosing a single star and picturing God behind it, watching him.

I resisted, Lord. Again. But it’s not getting easier. I don’t know what You want from us. From me. But I won’t let us get that close again.

It may have been his imagination, but he could have sworn the star winked at him. Twinkled, he supposed, the way stars do. His mother used to say, “Oh, that’s just a winking sin,” whenever he’d committed a minor transgression. “Sometimes God just watches with one eye.”

So Cullen winked back. After all, they had one more day together.