Chapter Ten

ten

All day it had rained, the sort of warm, prattling rain that urges the hand to reach for a third cup of coffee, the gaze to linger on a second slice of pie. At ten past four, Lucy Kimmeldorf had just shooed the last customer out and flipped the COME ON IN! sign over to SORRY WE MISSED YOU!, when she heard the sharp rap of a woman’s knuckles on the glass. Men didn’t use their knuckles; they tended to thump with a fist, which made a deeper sound, more like a roughly cleared throat. In either case, the key was simply not to look up. SORRY WE MISSED YOU! meant just that, and so Lucy continued moving from table to table, loading the little cloverleafs of ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, and vinegar onto the tray she balanced neatly on her good shoulder. There were twenty-one tables in all, and by the time she’d cleared each one, stored the condiments in the fridge out back, and mopped the counters with the same damp rag she’d used on the tables, she figured it was safe to sneak a peek.

Janey Fields had her nose pushed to the glass. When she saw that Lucy had seen her, she rapped again, until Lucy could feel the hard surface against her own red knuckles. Gosh darn it. She unlocked the door, opened it an inch, braced it that way with the toe of her crutch. “I’m closed,” she said, politely but firmly. It was, after all, a Sunday afternoon. Her busboy had called in sick, her waitress had begged off early, and Joe was still home with bronchitis. She’d be finishing up late enough as it was.

Janey’s expression did not change. Her deep-set eyes were shining with infinite patience. The last time she’d come to the café after hours, she’d been collecting money for the white stone angel that now marked the spot where Gabriel Carpenter had been found. Lucy had forked over five dollars, not realizing Joe had already given twenty to another Faith member just that morning. Twenty bucks! But that was Joe, a good man, a kind soul, the sort of person who believed in a God who sent angels to rescue the weak, the innocent, the deserving. Lucy herself wasn’t so sure—it seemed to her that God mostly favored powerful men like Himself, not to mention their sons. Take Paul Zuggenhagen and Randy Hale, for example. Both had had Chicago lawyers. Neither would serve a single day behind bars for what they’d done.

“If you want a whole cake,” she told Janey reluctantly, “I suppose I could box one for you.”

“I don’t want anything to eat. I just want a minute of your time.”

It was just as Lucy had suspected. Once, Janey had put her hand on Lucy’s twisted shoulder and told her God could straighten her spine like a ribbon—that was the expression she’d used—if only Lucy would believe He could do so. “That poor girl,” Joe had said afterward. “Anyone can see that she has a troubled mind.” But things were going better for Janey now—she’d found work at the Badger State Mall and gotten engaged to Danny Hope. The two were planning an August wedding. Lucy saw no reason to humor her. “Sorry,” she said, and she bumped the door closed, locked it, and lowered the shade.

That was the thing she most disliked about pious types like Janey. Regardless of professed philosophy, regardless of liberal or conservative leanings, they fixed their eye on anyone or anything showing signs of irregularity, variety, difference. Mystery was intolerable. Things had to happen for a reason. One couldn’t view Lucy’s childhood bout with polio as simply that—it must mean something, it must stand for something, and Lucy herself must be treated as a symbol. How often people like Janey took it upon themselves to assume disability weighed on her mind the way it apparently weighed on theirs. Sometimes, in the restaurant, strangers would say things like “You must be very brave,” or “You must be a courageous person,” as she served their meals, her right hand busy with her crutch, her left steadying the tray on her shoulder. No one who truly knew Lucy Kimmeldorf would have thought to say such a patronizing thing. If she was remarkable, it was because she’d had the gumption to start a business of her own in 1962, a time when a married woman, a mother, rarely did such a thing. It was because she’d gone back to school for a business degree when she was forty-five. It was because she’d run for City Council at fifty and won—the first woman to be elected. The only woman, still, out of five council members.

She closed out the register, enjoying the racket of the adding machine, the clean white coil of paper. Another good day. Regardless of what she might think of the shrine personally, everybody on Main Street was enjoying effects that some were calling, well, miraculous. The river angel story had put Ambient, Wisconsin, on the map, and after ten years of painful, wasting decline, the downtown was holding its own. People—only the papers called them pilgrims—came to Ambient from places no one could have imagined. They were mostly curiosity seekers, the sort who would drive fifty miles out of their way to see, say, a plane crash site, or the birthplace of a movie star. After visiting the shrine, they usually continued on to someplace else, cars and trucks and Winnebagos loaded with kids, coolers, bicycles, dogs. But they spent the day in town, poking around the shops, picnicking in Cradle Park. Some visited the Crane Foundation, where wounded birds were nursed back to health, or the Kauths’ llama farm, which advertised daily tours, or the railroad museum on Main. Others fished, or rented canoes, or explored the antique shops, not knowing they were little more than rummage sales that people kept going year round.

Local merchants like Lucy finally had an edge over the chains at the Solomon strip: What these pilgrims wanted was a glimpse of local color, a slow walk through a quaint river town, a quiet afternoon with family that ended with an old-fashioned meal at a ma-and-pa restaurant exactly like Kimmeldorf’s Café. Early in May, Lucy had whipped up a new recipe called Angel Pie, which came with a tiny plastic angel on the top. It was big with kids—lots of meringue and sugary sprinkle on what was, basically, banana custard. Next door, Cheddarheads was selling angel T-shirts that said I BELIEVE! on the front and CHEDDARHEADS GIFTS—AMBIENT, WISCONSIN on the back. The River Stop sold the same angel charms that the Circle of Faith gave away free, plus angel key chains and music boxes and bottles of river water, angel candleholders and Christmas tree ornaments, angel picture frames and angel wind chimes and even bumper stickers that boasted THIS CAR PROTECTED BY THE RIVER ANGEL. Stan and Lorna Pranke, after briefly putting their house up for sale, changed their minds and opened a novelty shop called Angels Everywhere in their two front rooms. Now they sold angel watches and ties and underwear, angel birdbaths and stepping-stones, angels to mount on your dashboard or desk, even little guardian angel charms that could be attached to a cherished pet’s collar. Not to be outdone, Ambient Blooms advertised a special arrangement called A Band of Angels, and Jeep Curry had invented a new drink, Angel Tonic (Guaranteed to Make a Believer out of You!).

Even Big Roly Schmitt had an angel in his window; Lucy had asked him, pleasantly enough, if it wasn’t the angel of death. During those rare moments when Lucy believed in a deity, she hoped a special hell had been reserved for Big Roly, who had single-handedly laid the groundwork for the big chains like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s to move in. Of course, there’d been other developers involved, but Big Roly wasn’t some newcomer out to make a few bucks off strangers. Big Roly had been in Lucy’s own graduating class at Ambient High. Who would have guessed that fat, shy, funny-looking little boy would grow up to be such a bastard? All fall he’d been looking for loopholes in a city ordinance that restricted buildings to two stories; at the last council meeting, he’d won a petition to build three-story single-family residences. Such a structure was completely out of character with the rest of Ambient—it would make existing homes look dowdy, impact on property values, drive taxes up and the little ranch home owners out. Lucy had leaned over and said to Jeep Curry, without bothering to cover her mike, that Big Roly was no better than a cannibal, picking his teeth with Ambient’s bones. The quote made the Tri-City Weekly; Marv Weissbrot, the publisher, chaired the Ambient Preservation Committee. The caption beneath Big Roly’s jowly picture read: “Schmitt Denies Cannibalism.”

Lucy locked the register, checked the burners, and stepped outside into the drizzle. Exhaust from the bridge traffic sweetened the air, and she felt the dampness settle in her hip. She locked the door and headed toward her car, but after a block she paused to rest, pretending to look into the darkened window of what had once been Fohr’s Furniture. Sometimes she still experienced an odd weakness in her left leg, and this seemed to be getting a little bit worse each year.

“You OK?” Joe would say anxiously as she struggled to get up out of a chair, and she’d say, “Nothing’s wrong with me that one of those Carnival Cruises wouldn’t cure.” Surely some tiredness, some aches and pains in her back and shoulders, were normal enough. After all, she was fifty-six years old; she worked fifty-hour weeks in a body that had carried, then raised, three boys to manhood. She glanced at her reflection in the display window and discovered Janey Fields’ ghostly outline standing right beside her.

“I really need to talk with you,” Janey said.

Lucy jumped like a cat. Her crutch skidded out from under her; she barely managed to keep from falling. “Do you always sneak up on people like that?” She turned down the alley toward the municipal parking lot, but Janey followed, just a few steps behind, and Lucy could feel how she was looking at her leg, the brace that gripped it just below the knee, the way her shoulder bobbed as she walked. Dear God, she thought, she’s going to tell me Jesus wants to heal me, and I’m going to beat her to death with this crutch. There were two vehicles left in the parking lot; Lucy’s was the world-weary Econoline. She got in, shut the door, vigorously turned the key.

The engine wouldn’t catch.

She tried again, then again. The click-click that resulted sounded like dropped change. Janey stood at the edge of the alley, watching. To her credit, she didn’t look smug when Lucy got out of the van.

“This is me right here,” Janey said, pointing to the other vehicle, a shiny new Buick. Her dad had been a doctor—none of the Fields kids had ever lacked for anything. “I can give you a ride.”

“Thanks, I’ll just call Joe.” But she hated to do it. He’d been sick off and on since spring: colds, flu, now this stubborn bout of bronchitis. Ironic, considering all the vitamins he’d been taking, the special supplements and powders he bought at the health food store at the mall. Beeswax. Shark cartilage. Ginseng. She suspected he’d carry a charm against the evil eye if he knew where to find one. This morning, once again, she’d left him flushed and feverish in front of the TV.

“Don’t you find,” Janey said, “that sometimes things happen for a reason? Like, maybe you’re meant to listen to me, whether you want to or not?”

And at that moment, the sniveling sky opened up and released an all-out downpouring rain. What could Lucy do except follow Janey to her car? “You wanted a minute, you got it,” she said, and then, steeling herself to hear about Christ’s infinite love, she checked her watch. “Go.”

“Big Roly Schmitt’s buying Ruthie Mader’s farm, and I’ll tell you what—he’s planning condominiums bigger than the Taj Mahal.” Janey spit it all out in one breath, like a child.

Lucy stared. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“She’s double mortgaged and she owes back taxes and now Cherish has turned herself around and plans to go to college and Ruthie doesn’t even have a savings account—she just doesn’t know what else to do. He says he’ll pay her moving expenses and handle everything for her, even give her a break on one of his apartments in Solomon.”

No wonder Big Roly had been so concerned about rezoning. Lucy could imagine those condos already, three-story brick monstrosities with circular driveways, towering glass windows glaring at the town like demonic eyes. And all that river frontage built up with boat docks, fenced off and privatized. And all those people wanting their conveniences. And the Fair Mile Crossroads just down the road. Within two years, it would be another Solomon strip, the fields sown with golden arches and giant doughnuts, video stores and liquor stores, grocery stores and banks.

“Has she signed anything?”

“Not yet,” Janey said. “You’re on the City Council, and I know Ruthie would never ask herself, but I just thought maybe you could do something…”

“Well…” Lucy was already thinking in that direction.

“Maya Paluski says the city can control anything within a mile of its limits.”

“A mile and a half. It’s called eminent domain. The council can legally block development if it will adversely affect the city. That’s certainly one possibility.”

“It isn’t, though, not really,” Janey said. “Because if Big Roly doesn’t buy it, the bank will foreclose.”

“Then why deal with a big developer like Schmitt? Get an honest broker to find some city couple who want a twenty-acre parcel for a single-family home. Ruthie could pay down her debts, keep the land around the house and…barn.” She could not bring herself to say shrine.

“The house sits on the high ground. Big Roly says anybody wanting to build closer to the river wouldn’t get a mortgage because it’s in the floodplain.”

He was probably right.

Janey said, “I can’t accept it’s God’s will for Ruthie to lose that farm—not now, after everything that’s happened. One lady from Prairie du Chien, they thought she had this tumor in her brain? And when she got back home from the shrine, the doctor couldn’t find any trace—”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Lucy said quickly.

“Just don’t tell Ruthie I told you, OK?” She clutched at the gold cross all the Faith members wore. “We’re not supposed to repeat anything we talk about at the Faith house.” She looked at Lucy with such anguish that Lucy wanted to smooth back her hair, the way she would have done with an overwrought child. And yet Janey was a grown woman. An engagement ring sparkled on her finger, and not for the first time. She’d had female trou bles, or so the story went, until the day she’d rescued Gabriel Carpenter from a group of taunting boys. Lucy herself had rescued Gabriel once, but he’d seemed like an ordinary kid to her, grubby the way her own sons had been grubby, alternately friendly and shy. He said he’d been saved, but so did half the kids in Ambient. The only thing remarkable about him had been his appetite. And now, of course, the fact that he was gone. It was likely that no one would ever know what had really happened on the highway bridge, how he’d reached the barn despite the cold. It was one of those things. A mystery. Perhaps, if one needed an explanation, the river angel story was a good as any.

“You did the right thing,” Lucy assured her. “Now I’d sure appreciate that ride home before Joe starts to worry.”

“Let’s try your van one more time,” Janey said. “Maybe it was flooded.”

“I didn’t smell gas.”

“Give me your key,” Janey said, and Lucy followed her back across the parking lot. Janey turned the ignition key, then depressed the accelerator, held it to the floor. “Don’t wear down my starter,” Lucy said anxiously, but even as she spoke, the van roared to life.

“Burns off the gas,” Janey said. “I guess I could have showed you that trick a little sooner.” She grinned so sheepishly that Lucy had to smile back.

It was well after six by the time she pulled into her driveway. Sunday nights, she and Joe watched 60 Minutes together, pretending they weren’t remembering a time when the kids would be sprawled on the floor between them, wriggling like eels in their striped pajamas. Now Mike was in southern Illinois; Charles was in Indiana; Preston was in New York City. If there was one thing that Lucy could not forgive the Big Rolys of the world for, it was this: Her children had had no choice but to move away. What else could they do? Lucy had a brand-new baby granddaughter she still hadn’t seen; she’d met Charles’s wife only twice. Perhaps it was this sense of isolation that was weighing on Joe lately. Nights, she smelled his worry like a film of perspiration, salty and strong; in the morning, the odor lingered in the bedsheets, clung to his clothing, his favorite chair. He double-checked doors and windows to make sure they were locked. More than once, on their way to work in the morning, they’d had to turn around because Joe was convinced a burner was on. He’d point at a freckle on his arm, a mole on his chest—had it always looked this way? Was she certain? He watched her as she moved around the café, and if she happened to slip a bit, his caught breath whistled between his teeth.

“That leg bothering you?” he’d say. “You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine, Joe,” she’d say, even though the honest truth was that she was, well, tired. Perhaps they should just sell the restaurant, move down to Florida like so many of their friends seemed to be doing. Perhaps she should leave Big Roly in peace—after all, who could be certain that Ruthie wouldn’t be better off in Solomon? Let the shrine and all its hysteria die down, let people get on with their lives. Let the Circle of Faith return to its clothing drives and fund-raisers, its oh-so-secret meetings at the Crossroads. But what would happen to the downtown without the lure of the shrine? What would make Ambient stand out from every other little town on the Onion River, jostling for exposure in the state’s tourist brochures, desperate for outside money?

There were those who said the shrine was deeply moving. Stan Pranke visited it nearly every morning, often stopping by the café afterward to hand out Angels Everywhere business cards. He was only one of many who claimed to have felt the presence of the angel at the shrine from time to time. Others had been granted special favors: an easy labor, a message from a lost loved one, recovery from an illness. Smokers left cigarettes wrapped in dollar bills; those who kicked the habit took out personal ads in the Ambient Weekly, crediting the shrine and leaving instructions for others who wanted to quit. Letters to the editor from out-of-town guests praised its rustic beauty. Of course, there were plenty who claimed it was the tackiest thing they’d ever seen—a mile of white Christmas lights wrapped around a barn that still stank of sheep, a three-foot white stone angel beneath a rough white wooden cross. Still, a Church investigation was in progress. Church buses representing various denominations groaned into town on weekends, coughing black clouds of exhaust. A sociologist from some Florida university was interviewing everyone who had seen or heard or experienced something unusual on the night of Gabriel’s fall. A New England woman writing a book on angels had taken a room at the newly remodeled Moonwink-Best Western, and she could be seen in the railroad museum, squinting at old letters and newspaper clippings.

Lucy let herself into the house, hung up her jacket and purse. Joe had made a split-pea soup, and she ladled some into a bowl, cut herself a slice of bread to go with it, all the while thinking, thinking. What if the council could establish the city’s interest in the shrine’s preservation? The farm would be kept from development, yes; still, that wouldn’t solve the problem of Ruthie’s debt. Selling off acreage was clearly the solution, but a specialized buyer would be required, someone who wanted that river frontage for fishing, for boating—

—for a new city park! Lucy closed the bread drawer with a gleeful slam, imagining the look on Big Roly’s face as the city snatched that land out from under him. It would take some fancy footwork, sure, but they’d been having the same discussions regarding recreational space since she’d first been elected. Cradle Park was jammed all summer long, and there were no bike trails or walking paths, no public boat ramp anywhere along the river aside from the one by the Killsnake Dam—where there were less than a dozen parking spots, thanks to the millpond crowd. Everyone wanted another park. Of course, no one, least of all the taxpayers, wanted to foot the bill. But in order to save the house and barn, Ruthie might be convinced to set a price the city couldn’t afford to refuse. And as for the rest of the land—it would almost be like she still owned it. The only significant development would be along the water, and that would be—what?—a boat ramp, picnic tables, rest rooms, some parking. Swings for the kiddies. Maybe sand for a beach.

“Lucy, that you?” Joe called from the living room, and she hollered back, as she always did, “It better be.” He was on the couch, watching Ed Bradley, the bedroom comforter pulled up to his chin. Wadded-up tissues littered the coffee table, and the air smelled of cherry cough syrup. “I was starting to worry,” he said as Lucy sat down beside him with her soup.

“You always worry,” she said. “Guess what?”

“Narrow the topic.”

“Big Roly Schmitt.”

Joe groaned. “What now?”

“He’s made Ruthie Mader an offer on her property.”

“The shrine? What would he do, charge admission?”

“Better still,” Lucy said. “Build monster condos on top of it.”

Joe shook his head. “She would never sell that property.”

“She’s in debt, Joe. She may not have a choice.”

He looked at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope.”

“I would hope,” he said, his voice shaking a little, “that the city will do what it can to protect the shrine from development.”

It surprised her to see that he was upset; she was the one who despised Big Roly. “I’m looking into it, Joe,” she said. “Soon as I finish this soup, in fact.” But when she stood up, her foot landed shy of where she wanted it, catching the leg of the coffee table. She crashed back down into the sofa cushions. The soup bowl rolled across the carpet.

“Lucy!”

“I just tripped, Joe, for Pete’s sake.”

“You don’t think that leg’s getting worse?”

“Maybe you’d get better if you quit worrying over every little damn thing.”

“You’re not a little damn thing. You’re a big damn thing.”

Lucy didn’t smile.

“I’m sorry,” Joe said, and he rested his hot, hot forehead against her cheek. “I just wish I could lay my hands on you and make everything right.”

There was something about that that Lucy didn’t like. God will straighten your spine like a ribbon. The earnest pity in Janey’s face.

“Make yourself right, Joe,” Lucy said. “You’re the one who’s sick.” And she got up without mishap and walked briskly to the kitchen to phone Jeep Curry for his opinion, and then Leland Kramer, the city planner.

The next morning, first thing, Leland stopped by the restaurant. The survey looked promising; he wanted to take a personal look. “Let me talk to Ruthie first,” Lucy said. “In the meantime, keep this under your hat.”

“Gee, Lucy, I was planning to drop in on Big Roly as soon as I left here.” He laughed wickedly. “This sure’ll get him huffing and puffing, won’t it?”

“I do hope so,” Lucy said.

Joe was still out sick, so late that afternoon she turned the restaurant over to her wait staff and headed toward Ruthie’s by way of the River Road, which was prettier than County C. After days of rain, the sun had warmed the temperature to a breezy seventy. The corn and wheat and soybeans were up; the River Road Apple Orchard was in full bloom, humming with bees. Perhaps the good weather would give her some pep. Perhaps she and Joe would get out a little more, drive to Madison for a nice dinner, see a movie at the mall. At the J road, she headed east, crossing over the highway bridge. A white memorial cross had been erected there, along with a small wooden sign in the shape of an arrow, which said SHRINE. There were plastic wreaths, small American flags; even—good heavens!—a picture of the Pope, sealed inside a plastic bag. Different strokes, Lucy reminded herself, but the older she got, the less patience she had with this kind of thing. Joe was just the opposite. He’d started going to Mass again; nights he couldn’t sleep, he prayed the Rosary. He’d even mentioned once or twice that they ought to take a ride out to the shrine, see what the fuss was about. Lucy just laughed and said that with all the talk around the café, she felt as if she’d already seen it.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Joe had said. “It’s not every day somebody sees an angel.”

“Jeez, Joe, not you too!”

“All I’m saying is there are things in the world that can’t be explained. Things beyond our five senses.”

“That’s why we each have a sixth sense,” Lucy said. “Common sense. And in case you haven’t noticed, Ruthie Mader doesn’t seem to have too much of that one. I swear, every time she comes into the café, she’s back two hours later, looking for her purse.”

Lucy hadn’t been out to the Mader farm since last fall, when she and Joe had picked out Halloween pumpkins at Ruthie’s unattended crop stand. You selected whatever you wanted from the piles of pumpkins and gourds, the various squashes laid out in rows, jars of preserves and strings of dried fruit. Then you paid on the honor system. There wasn’t even a lock on the cash box. Joe had thought it was sweet and old-fashioned.

“More like ridiculous,” Lucy said.

Now the crop stand looked as if someone had backed into it, and she was shocked by how run-down the whole place looked in general. The concrete birdbath in the apple orchard had tipped, cracked in two, and the tall pole that once held a purple-martin house was stretched out on its side. Scraps of aluminum foil, paper napkins, fast-food wrappers, and soda cans littered the courtyard, which was fenced in by a string of bright-yellow plastic flags; a new-looking wooden sign hammered to the side of the shed read PLEASE PARK ON GRAVEL SURFACES ONLY. No one was parked anywhere right now, but clearly people had been parking wherever they pleased: beneath the apple trees, carving ruts that exposed the tender roots; on what was left of the sloping front lawn; even beside the barn itself, gouging the wood with their bumpers. A second, more weathered-looking sign beneath the first read RIVER ANGEL SHRINE, with an arrow beneath it pointing to the barn. A third sign, mounted beside the sidewalk leading up to the house, read PRIVATE RESIDENCE. NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS. A yellow angel was painted on each of the signs, and all the O’s had tiny halos—Lucy recognized Maya Paluski’s artistic hand.

She parked, fished her crutch from the back seat. The sun was crawling to the edge of the horizon, pulling the day’s warmth along with it. Swallows and nighthawks wheeled above the barn; a yellow star blinked over the door. Ruthie emerged from beneath it, carrying a garbage bag in one hand.

“Hello?” Lucy called.

Ruthie squinted, didn’t answer. Behind her, the fields sloped black and wet until they reached the diamond sparkle of the river. Lucy took a step forward and saw the precise moment Ruthie recognized her—not by her face. By her crutch.

“Lucy! I’m sorry, I just get so many visitors—”

“So it seems,” Lucy said, gesturing at the signs. “I can’t believe what they’ve done to the place.”

“We set out trash cans just last week, and look—they’ve already disappeared. It’s amazing what people will take as souvenirs. They’ve picked all my flowers by the house.” Lucy could see the bald iris bed, the blind peonies and tiger lilies. “There’s a rumor they’re good for the sick.”

“And the price is right, besides.”

Ruthie laughed. “I suppose that’s part of it,” she said. “So. You’ve finally come to see the shrine.”

“Actually…” Lucy said—but then she paused. It wouldn’t do to offend Ruthie now. “Well, yes. But I came to see you too.”

“We’ll go in together, then,” Ruthie said. “I need to finish cleaning up.”

At first, it was exactly what Lucy had expected. Nailed to the door was a basket filled with tiny gold angel pendants; the sturdy wooden box just below was marked DONATIONS. Lucy noted that, this time, the cash was protected by a padlock. But stepping inside the barn was like entering another world. Christmas lights outlined the beams, creating a box of light into which she felt her way blindly, unable to see the dark floor. On the wall behind the white stone angel, a rough cross opened its arms in a way that made Lucy think of a woman down on one knee to embrace a child. Half-burned votive candles were lined up at the statue’s base, a dozen flames flickering sleepily on a flat sheet of aluminum, which was enclosed by a rough brick firewall. As Ruthie bent to replace the burned-out candles, Lucy noticed—with relief—a fire extinguisher mounted in a case. The walls were covered with signatures, and some people had even carved their initials into the wood. Others had pinned up photographs, mementos, cigarettes wrapped in dollar bills. Lucy plucked one down, unrolled the dollar, and read the note inside: Please help my dad quit smoking, it is killing him, I promise twenty dollars if he quit. There were two sets of shelves built into the walls, and these were filled with dried Band of Angels bouquets, plastic flowers, wildflowers in cloudy jars of water, dolls and toys and lockets of hair tied with ribbon, letters, small china statues. A child’s mitten. A man’s dapper hat. A glass paperweight filled with snow.

“So many things,” Lucy said, and she sat in a folding chair: There were several scattered along the walls, along with an old couch and parlor chair. Someone had left a wrist brace; someone else had left a cane. A woman’s pretty scarf was draped from a low beam. It was peaceful here, she had to admit, with the swallows preparing for nightfall, the bubbling coo of pigeons in the silo, the breath of the wind on the walls. And then, the sound of voices—

—it was a family: two little girls, a father and mother. The mother led a small white dog on a leash. The dog started to bark at the shadows cast by the candles, a shrill, high-pitched barking that set Lucy’s teeth on edge.

“Lookit the angel!” the older girl said.

“Stand back from the candles, honey,” the man said.

“Shh!” The woman scooped up the dog and rocked it like a child.

“We’re from Dodgeville,” the man said in a loud, tourist voice. “Are you the lady who saw the angel?”

Ruthie nodded.

“Well, we believe you anyway,” the woman said. “I saw an angel myself when I was, I don’t know, eight or nine?” She sat down in one of the folding chairs, still holding the dog in her arms.

“You said you were six, the last time you told it,” the man said, grinning. “She changes the story every time.”

The woman ignored him. “Every morning, I had to lead our cows out to pasture, and then I’d fetch them back at the end of the day. The path wound through a stand of trees, and Lord, was I ever scared of that place! A woman was supposed to have hung herself there, but my mother said that was only a story.”

“And you girls think you have it tough.” The man poked the younger one lightly in the belly. The girls giggled and leaned against their mother, who kept on talking. The little dog had closed its eyes.

“One afternoon, it started to snow, and by four-thirty it was dark as night. I just started to cry at the thought of going out there alone. But my mother said that if I was that scared, I should ask God to send my guardian angel to walk with me. And wouldn’t you know, when I got to the stand of trees, a little girl was waiting for me. She was about my age, and she was wearing some kind of fur coat, and when she saw me, she smiled and started walking. She never spoke, just looked back now and then to make sure I was keeping up OK. She walked with me every evening after that, until spring came and the days were long again. I never saw her after that.”

It was the sort of story Joe loved. Joe. That scarf caught Lucy’s eye again. It was red, with a pattern of elephants marching trunk to tail, just like one she had at home. She got up and tugged it down from the beam, and as she turned it over in her hands, she saw the oil crease where she’d accidentally slammed it into the car door. Still, it took her a moment before she understood.

She wound the scarf around her neck and hurried out of the barn. The sun was setting over the river. Bats flashed through the air, dived at the yellow star above the barn door like hard-thrown stones.

God will straighten your spine like a ribbon.

She walked up to the porch, sat down on the step. From the time they’d started dating, Joe had insisted she was beautiful to him, that she was exactly what he wanted. On their wedding night, she’d been shy until he’d finally pulled the sheet away, revealed her naked and shivering and trying to cover herself with her hands. “You’re one of a kind, that’s all,” he’d said, and at last she’d unfolded her arms. During the thirty-three years they’d been married, he’d always claimed to love her exactly as she was. But now she knew the truth. He saw her as something broken, something that needed to be fixed. He saw her the way any stranger would, walking into the café. Everything they’d shared, everything she’d accomplished, hadn’t made any difference. And at that moment, Lucy knew that a particular tenderness between them had been lost for good. She might forgive him, over time, but she’d never be able to forget.

When Ruthie came out of the barn, Lucy stayed motionless in the twilight, wishing she could just slip away. But Ruthie carried the trash bag across the courtyard, headed straight up the sidewalk toward the house. “Oh—there you are,” she said. “I’m sorry, I just got so completely caught up in that woman’s story. It’s amazing how often people are moved to share experiences like that.”

“And you believe them.” Lucy found she didn’t have the energy to form a question.

“I believe that even the most ordinary people regularly experience extraordinary things.” Ruthie tossed the bag up onto the porch and sat beside Lucy on the step. “It’s just that these experiences are no longer valued, or trusted. So we hide them. We keep them to ourselves.”

“Maybe it’s better that way,” Lucy said. “Sometimes we’re mistaken about things, and when that happens, we wind up misleading others. Hurting others.”

“All we can do is be true to what we believe,” Ruthie said. “At least, that’s what my daughter tells me.”

“How is Cherish?” Lucy said, changing the subject. She thought of the frightened child she’d led from her father’s funeral so long ago.

Ruthie sighed. “All those times she was sneaking out to cause mischief, I thought she was home studying. But now that she’s really studying all the time, I wish she’d go out with friends.”

“I hear she’s working at the library.”

“She’s going to Eau Claire this fall. She wants to major in English. English. I always thought it would be art.” Ruthie looked hard at Lucy. “You’ve been to school,” she said. “College, I mean. Did it change you? All the ideas you read in books?”

“Sure,” Lucy said. “That’s why you read them. To open your mind.”

Ruthie sighed. “Cherish won’t go to church anymore. She says she’s an atheist—can you imagine?”

“I suppose I am too. Agnostic anyway. Not like Joe.” She fingered her scarf, tried to sound casual. “Does he come here a lot?”

“I haven’t seen him recently.”

“That’s because he has bronchitis. No doubt from sitting in a drafty old barn.” She’d meant it to come off as a joke, but her voice was so bitter that it was hard to recognize as her own. The family emerged from the barn. There was the clear, clean sound of coins against the bottom of the donation box.

“Look. I have to be straight with you—I didn’t come to see the shrine. I’m here because there’s a rumor you’re selling out to Big Roly Schmitt.”

“How did you find out about this?” Ruthie said, and then she put her head in her hands. “No, don’t tell me,” she said through her fingers. “At this point, it doesn’t matter, I guess.”

“Have you signed anything?”

Ruthie shook her head, and suddenly Lucy felt ashamed. It wasn’t Ruthie’s fault about Joe.

“Tell me something,” Lucy said. “Do you really want him to have this property?”

“I’ll tell you exactly what I want,” Ruthie said. “I want to pay off my debts and send my daughter to school. I want to live in this house and maintain the shrine for as long as people feel the need to see it. Tom and I worked hard for this farm, so hard—” Her voice broke. She reached inside the neck of her sweater, fingered the cross at her throat as if the answers to everything were contained inside it. “I’ve done all that I can do.”

“Then let me tell you what I want,” Lucy said. “I want to keep this town alive. As a town—not a suburb or a strip mall. With a Main Street people can walk to. With the sort of character that makes our kids want to stay after they’re grown and our parents remain once they retire. A place where people feel safe because it has a center, a soul, and we’ve lost that somehow. We’ve lost each other. We need to find ourselves back again.” She thought of Joe, his vitamins and prayers. His fear. “I’ll be straight with you—I don’t believe in the shrine the way it seems my husband does. But I believe in what it means for the city. I want to protect it if I can.”

“What can you do?” Ruthie said wearily.

“Did you know the city is looking to purchase riverfront land for a public park?”

Ruthie stared at her. “No,” she said. “I don’t keep up with the papers much.”

“It’s not in the papers—yet,” Lucy said. “Here’s what I was thinking. I’d like to have the city planner come out and take a look. If the parcel looks good, we can make a proposal to the general council. But I have to tell you, it’s a long shot. The council might not go for it—not everybody thinks as I do. Or they could kick it to a referendum, in which case the voters could kill it. And I should tell you the city probably won’t pay you what Schmitt can.”

“I don’t care about profit,” Ruthie said. “This is the miracle I’ve prayed for.”

“There’s no such thing as miracles,” Lucy said. “There’s good luck and bad luck, and we’re going to need plenty of the first kind to make this happen.”

“No doubt Cherish would agree with your vision of things,” Ruthie said. “But you and I—we’ll have to agree to disagree if we’re going to work together.” She took Lucy’s hand like a sister. “Now tell me,” she said. “What do you need from me? What can I do to help?”

It was dark by the time Lucy got back home. Joe opened the door as she pulled in the driveway, waited for her as she came up the walk. “I finally called the restaurant,” he said, “and they said you’d left hours ago. I was this close to calling Mel Rooney—” But before he could say anything more, she unwound the scarf from her neck, balled it up, and hurled it at him like a bomb. Then she stormed down the hall to their room, slammed the door so hard it bounced back open, slammed it again. The minute Joe appeared, she shouted, “What the hell did you think you were doing, Joe? I’m not good enough for you the way that I am?”

Joe opened his mouth, closed it. “I don’t see what you’re mad about,” he finally said. “I thought that this might help. It can’t hurt anyway.”

She threw her crutch across the room, balanced herself against the bedpost. “This is the package I come in. You don’t like it, you shouldn’t have married it. You don’t want it anymore, divorce it.”

“Lucy.”

“You said it didn’t matter to you!”

“They say it helps people quit smoking. They say somebody’s cancer went away. What’s wrong with having a little faith?”

She stared at him as if he were someone she’d never seen before.

“You said it didn’t matter, Joe,” she said. “All these years.”

“You’re blowing this out of proportion. You know how I feel about you.”

“And how’s that, Joe?”

She could see him choosing his words as if both their lives depended on it. The room seemed to hold its breath. The faces of their children and grandchildren watched them from the dresser, from the top of the TV, from the wall above the bed.