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Pace found that the writing life agreed with him. He rose each morning at six and began working on his book after he’d had coffee, bread and fruit, usually by seven. He enjoyed imagining what Sailor and Lula’s early life together was like. The main theme, Pace decided, was his parents’ devotion to one another, what could be considered an intuitive spiritual connection. Lula had told Pace many times that she knew Sailor was destined to be her partner for life from the moment she met him, and that she believed Sailor felt the same way about her. “In these modern times,” Pace recalled his mother telling him, “this ain’t so usual.” Pace was ten years old the first time Lula had said this, the night before his daddy was released from prison after having served a decade behind bars for armed robbery during which two men had been shot and killed, one of them Sailor’s accomplice, a person named Bobby Peru, whom Lula referred to as a “black angel.” Sailor had not spoken much to Pace about this period of his incarceration, saying only that the penitentiary where he’d done his time, at Huntsville, Texas, was filled with liars, every inmate claiming to be innocent in one way or another of the crime for which he had been convicted. Pace, who was fifteen at the time, had asked Sailor, “Were you innocent, Daddy?” and Sailor answered, “No, son, I was both guilty and a liar. Don’t ever blame your troubles on anyone but yourself, and don’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for help when you really need it. There’ll come a day you will.”