Thanks for your letter received on the seventh. We still have tomatoes in plenty, and will indeed save our seeds for your patch. You are a better man than I if you get anything useful from them.

If Henry should ever come to Mitford, he wondered whether he could introduce him as his brother. The thought had presented itself in Ireland, but hadn’t concerned him. Now he was home, and the anxiety had come back. It wouldn’t be so easy with others as it had been with Louella.

He had stopped to adjust the bandanna around his head when he looked up and saw the limo headed north toward Farmer.

Identifying the plate was a lost cause; the car was in the opposite lane and moving fast. He didn’t care for tinted windows, though they had their virtues; he wasn’t even the man for sunglasses. He regretted that he’d gaped like a moron.

The point was, Henry’s bloodline made itself clear even to the casual observer. What would his former parish have to say? And why in God’s name would it matter what was said?

It mattered because the fact of Henry’s existence revealed their father’s duplicity, which was a slap in the face of his mother. Or worse, in his view, was that some may think his mother had been the one for duplicity. Either way, his mother’s memory would bear the brunt, and the fault would rest on his shoulders. He had not let sleeping dogs lie, he had roused them up and they had gone baying.

The Methodist chapel was coming up on his left—he imagined himself resting on the bench in the memorial garden, shaded by a hedge of privet; he saw himself making excuses to Wilson, but no, he couldn’t worm out of this, not with Wilson doing twenty to his three.

The vastly more important thing was that his half-brother now freighted a population of Tim Kavanagh’s stem cells. That his cells would have been a match for Henry’s was given less than a five percent chance, but they matched—an indisputable miracle, according to members of the Memphis medical team. The miracle had kindly extended itself to a successful transfer of his cell soup, which vanquished—for how long, no one knew—the acute myelogenous leukemia.

Clearly, God had given him this particular brother, and his cowardice to fully accept that was shaming.

•   •   •

ESTHER CUNNINGHAM was driving home from the Local with a sack of fingerling potatoes when she saw Father Tim running east on Lilac Road. Now, there was a sight for sore eyes. She threw up her hand, but he didn’t see her. While everything else was changing, there was their retired priest running his legs off, just like he’d done for years. It was a consolation to see somebody doing the same thing over and over again.

Take this bag of potatoes—used to be, as far as she knew, there had been Idahos, Irish, and russet—period. Now there were four thousand types of potatoes, including fingerlings that looked like a bag of noses with warts. You couldn’t just have a potato potato anymore. Avis Packard was over the moon for fingerlings, and here she was, falling for it and paying double. Why hadn’t she resisted such extravagance? She hadn’t resisted because she was too exhausted to resist.

She didn’t know when she’d been stripped so bare, all the way to the bone and down to the marrow. Ruined, as her mother used to say.

Had she seen the doctor about it? Of course not. Why go to a doctor for being exhausted? For having cancer, yes, for ulcerated stomach, yes, go to the bloomin’ doctor, but for worn-out, it was simple—rest, lose forty pounds, walk to the mailbox every day, think positive, breathe deep, eat right, and be regular—just the thought made her want to lie down.

She had confessed this to Ray a few weeks ago. And what wisdom of the ages had he rattled off? ‘It’s the economy, Sugar Babe.’

Yesterday, he rolled out another brilliant observation. ‘It’s our age, Doll Face.’

And now he was going to fix everything, which was what he always did—she knew better than to complain to Ray Cunningham. He would be taking them out West for three months in their Coachman Freelander. ‘This’ll put pep in your step,’ he said. To Ray, a few weeks in that old RV could cure every ailment from ingrown toenails to congestive heart failure.

They would experience the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri, all the way to the Willamette Valley. They would ride in a Conestoga wagon, meet Indians, and sit around smoking a peace pipe, though she would not inhale, no way. How anybody had the gall to smoke a peace pipe with people they had decimated was beyond her. It was a Wild West bonanza Ray had signed up for, and while he was out of his mind with excitement, she was dreading it like a double root canal. How she would endure being cooped up in an RV with his unending torrent of ‘Cupcake’ and ‘Sweet Lips,’ she had no clue. She’d been cooped up with it many times in the past, but that was then and this was now.

Mayoring Mitford for going on two decades had nearly put her under, and even though she served her last term three years ago, she still hadn’t completely recovered. She had been diced, sliced, barbecued, and fried trying to run this town. She’d rather have mayored Chicago, Illinois.

Everybody thought Mitford was just this quaint little village with people runnin’ around prayin’ for each other. So let them try to placate the boobs on the town council, the nitwits in Raleigh, and the sleazy developers from parts unknown. Let them try to keep taxes from escalating, and the merchants from doing exactly as they pleased and thinking they owned the place. Let them keep the Independence Day parade from wandering down side streets everywhichaway, leaving llama poop scattered from one end of town to the other.

And that was just the small stuff. As for the big stuff, how about the moment that deserved to be recorded forever in the history of Mitford, USA?

Just as she’d known it would, the nasty business of the box stores had landed on the council table in ’95.

Whop! The council and the whole bloomin’ town split down the middle like a ripe melon dropped on concrete. Right there was where the cheese got binding, and stayed that way for a full year before it finally came to a vote.

Ray had driven her to the council meeting. She was a basket case. If this thing went through, Mitford was chopped liver; it was every other desperate small town in America, with their acres of asphalt and windowless buildings looming over the struggling enterprises of Main Street.

The votes came in. It was a tie. Ray’s grin lit up the entire back row.

When they called for her vote, she stood and gave it the Big Jack Benny. She looked to her right and she looked to her left. One side of the council was grinning; the Other side was shaking in their boots. They all knew where she stood, they all knew how much she loved this town, and they all knew that a tie and only a tie gave the mayor a vote.

Horace Greene, a Catholic on the Other side, crossed himself in plain view of God and everybody. And she had reared back, squared her shoulders, and lowered the boom on box stores. Nada. No way. Not in this town.

People always said Esther Cunningham was a tough cookie, but no, on too many issues she had been as soft as the inside of a cathead biscuit. If she had it to do over, she would take no prisoners.

And then Vanita Bentley askin’ her, Is Mitford still takin’ care of its own, Miz Cunningham?

No! she wanted to shout. Absolutely not! Why ask such a foolish question? You have two eyes in your head, figure it out. See the trash blowin’ around on Main Street, and th’ plastic bag that’s been snagged on th’ awning of the Woolen Shop since the storm in August? August! And what about th’ candy wrappers an’ chewin’ gum an’ cigarette butts litterin’ the sidewalk an’ the dirty display windows in half the shops? What was the matter with retailers who couldn’t get out there with a broom once in a while, and keep their windows washed so shoppers could see the bloomin’ merchandise? Not to mention Avis Packard and his pile of cigarette butts along the curb at the Local, shame on him. You had to go in and talk to merchants like this was their last day on earth if they didn’t get their act together.