"I looked over at the reverend and knew he didn't sell the cabin because of sick relatives and too many memories. I knew, too, that I'd met destitute men outside of bars down in Greenville, and offered them a ride to the shelter that Faith Ministries operated, but no one took me up because they didn't like having to feign guilt, humility, and obedience for a plate of mashed potatoes and green beans. More than once I'd given a man two dollars and said, 'Don't lie to me about what you'll spend it on. I don't really care. Booze or BLT - it doesn't make a difference.'

"Now, I'm not saying this to prove some kind of martyr thing. I just don't care. If things don't go all that well for you here on the planet, it's probably best to forget. That's all I'm saying, now."

"My wife and I sat there quiet until pure darkness set in, until we couldn't make out bats flitting overhead. We didn't mention money or morality, cause and effect, or luck. We didn't niggle each other to remember a time when our marriage wasn't so secure. I talked myself out of thinking about the times when I insisted on eating nothing but sardines and Slim Jims just to prove how poor I'd grown up.

"I said, 'I don't want to sound holier-than-thou or pessimistic, but I didn't come out feeling so good about sitting in Baiba's office to buy a place without floors or walls from a preacher. Did you see that guy's hair? I don't believe a word he said.'

"Jerilyn put her arm through mine there at the fire and said, 'I smell fish. You need to wash your hands.'

"I nodded. I thought about how there wasn't a place to wash my hands outside of a lake that smelled of fish already. We didn't have a sink yet, of course, much less a hot-air hand dryer. It wasn't the time to bring up disagreements we might have about major appliances, and what we could or couldn't hook up in the cabin, conventional or not.

"Instead, I pointed upward and didn't pretend to distinguish stars, planets, and satellites shining above, or to explain why some are brighter than others."