Another web was in the corner of a high window someone would have to get the ladder out and swipe it down. The dusty leaves of the silk ficus tree in the corner continued to host a spider. The frayed edge of the carpet was still pulled back from the door to the small ministerial office. Faded tracts remained stacked in perfect piles. Nothing had changed inside the foyer in years. Hollis winced as he limped across the threshold. Samuel unlocked the front door of the church and looked in at the once mauve now sun-bleached gray carpet in the narthex. “Didn’t say, but I heard Mabel talking at him in the background. Hollis gripped the rusted iron railing with his left hand, planted his cane, and hitched his hip, lifting his prosthetic leg to the second step.

“Samuel!” Hollis Sawyer limped along the sidewalk of First Street. Reaching over, he picked up the worn black leather Bible lying on the passenger seat. If a decision wasn’t made soon, Samuel was afraid he would live long enough to see a For Sale sign posted on the church property and a Realtor’s lockbox on the front door. The lawn was dying, the roses overgrown, and the birch tree in the courtyard between the church, fellowship hall, and small parsonage had some kind of beetle killing it. One of the high, arched windows was cracked. The paint was chipped, revealing aging gray clapboards. Half a dozen shingles were still missing from the steeple, blown off in the windstorm of ’84.

The old place was like him it had seen better days. Samuel Mason sat parked in his white DeSoto across the street from Centerville Christian Church.

And the shofar blew by francine rivers