A Man, A Plan, A Canal; Panama
an excerpt

The sound of fiddle music filtered out of the barn at the back of the McEver’s property. The building was lit with several lanterns hung throughout, and I could smell how the pine boards that made up the barn floor had been scrubbed down for the party, and just masked the scent of horse manure. When we entered the barn, several cries went up.

St. Thomas was greeted by six or seven people who asked after his state and his mother’s health and he answered them all with a sober manner, but underneath I could see the change in his countenance from the man he had been forced to be at the store. I saw, for the first time in two days, a glimpse of the smartass boy that threw firecrackers into the fish pond to see if the fish would eat them and explode. That made me relax somewhat. I had just turned to greet some of the kids I knew from years of attending school together when I saw Ginny sidle up to St. Thomas, tugging her sister along with her.

“We’re sorry about your father, St. Thomas,” Ginny said, and I watched as she slipped an arm around his waist and placed her head on his shoulder. “I know you must be distraught.”

“Well-” he said and flushed red. “I’m dealing with it the best I can, I guess. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

“Blessed be the name of the Lord,” Ginny finished. She lifted her head off St. Thomas’s shoulder to look at me, but did not step away from him. I noticed that he had put his arm around her, as well. “So will you be working at the store now, too, Jack?”

“No. I was just filling in for the day. St. Thomas needed an extra pair of hands.”

“That was awfully nice of you,” Lydia said, entering the conversation for the first time. She traced a finger up my arm, starting at my elbow, to where the black silk mourning band was still pinned to my shirtsleeve. “Are you in mourning, too?”

I glanced at St. Thomas, unsure of how to answer her and hoping he would give me some kind of clue, but the bastard just wiggled his eyebrows at me and then turned to walk away with Ginny still clinging to him.

“I’m not in mourning, exactly,” I said. “I wore it to the store today so that people would know that Mr. Moore had died and that we were trying to pay our respects to him. I just forgot to take it off, I guess.”

“Well, I think that’s sweet,” said Lydia. “But if you’re not in mourning you can dance with me.”