top of that. So for the ride home, he decided to swallow the way he felt about the whole thing and go with Church Lady. She talked ninety miles an hour at the same time she drove about thirty, which made him wonder why her words weren’t already ten miles down the road.
“So how are you feeling?” Church Lady asked in a voice so chipper she made Alvin the Chipmunk sound like Hannibal Lecter. “Any pain? Did you take the Percocet the doctor gave you? They always give Percocet. I know men think they should just endure the pain, but if the doctor prescribes it, you simply must take it.”
“I don’t need any pain medication,” Luke told her.
“Oh, but you do! You need to stay ahead of the pain. Even if it doesn’t hurt much now, it might in an hour, but if you wait until then to take the pain medication and it takes an hour to work, you’ll end up suffering needlessly.”
No. Lack of Percocet did not equal suffering. Right now his knee was about a one where pain was concerned. What was a ten? Getting slammed into a fence by a bull named Holy Roller and breaking three ribs, his wrist, and his collarbone.
Now, that was pain.
The night Luke left Rainbow Valley, he’d driven back to Austin, found an ATM that was working, and drew out some cash. Then he checked into the Starlight Motel on Highway 23 several miles east of Austin, the cheapest motel he could find where the plumbing worked and he didn’t have to carry a gun. His knee had hurt like a son of a bitch, but staying at the shelter hadn’t been an option. He had no idea why Shannon had offered him the caretaker’s apartment, except that taking in helpless strays was her forte, and she clearly saw him as just one more.
A few minutes later, Church Lady pulled into a parking space in front of room 14. Her wide-eyed gaze fanned across the rooms facing the parking lot, taking in the crumbling cinder blocks, peeling paint, and cracked sidewalks. Judging from the look on her face, her charitable heart was at war with her sense of self-preservation.
“Thanks so much,” Luke said. “I can take it from here.”
“Nonsense,” she said, focusing once again on her God-given mission.”You need help inside.”
She got out, circled the car, and opened the back passenger door. She grabbed Luke’s crutches and handed them to him. He headed for his motel room, where he unlocked the door and went inside. She came to the doorway and stopped, her eyes growing wide all over again. But given the state of the room, could he really blame her?
A gold chenille bedspread lay in lumps across the saggy double bed, its threads pulled as if a cat had attacked it. The carpet was blotchy with unidentifiable stains. Scattered on the walls were starving-artist-quality oil paintings of sea-swept coastlines in lurid shades of blue and orange.
“I know you’re supposed to stay off your knee, so I went by the church this morning and picked up some reading material to help you pass the time,” Church Lady said. “We have a swap. Bring one, take one.”
That’s what televisions are for. “Thank you,” Luke said. “That’s real sweet.”
She laid magazines and a newspaper on the nightstand. “Now, as for food—”
“All I needed was a ride. I’m going to be just fine.”
“Well, I’d bring over a couple of casseroles, but since you’re in a motel room…”
Her voice faded away, as if she didn’t know what to do with herself when there wasn’t a kitchen, a fridge, and fussy furniture with doilies on the arms. She was just like the Church Ladies from his childhood, sixty-somethings in stretch pants and thin pastel sweaters with tiny pearl buttons, wearing beatific smiles as they dispensed canned food, used clothing, and prayers. But he hadn’t been very old before he’d been able to see right through them, as if their skin had melted away and he saw the judgmental bones beneath.
You’re such a sweet little boy, they used to say to him at the thrift store, as his father was three aisles over, shoplifting jewelry and silverware and anything else he might be able to pawn. Look at those beautiful brown eyes!
And then one of the ladies would stop folding hand towels and grab a Dum-Dum sucker from a jar at the register and hand it to him. As he stuck it in his mouth, they’d cluck