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The day Ernetta met Stannie, she realized she'd spent the last 30 years praying for a day like that without even knowing it. All her silent prayers for forgiveness, for assurance that her sufferings would come to right (not be for nothing), and that every stain left on her from Arvin's cruelty might be washed over and healed—those prayers had all been answered free of charge.

Not many people would have looked at Stannie Colfax that afternoon in his ballcap and baggy shirt and found him beautiful. But Ernetta did. The beauty of that human being sitting in front of her in a living room in Florida knocked her down like a great, sparkling wave. It was a true miracle, him sitting there with her—no less than having an angel appear at the foot of your bed in the middle of the night or seeing somebody raised from the dead, not on TV but in a live church service. To find her son this way was as if she went out to the garden one day in February to look at how the gardenia bushes had held up in the frost and found bright red strawberries bursting from new vines on the fence, already grown up sweet and delicious.

After a few days, the fruit of her search had soured a little. Kind-hearted as she was, she felt Stannie's cruelty. It wasn't outright, blunt cruelty like Arvin's, but it was politeness with a sharp edge. Stannie's sharpness could go right to your heart. The last two days, whenever he came to check on her at the motel—and he'd come three times and just stayed by the door, smoking—she'd felt him growing sharper, as if he were splintering up the middle. She'd begun to feel afraid of him: her words to him came out in shorter and shorter bursts, like the last drips of ink in a ball-point. She noticed he didn't want to hear about her life, or about his birth, or about how she came to find him. He didn't want her asking questions about him, either. If she started onto any of that, he'd turn and walk out, just like Arvin used to do. And what else was there to talk about but him and her?

On Friday afternoon he showed up at the motel looking ragged and sleepy. He needed to do something about her, he said. He was flying back to Washington the next day. She said she didn't want to be a burden any more, she could even hitchhike back home if she needed to. He looked furious when she said that. He stood for a long time just staring at her like it was the first time he'd ever really seen her. Finally he broke off staring and laughed. He said he'd been thinking about taking her with him to the Academy Awards.

"What would you want to take me for?" she asked him.

"Wouldn't you like to meet movie stars?"

She shook her head, not even half-understanding him. "I met you now, Stanley. That's all I care about."

When she said that, he turned and walked out. But he called later to say he'd decided not to fly back to Washington. He'd hang on to his rental car and drive her home to Alabama on his way up North. She mentioned she had a truck up there; it'd probably been towed. He said he'd take care of it one way or the other. This was the best thing to do.

So here they were Saturday morning stuck for several hours alone in his car on the way up to LeCrane, and she had no idea what to say to him. She'd meant him to come to LeCrane, but not this way, without them getting close first. The inside of his car was black and hot. It smelled like a vaccum cleaner bag after it'd been run for an hour. The light beat down on her face through the sunroof; she didn;t want to complain, but she was sweating. She licked a salty trickle from her upper lip and felt another trickle run into her eye.

"Ernetta," Stannie said dully. His voice sounded stuffy, like he'd been smoking all night. "I'll buy you lunch. Where would you like to eat?"

She looked out the windows and saw signs for Panama City Beach. The road was flat and sparkling: there were palm trees everywhere, sprouting like giant pineapples on poles.

"Any place be fine," she said.

"Arby's?"

"Oh, Arby's is too high."

"High? Define 'high.'"

"I don't want you to spend all your money on me, Stannie."

His sunglasses looked like insect eyes. "We're stopping at Arby's. What do you want to eat?"

She thought for a moment. "I reckon I'll just have a piece of bread and butter."

They pulled into the Arby's drive-thru and he ordered her a chicken sandwich, curly fries, and a chocolate shake that had a delicious malt taste to it. She'd never tasted anything as good as that food. She ate it all daintily and self-consciously, with a napkin carefully unfolded on her lap. Meanwhile he pulled out on the highway again and drove along down the road with his face half-buried in a silver food wrapper. He sounded like a hog, chewing. She wondered if he was trying to hide from her in that wrapper. Sometimes he stopped eating to cough or clear his throat, and she couldn't help but look over at him.