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Ava went on a tirade about how important the party was to Travis and how his grandmother had lived at the beach for years and that this would also be a hurricane party and that she would be just fine.

* * *

People from Genesis Church started calling their house, talking to Suzi’s mother, asking her to please come to church on Sunday night with Suzi for a “ceremony of healing.” Her father said there was no way in hell he was setting foot in that church, and her mother agreed that she felt the same way. Suzi felt that way, too. After all, she was no religious freak.

“Ten or twelve people from the church have sent notes, saying they’re sorry,” her mother told her. “Which is nice, I guess. But what they need to do is put that disgusting pig behind bars.”

“What’s a ceremony of healing?” Suzi asked.

Her mother shook her head. “I imagine a lot of praying is involved. I think they need to do less praying and more castrating.”

“Praying never hurt no one,” Suzi told her mother. Suzi’s grandmother Verna Tommy used to say that.

“Oh,” Suzi’s mother said, and swooped over and snatched up Suzi in a fierce hug that made her eyes water.

Marylou tried to carry on her daily activities as if nothing had changed. But everything had changed. She was no longer working at FTA. After attending church on Wednesday night and finding Buff Coffey up at the pulpit, she decided that she’d no longer have anything to do with Genesis Church. She was no longer bent on destroying Wilson and his family. All the oomph had gone out of her. Her days lacked focus. She’d slipped into idle mode.

She took Buster for his five a.m. walk in the coolish air. The birds were unusually quiet. On the news it was all Hurricane Grayson, which had made landfall yet again—the fourth time for one storm, a record—sweeping back from the Atlantic into New Smyrna Beach; and now it was working its sodden, massive way west across the Panhandle. It was a slow-moving storm, they said, causing widespread flooding, spawning tornadoes. If her house got flooded, what would she do?

She wished she were back in Memphis. She missed her high-ceilinged house with its tall windows, her hollyhocks by the front door, the moldy-smelling metal glider on her front porch, the urban sounds of her neighborhood, and even her old friends—Virginia from church, Gladys from her high school teaching days—friends she’d lost touch with because she’d withdrawn into her protective shell after her second husband of only two years, Martin, died. Why had she done that? She kept hearing her own words echoing in her ears. Revenge just hurts more people. It’s not worth it. I’ve hurt people trying to get revenge. I’ve hurt you and your family.

But had she really done the hurting? Had it really been her fault that the photographer who took those photos uploaded them on the Internet and Buff saw them? Well, yes, okay, because, as Caroline had said, she should’ve stood up to Mr. Boyle, told him he couldn’t take those photos. If they hadn’t been taken, none of this would’ve happened. She shouldn’t have taken Ava there in the first place. If only she hadn’t moved to Tallahassee. If only she hadn’t read the article about Wilson on the Internet. If only Martin hadn’t been killed in the accident. A semi ran into the back of Martin’s Jeep on the interstate, claiming he didn’t see the line of cars stopped ahead of him. Turned out later he’d been smoking pot. The truck driver, not Martin. If Teddy hadn’t left her. If Helen hadn’t died. If she hadn’t gone to the clinic at Memphis University. If Wilson had only realized what the hell he was doing by conducting his so-called experiment. If there hadn’t been a cold war on to instill wrongheaded thinking throughout the land. If radiation hadn’t been discovered by that sick and twisted couple, the Curies. Okay, maybe that was going too far. But even if these things hadn’t happened, let’s face it, other awful things would have.

Marylou stood with Buster beside a wooded lot and let him sniff around in the dirt. She was so tired. She felt like a limp noodle. This kind of