brush arbor

It happened on a Sunday. Will would remember this when other details had been lost to other days. When he could no longer remember the color of her eyes, or the way her mother squalled into the air and gnawed her knuckles until they bled. He would remember the missionaries.

For most of the year the town divided itself amongst the various free will establishments cluttering the coal fields. To hem and haw. To point fingers and pass judgment. But in August, because that month was more miserable than the rest, they’d flock together down by the river under a temporary shelter of skinny trees for a holy ghost revival.

If Will had known then, what he would know not much later, he would have taken his shame some other way.