“Your mother-in-law is a hot mess,” Dovey said.

Dellarobia could not dispute the diagnosis. “I’m actually kind of worried about her. It’s a trap, you know? If she’s got God in charge of all this, and then something bad happens to us, she’ll have to admit God knew what He was doing. Mainly it’s a big fat incentive to ignore bad news.” Such as global warming, a subject whose very mention now made Cub angry, as if there were some betrayal involved.

Dovey picked up an umbrella with mouse ears that had fallen into the aisle. “I saw where somebody’s putting up money to move the whole kit and caboodle.”

“Move what, the butterflies?” This was news to Dellarobia.

“Yep,” Dovey said. “To Florida or something. They would capture them some way and move them. This guy owns a trailer rig.”

“Wow. I never even thought about that. Where’d you hear this?”

“Topix,” Dovey replied. “It’s this site where people can post local news. It mostly ends up being trash talk, though.”

“Oh, well, I bet there’s plenty about me on there.” She checked out an eight-dollar bike, too big for Preston now but perfect for next Christmas. But where could she hide it? Where would they all be in a year’s time? The consideration made her feel a little light-headed, almost the same swoony feeling she’d had that day sitting on the log, when Ovid mentioned her children’s adulthood. Why should it feel so risky to count concretely on a future?

“So is there?” she pressed. “Gossip about me?”

Dovey waggled her head from side to side. “Don’t be so sure you’re the center of the universe. Why is Hester so wrapped up in the whole butterfly thing?”

“I don’t know. She and Bear are butting heads. I guess Hester sees the monarchs as . . .” Dellarobia couldn’t finish the sentence. Maybe some form of redemption for a family she saw as having gone to the dogs: lazy son, troublemaking daughter-in-law, inexplicably uninteresting grandkids, a husband sitting out church in Men’s Fellowship pretending it’s a honky-tonk, minus the beer. Certainly Hester wasn’t jumping on the financial opportunity. She’d nailed a coffee can to the pasture gatepost with a sign suggesting a five-dollar entry fee, which the sightseers managed to overlook. No one in the family had time to monitor the onslaught of visitors. The tree huggers, as Cub called them.

Dovey laughed aloud, and Dellarobia turned to see the kids marching toward her toting suitcases from a matched set, both the same red plaid. Preston had the medium-size, Cordie the little overnight bag. Their smiles matched too, both oversize.

“Thinking of going somewhere?” she asked.

“Africa,” announced Preston.

“Affica!” screamed his sister.

“Okay. Watch out for lions.”

They giggled and ran to catch their plane. Africa, the unimaginable place where migrating birds went, while people thought they were burrowing into the riverbank.

“There’s probably a Mama-bear suitcase with that set,” Dovey suggested.

“Wouldn’t that be something, just to blow out of town,” Dellarobia said, feeling heavy. Dovey had avoided her question. “It’s probably the same stuff I hear at church. The gossip you’re seeing on Facebook or whatever. That I’m getting above my station.”

“They’re jealous,” Dovey conceded. “That is the long and short of it.”

“What do I have, that anybody wants? Dovey, look, me. Competing with homeless dudes for bargains on used bedding. Jealous of what?”

Dovey shrugged. “You’re world-famous.”

“And that has gotten me what? Money? Any say over anything?”

“You got a job,” Dovey offered.

She wheeled on her friend. “Is that the story? That I got the job because I’m some kind of Internet soft-porn queen? I had nothing to do with that picture. Do people think I just slept my way up?”

“Whoa, nellie. Defensive much?” Dovey said. “And b-t-dubs, you’re still wearing that blazer you put on half an hour ago. You might not want a shoplifting charge on your wall of fame.”

Dellarobia took off the blazer and threw it into a wooden bin full of inflated balls. “You know why I have that job. I invited a stranger to supper, like a decent person. That is the one and only reason Ovid Byron is friends with us.”

“I remember,” Dovey said, uneasily. “I hear you.”

“You were impressed. That’s what you said on the phone that day.” There had been some jokes about a Tennessee temptress, but it wasn’t like that. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

They turned down an aisle of uniforms and scrubs, arranged by color: pink, green, yellow, birthday party colors. To be worn by medical personnel while attending the mortally injured. “Why does everybody want to be famous,” Dellarobia asked, “and at the same time they want to hear the ugliest trash about famous people?”

“I guess they hate what they haven’t got.”

“Everybody wants to be rich, too, but there’s still some kind of team spirit. You should hear Bear on his rant against raising taxes on the millionaires. He says they worked for every penny, and that’s what he went in the military to protect.”

“Wow. He was a gunner in ’Nam to protect CEO salaries?”

“I guess.”

“Well, yeah,” Dovey said. “That’s America. We watch shows about rich people’s houses and their designer dresses and we drool. It’s patriotic.”

“Not me. I think I hate rich people.”

“Yeah, but you’re an equal-opportunity hard-ass. You hate everybody.”

“I do not,” Dellarobia exclaimed, surprised. “Am I that bad?”

Dovey reconsidered. “Hate is a strong word. You don’t let people get away with much. Except me. Somehow I got a lifetime pass.”

“I keep thinking if I go to church I’ll learn to be sweet. Bobby Ogle is so good. And Cub is sweet. My kids are, basically. So what’s my problem?”

“Diabolical possession,” Dovey suggested. “Just a hunch.”

Dellarobia picked up a bathroom set, soap dish and toothbrush holder, brand-new, still in the box. Two dollars. It probably started life in the dollar store, for sixteen. Why didn’t everyone just come straight here? “Seriously,” she said, “is it hateful if you don’t agree with your home team about every single thing? Because I can agree on maybe nine out of ten. But then I start to wander out of the box on one subject, like this environment thing, and man. You’d think I was flipping everybody the bird.”