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“I’m Earl.” No handshake offered. “I’ve known Henry Fortner since he was in diapers.”

“Chad. Nice to meet you.”

“I know who you are.” Earl leaned back, arms crossed. Not hostile exactly. Assessing. The way you’d look at a dog you hadn’t decided to trust yet. “Whole county does.”

Chad set down his fork. “I figured.”

Earl was quiet for a moment. The noise of the room filled the space—laughter, forks on Styrofoam, Hank’s voice somewhere behind them, easy and warm.

“I’m not gonna pretend I understand it,” Earl said finally. “A man loving a man. That’s not how I was raised.”

Chad waited. Three years behind a bar had taught him when to talk and when to shut up. This was a shut-up moment.

“But Henry’s been carrying something heavy his whole life. I could see it, even when I didn’t know what it was.” Earl pulled the brim of his cap lower. “He’s not carrying it anymore. That’s all I’ll say.”

He stood. Tipped his cap. Walked away.

Chad sat there with his banana pudding and the strange, tight feeling of having been seen clearly by someone who didn’t understand him at all.

Hank appeared at his elbow. “What did Earl say?”

“He said he didn’t understand it. But that you’ve been carrying something heavy your whole life, and you’re not carrying it anymore.”

Hank stole a bite of pudding from his plate. “That’s Earl’s version of a standing ovation. He’s a deacon at First Baptist and the most influential opinion in the county. If he sat down at your table voluntarily, that’s significant.”

“I liked him.”

“He liked you. He just doesn’t know it yet.” Hank’s hand found his knee under the table and squeezed. “You’re doing great.”

“I’m eating banana pudding and trying not to say anything stupid.”

“That’s the whole game.” Hank grinned—the real one, the slightly goofy one that made him look ten years younger. “Welcome to campaigning.”

Shelby’s house was at the end of a gravel drive that went on long enough for Chad to reconsider every life choice that had led him here. White clapboard, green shutters, a wraparound porch cluttered with potted plants and a tricycle missing a wheel. A tire swing hung from an oak that looked older than the republic.

Norman Rockwell called. He wants his painting back.

A toddler burst through the front door before Hank had cut the engine, legs churning with the singular determination of a small human who has spotted his favorite person.

“Hank! Hank Hank Hank!”

“Hey, buddy.” Hank scooped him up with the ease of long practice, settling him on one hip. “Owen, did you get bigger? I think you got bigger.”

Owen responded by grabbing a fistful of Hank’s beard. “Fuzzy.”

“Still fuzzy. Yep.”

A man appeared on the porch—big, broad, wiping his hands on a dish towel with the resigned expression of someone who’d given up on controlling the situation roughly two years ago.

“Lowell,” Hank said. “This is Chad.”

“Good to meet you.” Lowell’s handshake was firm, brief, no-nonsense. He had the dry, settled energy of a man who was comfortable in his own orbit. “Fair warning—she’s in a mood.”

“The good kind?” Hank asked.

“Is there another kind?” Lowell’s mouth twitched—barely, but Chad caught it. A fellow satellite, recognizing another. “She’s in the kitchen. Been cooking since dawn. There’s enough food for the county and possibly the next one over.”

They climbed the porch steps. Owen was telling Hank something urgent and unintelligible about a truck, and Hank was listening with the grave attention of a man receiving a national security briefing. Chad followed them through the screen door into a house that smelled like roasting meat and cinnamon and bread.