“Laura?” said Mrs. Patterson from next door. She stopped in the aisle and looked at me, then at
the little white card, then back at me. “Honey, what are you doing back here?”
“I’m fine, Ruth,” I said. “Go find your seat.”
“But shouldn’t you be…”
“I’m fine.”
She frowned, but she kept walking.
Pastor Jim’s wife, Carol, saw me. She went pale and started to come over. I shook my head at her,
just slightly. She stopped. But she sat down in the row right in front of me instead of up front where she usually sat. Every few minutes, she turned around and looked at me with worried eyes.
Then Mark’s sister Joanne came in. She walked right past me without seeing me at first. Then she
stopped dead in the aisle, turned around, and stared.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no, no, no. Laura. What is this?”
