Potter Springs by Britta Coleman Page A

“Please, call me Amanda.”
    “Amanda then.” Shelinda nodded with a smile. “Welcome home.” The ruffled lace curtains on the back door fluttered as she stepped
     out into the garage.
    Home. She sat in a cool metal card chair in the quiet of the empty den. The house wasn’t much bigger than a cracker box, but
     the voices outside remained thankfully muted.
    Peggy’s pants made scratchy sounds as she seated herself next to Amanda.
    Red and orange streaks filtered through the high windows from the backyard. Leaves swayed, making cutout pictures of light.
A tree. My backyard has a tree.
She’d taken trees for granted in south Texas. Not anymore.
    Potter Springs hadn’t been quite the Mayberry she’d hoped for. But not as bad as she’d feared either.
    Dusty on the outskirts, flat all the way through. But green in town, just like Mark had said. Their postage-stamp lawn, the
     tree, the shrubs here and there. Green meant someone took the time to water. To nurture. Making green must take a long time
     in the Texas Panhandle.
    Amanda wondered if she’d ever be green again.
    Soft hands covered hers and squeezed. Peggy shifted on the chair to get closer. “Now, tell me, honeygirl. How was the trip?
     How are
you?”
    And to Amanda’s surprise, waves of unshed tears rushed from her eyes and made dotted patterns on Peggy Plumley’s polyester
     pants.

CHAPTER 11

brother’s keeper
    T he church resembled a Monopoly house with four square sides and a low-pitched roof. A slender steel gray steeple drove up
     into the sky like a solitary fence post, and variegated bushes surrounded a brick sign with LAKEVIEW COMMUNITY CHURCH etched into deep grooves.
    Mark climbed out of the passenger seat of Ervin’s white double-cab pickup. A pungent aroma wafted from the blacktop parking
     lot. All around the brown building, prairie flowed like a gentle pond. Long grasses fluttered like cattails in the breeze.
     The plains were dry as stacked hay, without a lake in sight.
    “Lakeview?” Mark asked.
    “No lake,” Ervin confirmed. He nestled a wooden toothpick between his teeth. “But you gotta admit, it’s quite a view.”
    A bird called high above, soaring under the wisps of clouds. A tractor far down the road turned off the main route. The grinding
     machinery puffed dirt in its wake.
    Ervin tossed a set of keys into Mark’s chest. “For your office. And that.” He pointed to a small pickup, blue with white lettering. LAKEVIEW COMMUNITY , it read, with a stylized lake and tree on the side. “For running around in,” Ervin explained. “Smokes a little, but it’ll
     get you from here to there.”
    “Thanks.” Mark shoved the keys into the pocket of his khakis.
    They entered the building through a side door with a metal frame and handle. Ervin pushed easily inside.
    “Not locked?”
    “Nah. Not during the daytime anyhow. We don’t have much worth stealing. They want it bad enough”-the door squeaked behind
     them-“come on in and get it.”
    The interior smelled like an old school library, of books, dust and gathered bodies gone stale. “Down here’s the sanctuary.”
     Ervin disappeared through double oak doors. Mark followed.
    Inside, pews lined straight across with an aisle dividing them. No stage, but a simple oak communion table had the familiar
     words on the side: THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME. It had been a long while since Mark had seen an altar like that.
    “It’s not so fancy, I know,” Ervin’s voice echoed in the sanctuary. No elegant Muzak filled the silence. “But we’re doing
     a fall fund-raiser, to spruce up the place a little. Get some greenery. Peggy says we need more greenery.” At this, Ervin
     placed his hands on his hips, an old coach surveying the playing field. With his belly pushing the elastic of the coaching
     shorts to maximum support, his white legs encased in tube socks and tennis shoes, Ervin couldn’t look any more opposite James
     Montclair if he’d tried.
    Mark didn’t