Not one of us said a hard word to her the whole time.
There wasn’t time in that basement for anything but the work.
Cole Haney came down those stairs at eleven thirty-five, with Pastor Shay’s hand still at his elbow.
He stopped where Shay had stopped. Three steps from the bottom.
He looked at a room full of folding tables. He smelled a meal that somebody had built with their own two hands in under ninety minutes, for a man they barely knew.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment.
Then he walked straight to the ham and noodles. Like something in him recognized it before his mind could catch up.
He looked down at the pan.
“My wife’s grandmother used to make this exact thing,” he said. So quietly I almost missed it. “Same way. Noodles on the bottom.”
He looked up at Wanda. Wanda had made that very dish.
