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has all month, what brought the girl and her boy to Normal.
    NORMAL REALLY IS THE NAME OF THEIR TOWN AND THERE ARE plenty of jokes about it. Back when she used to care about things like that, Rose liked living in a place called Normal, thought it sounded like the name of a Southern town. People in the South do have a sense of poetry about the naming of things that doesn’t seem to exist in other parts of the country. The time she and Ned and Todd took the trip to Virginia to visit Ned’s first cousin Ben, they passed grocery stores with names like Piggly Wiggly and Harris Teeter and Winn Dixie, names that just moved with poetry. Rose shops at the Stop and Shop and thinks that you’d have to feel different shopping in a place called Piggly Wiggly. She thinks Normal would be the perfect name for a Southern town.
    Their town is named after a Civil War hero who was born here, Colonel Percival Winfield Normal. Even though he was a lesser figure in the War between the States, a statue of him stands in the square in front of their town hall and every year on his birthday, the school-children have a little parade in his honor. Percival Winfield Normal, now there is a Southern name if ever there was one. When she walks by his statue, Rose often looks up at the colonel and wonders how he ended up in western Massachusetts.
    But then, nobody really ends up where they think they are heading, do they? Look at her. Look at Ned.
    Look at Todd.

CHAPTER 3
    OPAL
    â€œFUCK,” OPAL SAYS WHEN THE PHONE RINGS. The line has only been hooked up for two weeks and already Melva has called eight times. Eight calls, eight arguments. Conversations Opal would rather not rehash this morning. Try as she might, she can’t make her mama understand why she had to leave New Zion.
    Four rings. Five. For a fact, sooner or later she will have to give in and answer; Melva is nothing if not determined. Also, Opal believes her mama has some kind of telepathy regarding her and that Melva knows that she is standing here in the kitchen not two feet away from the phone.
Don’t you bite; don’t you grab the bait,
she counsels herself as she picks up the receiver.
No matter how much she provokes you, stay cool.
Staying cool is not one of Opal’s strong points. Her fuse was born short.
    â€œRaylee?”
    â€œRaylee’s not here.” She’s proud as can be to hear her voice is perfectly calm.
    Twice in the two full years since she changed her name, Opal has sent Melva copies of the court order and the printed legal ad that appeared in the local newspaper, but her mama continues to proceed as if these things have never arrived at her door. Melva believes the whole name-change episode is just another difficult phase Opal is going through and that eventually she’ll return to her senses and reclaim her given name.
    â€œRaylee? Is that you?”
    No winning this game. “Yes.”
    â€œWell, thank the Lord. I thought I misdialed. I was just going to hang up. Are you all right?”
    â€œI’m
fine
.”
    â€œHow’s Zack? Does he miss his Melvama?” Melvama is the name Melva has coined for Zack to call her. She’s much too young to be a grandmother.
    â€œZack’s fine, Mama. We’re both doing just fine.”
    Melva barely pauses for this response. “Billy drove on over and joined us for dinner last night,” she says. “I swear, that boy looks just dreadful. He misses you both terribly.”
    Just when did her mama turn so soft on Billy? And why on earth would she invite him to dinner? Opal can’t imagine what they’d found to talk about. Talking is definitely not Billy’s strong suit. If you take away basketball and Zack, conversation is pretty much
extinguished
. Well, guess now they talk about Opal.
    â€œHe loves you, Raylee. I hope you know that.”
    Opal should know this since she heard precisely these words during yesterday’s call.
    â€œNaturally,