"And they were," Alvin said.
"And they were. I told him I'd resign. He said that was my right. He said if I resigned, my replacement would be someone from outside who didn't know the building and might not fix the doors at all. He was right about that, too. He was right about almost everything except the one thing." Anselm looked at the table. "So I stayed. And I fixed the doors. And Agata wrote the test, and we ran it every quarter, and I told myself that was the debt. That the building was safer because I stayed. It was. It was safer." He looked up. "And I paid for the funeral."
Alvin's folded hands went very still on the table.
"Not all of it. The bill from the funeral home. Eleven thousand four hundred dollars. I gave it to the pastor at your church in a cashier's check and asked him to say it came from the congregation. I don't know what he told you."
"He told Florine it came from the deacons' fund," Alvin said. "She wrote them a thank-you card. She wrote every one of them a card. Seventeen cards. She sat at the kitchen table for a week." He was looking at Anselm with an expression Agata could not read at all. "She still talks about it. How good people were."
"People were good," Anselm said quietly. "Your church was good. That part was true."
"You don't get to tell me what part was true."
"No," Anselm said. "I don't."
Gwendolyn had her hand over her mouth. Nobody looked at her.