City of Night

was happily married, and Evangeline was happily widowed.
    They had a niece, however, who would make the perfect wife for a man of the cloth. Her name was Esther, the daughter of their eldest sister, Larissalene. As soon as Esther completed the remaining three months of a sixteen-month course of extensive dental work to correct an unfortunate condition, the sweet girl would be presentable.
    Lulana and Evangeline, with a storied history of successful matchmaking, had prepared the way for Esther with scrumptious pies and cakes, cookies and breads and muffins: a more certain path than one paved with palm leaves and rose petals.
    Next door to the church, the parsonage was a charming two-story brick house, neither so grand as to embarrass the Lord nor so humble as to make it difficult for the congregation to attract a preacher. The front porch had been furnished with bentwood rocking chairs with cane backs and seats, made festive with hanging baskets of moss from which grew fuchsia with cascades of crimson and purple flowers.
    When the sisters, each with a fine pie, climbed the porch steps, they found the front door wide open, as Pastor Kenny most often left it when at home. He was a most welcoming kind of churchman with a casual style, and outside the holy service, he was partial to white tennis shoes, khakis, and madras shirts.
    Through the screen door, Lulana could not see much useful. The late twilight of midsummer lay at least half an hour away, but the sunshine was already rouge, and what rays penetrated the windows did little more than brighten black shadows to purple. Toward the back, in the kitchen, a light glowed.
    As Evangeline reached to press the bell push, a startling cry came from within the parsonage. It sounded like a soul in misery, rose in volume, quavered, and faded.
    Lulana first thought that they had almost intruded on Pastor Kenny in the act of offering consolation to a remorseful or even bereaved member of his flock.
    Then the eerie cry came again, and through the screen door, Lulana glimpsed a wailing figure erupt from the living-room archway into the downstairs hall. In spite of the shadows, she could discern that the tormented man was not an anguished sinner or a grieving parishioner but was the minister himself.
    “Pastor Kenny?” said Evangeline.
    Drawn by his name, the churchman hurried along the hall, toward them, flailing at the air as if batting away mosquitoes.
    He did not open the door to them, but peered through the screen with the expression of a man who had seen, and only moments ago fled, the devil.
    “I did it, didn’t I?” he said, breathless and anguished. “Yes. Yes, I did. I did it just by being. Just by being, I did it. Just by being Pastor Kenny Laffite, I did it, I did. I did it, I did.”
    Something about the rhythm and repetition of his words reminded Lulana of those children’s books by Dr. Seuss, with which she had felt afflicted as a child. “Pastor Kenny, what’s wrong?”
    After a moment of consideration, Lulana said, “Sister, I believe we are needed here.”
    Evangeline said, “I have no doubt of it, dear.”
    Although uninvited, Lulana opened the screen door, entered the parsonage, and held the door for her sister.
    From the back of the house came the minister’s voice: “What will I do? What, what will I do? Anything, anything—that’s what I’ll do.”
    As squat and sturdy as a tugboat, her formidable bosom cleaving air like a prow cleaves water, Lulana sailed along the hallway, and Evangeline, like a stately tall-masted ship, followed in her wake.
    In the kitchen, the minister stood at the sink, vigorously washing his hands. “Thou shall not, shall not, shall not , but I did. Shall not , but did.”
    Lulana opened the refrigerator and found room for both pies. “Evangeline, we have more nervous here than God made grass. Maybe it won’t be needed, but best have some warm milk ready.”
    “You leave that to me, dear.”
    “Thank you, sister.”
    Clouds of steam rose from the sink. Lulana saw that under the rushing water, the minister’s hands were fiery red.
    “Pastor Kenny, you’re about to half scald yourself.”
    “Just by being, I am. I am what I am. I am what I did. I did it, I did.”
    The faucet was so hot that Lulana had to wrap a dishtowel around her hand to turn it off.
    Pastor Kenny tried to turn it on again.
    She gently slapped his hand, as she might affectionately warn a child not to repeat a misbehavior. “Now, Pastor Kenny,