A conservative-looking man in his early fifties appeared to be holding a book, and Tim squinted in the darkness to make it out. He’d gone through most of a bottle of wine in the past two hours, and he had to work to make sense of the imagery on the screen. Angela was down on her exercise mat beside the bed doing stretches. She looked up, annoyed. “Hey, c’mon, change the channel. I can’t stand those TV preachers.” But for some reason, Tim couldn’t bring himself to turn it. The preacher man—if he was a preacher—wasn’t one of those big-hair types. His eyes had a look of compassion and . . . something else. Urgency, maybe. Tim let the remote fall to his side. “I was gonna be a preacher once.” His words slurred together, and his eyes struggled to focus. “Gonna tell the worl’ about Jesus.” Angela sat up and stared at him, her eyes mocking him as a single burst of laughter broke through her pursed lips. “You? A preacher?” Something in her tone irritated Tim, set his teeth on edge and brought his pain close to the surface.
