Tami didn't sleep well Saturday night. She was, of course, emotionally exhausted from the turmoil of her father's sudden operation and worried about his health going forward, but she was also reeling from her self-revelation.

That feeling that had welled up within her when she watched Eric from the hospital window - how long had it lain buried in her heart? How long had she been ignoring it? No matter how many times she asked herself those questions, she could not find an answer. Tami only knew now that she did love Eric Taylor - she loved him, even though she'd never so much as kissed him.

She loved him, but he did not love her, not like this. Eric wasn't lying awake in his bed tonight, thinking of her, the way she was thinking of him. Eric wasn't wishing, hopelessly, for something more than friendship.

[*]

Sunday morning, a retired minister who was a member of the congregation preached, and the whole church sent up prayers of thanks for the Reverend's successful surgery and petitions that he would heal quickly.

After the service, Tami was replenishing the coffee at the fellowship table when Eric approached and asked, "How's your dad doing? Still a bit fuzzy in the head?"

Tami was struck by how handsome Eric looked in a suit and tie. She thought he must only have one church suit, dark and well-tailored, but the tie he varied: it was sometimes red, sometimes black, and sometimes pinstriped. Today, however, it was silver, and that seemed to draw out some gray-blue in his eyes. Before, she had noticed only browns and yellows. Tami wondered briefly what he might look like with a green tie, and then realized she was staring at his eyes. She looked abruptly down at the white tablecloth.

"He's alert now," she answered, but then thought she might look strange talking to the furniture and so looked at Eric again. "I visited this morning, and he's not saying anymore mortifying things."

Eric smiled. He was so adorable when he smiled. Why did he have to be so adorable? If he wasn't going to be into her, if he didn't like her like her, he really shouldn't smile at her like that. "Good to hear it," he said. "Although that was kind of funny."

"You ran out the instant he said the first line," she told him with a smile. "You didn't even hear the second part."

"Nah, I heard it. I heard him saying your mom ought to write a thank you note to her mother. I guess they got passed down through the generations." He flushed suddenly. "I don't mean you got them!"

Tami flushed too, but then she considered that he was basically saying she had not inherited her mother's lovely tits. "Thanks a lot," she said.

"No," he stuttered, "I don't mean that either. I mean, I didn't mean to say anything at all. I just – "

"- Eric."

Tami looked over Eric's shoulder to see his father.

"We need to get going," Mr. Taylor said. "You didn't finish your chores yesterday."

"Eric was a great help to my family yesterday, Mr. Taylor," Tami said. "My mom was very grateful to have him there." She caught Eric's eye. "I was very grateful."

"Yes, well, I'm glad he could assist you in that time of need, but now he has to assist his own family. Right, Eric?" Mr. Taylor placed a hand on Eric's shoulder.

"Yes, sir," he said, his eyes flickering with irritation and a line jumping his jaw. But he turned and followed his father.

[*]

After going to the hospital again Sunday afternoon and talking with her father, Tami returned to the church and consulted her father's calendar and roladex. She then called each of the people he was counseling and referred them to another counselor for the time being, though several said they would simply wait until he was available again.

The elders met to settle on an interim pastor to serve while the Reverend recovered. Some ladies in the church organized a meal sign-up to help out Mrs. Hayes with front-door delivery of nightly dinners for the first week the Reverend would be out of the hospital.

Tami skipped school on Monday to help her mother settle her father back at home. On Tuesday, she reluctantly returned to school, though she would have preferred if her mother had let her skip again.

After second period, Mo cornered her by her locker. "I heard your dad had a heart attack. Is he okay?"

"He's going to be," Tami said. "He's going to have to make some lifestyle changes, and take some medicine, but he's going to live another thirty years," she insisted.

Mo put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry. You should have called me. I would have been there."

She shook his hand off. "I think you were busy with Sue Beth. Or Anita. Or maybe both at the same time."

"Look, I know you're pissed at me, but that doesn't mean I don't still care about you. Because I do, Tami. I loved you."

"You had a funny way of showing it."

"I wish you could forgive me."

"I will forgive you," Tami said. "But we are never getting back together."

"Okay, fine. I just think… couldn't you have used a friend at that moment?"

"I had a friend. Eric was there the entire time."

"Eric, huh?" Mo said, his eyes flashing with anger. "I told you! I knew it!"

Tami shook her head. "Eric doesn't like me like that."

Her own voice sounded strange to her when she said those words: hurt, disappointed. But Eric had said as much, hadn't he? The words had fallen form his own lips – I just want to be friends too. Why did she have to feel this way about him now? Why did she have to so suddenly want more, when he'd already told her he only wanted friendship?

"But he is a good friend," she told Mo. "A better friend than you ever were a boyfriend." Tami slammed her locker shut and strutted off to class.

[*]

Mrs. Hayes demanded that her husband slow down and not resume any part of his pastoral duties until he had rested for a few weeks. He was simply to stay home and recover, she insisted. He complied. In fact, he didn't resist her command at all.

He took to wearing his favorite thick, burgundy terrycloth bathrobe over a pair of black sweat pants and a T-shirt. He ensconced himself in the living room arm chair, in front of the fireplace, where he read through book after book. He even got himself a bell to ring when he wanted tea or a snack or a new book.

Tami thought he was enjoying being waited on just a tad too much. Her mother must have thought so, too, because while she came running at the sound of the bell on Tuesday and Wednesday, by Thursday evening, she'd had enough.

Tami was sitting cross-leggeded on the living room couch, her Algebra II book open on her lap, when her father picked up his bell and rang.

Mrs. Hayes walked into the living room and planted a hand solidly on her hip. "Edward," she said, "you have two feet. I suggest you use them."

"But I'm recovering from my operation, my love," he told her.

"The doctor says you can do some gentle, moderate exercise. So I suppose you can exercise yourself to the kitchen and back."

"I don't understand," he said. "Are you particularly busy?"

"I am busy, Edward. I'm very busy. I'm in the middle of writing a thank you note for my boobs."

She left him sitting in the chair, looking stunned. For a while, he just stared in the direction in which his wife had departed. Then he turned his eyes to Tami. "Did she just say what I think she said?"

Tami snorted. "You said some things when you came out the surgery in the hospital."

"What things?"

"Just that you appreciated Mom's physique. And you thought Eric was Michael. And you said something about one of the elders being a pain in your buttocks – "

"- Did I use that particular choice of word?"

"Yes. Buttocks. And you confessed to your secret stash of whiskey in the library behind the commentaries on Matthew."

"It's just a very little bottle and I only take a nip once a week at most, when your mother is really nagging me."

"Well good thing you didn't say that to her."

"What else?" the Reverend asked.

"Something about someone stealing one of your sermons, and something about how your father was going to whoop you and Michael if he found the cigarettes you rolled and hid behind the barn. Was it weed, Daddy?"

"No, it wasn't weed! It was just tobacco, and we only did it a couple of times." He drummed the arm of his chair. "Was that all I said?"

"Wasn't that enough?" Tami asked.

"Tami, sweetheart, would you get me some iced tea?"

"No, Daddy. I'm not crossing Mom."

The Reverend drummed the arm of his chair a second time, but then he rose and made his slow way to the kitchen.