The keys were small for what they unlocked.
Holder Williston stood in the hallway outside Judge Beaumont's chambers and turned them over in his hand — a plain keyring, a van key, a worn paper tag that said GOSPEL GIRLS in someone's careful handwriting, underlined twice. He had been out of probation for eleven days. He had not intended to be standing in a courthouse again this soon, or possibly ever.
But the judge had called. And you did not not answer when Judge Beaumont called.
The judge was a short man with a wide forehead and the specific stillness of someone who had heard every story and been surprised by almost none of them. He had looked at Holder across that big desk the same way he had looked at him in the courtroom three years ago — not with pity, not with contempt, but with the particular attention of a man trying to see what was actually there.
"Four women," the judge had said. "Terminal diagnoses, all four. They want to take a road trip they've been planning for two years. Their regular driver had a family emergency. I need someone I trust."
"You trust me," Holder said. It came out flatter than he intended.
"I trust your driving record. I trust that you owe me. And I trust that four women in their seventies are unlikely to get you into any trouble you can't handle." The judge leaned back. "There's also a matter I need attended to at the journey's end. I'll explain when the time comes. It's nothing illegal."
"That's what people say right before it's illegal."
"Holder." The judge looked at him. "Do you want to spend the next two weeks driving four remarkable women through the country, or do you want to go back to the apartment and wait for something worse to find you?"
He had not had a good answer for that. He still didn't.
So here he was. Keys in hand. Gospel Girls on the tag. And coming through the courthouse doors, rolling toward him with the coordinated chaos of a small weather system, were four women who clearly had opinions about everything and intended to share all of them.
The first one, small and brown and quick-eyed, pointed at him before she even reached him.
"You're the driver? You look too young to drive."
"Elda," said the tall one behind her, amused.
"I'm just saying. He looks like he's in high school."
"I'm twenty-six," Holder said.
"Like I said." She walked past him toward the van without waiting for an invitation. "Come on then. We're already behind."
The tallest woman, the one with the musical voice he hadn't heard yet but somehow already expected, smiled at him as she passed. The loud one in the bright yellow jacket had already found the passenger side and was examining the radio with serious intent. The last one — the oldest, elegant, white-haired, posture like a woman who had never once slouched — looked at him with clear eyes and said:
"Don't let Elda run you. She runs everyone. You just have to run a little faster."
Then she got in the van.
Holder stood alone in the courthouse parking lot with the keys in his hand and the engine not yet started and the next two weeks assembled in the vehicle in front of him, already arguing about something.
He got in.
He started the van.
"Radio first," Jazzy announced from the passenger seat, already tuning. "I need to establish the vibe."
"No gospel before noon," Elda said from the back. "It's too early to be that convicted."
"Elda, it is noon."
"Then we just made it."
In the back, quietly, Jonnis began to hum.
Holder pulled out of the parking lot and pointed the van south and did not yet know that he was driving toward the best and worst and most necessary thing that had ever happened to him.
He was just driving.
That was enough