Sunday arrived before the sun did.

  Mist lay stretched across the red dirt road like a thin sheet, clinging to fence posts and settling into the shallow ruts left by wagon wheels. The Hollis cabin stood quiet beneath it, stove smoke rising in a narrow line that dissolved into the pale gray sky. Inside, the scent of lye soap and drying cotton lingered from the night before. It was a day for clean clothes and careful appearances.

  Virgil woke to the sound of the stove catching.

  Metal shifting. Wood breathing into flame.

  It was still dark enough that the world felt unfinished.

  It’s too early for morality, he thought.

  Mother was already moving. I could hear her at the basin, wringing something out one last time even though it had been washed the night before. The air carried that sharp, homemade soap smell — ashes and fat and effort.

  Sunday.

  That explained the stiff clothes hanging near the hearth instead of slumped over the chair.

  The door opened. Closed. Boots against wood.

  Its Dad!!

  “You’re up early, Lila,” he said.

  “Can’t be late,” she answered. “Reckon folks’ll want to see him.”

  See him.

  That would be me.

  Ah. A public debut. I hope there’s no speech required, he thought.

  Father crouched beside my basket, hat already off.

  “Mornin’, Virgil.”

  He always said my name like he was testing how it felt in the air.

  I didn’t understand why that affected me yet. It just did.

  Mother lifted me and began dressing me in something stiffer than usual. The collar scratched my neck almost immediately.

  Of course. Salvation through discomfort, he thought.

  I endured it with what I hoped passed for dignity.

  Outside, the mist softened the edges of everything. The red dirt road stretched ahead, damp and dark. Other shapes moved through the haze — neighbors walking in the same direction.

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  “Morning, Thomas.”

  “Morning.”

  “That your boy?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Mother replied. “Brought him out today.”

  Brought him out.

  Like I’d been in storage.

  The church appeared slowly as the fog thinned — white boards, narrow windows, no decoration beyond necessity. It wasn’t trying to impress anyone. It didn’t need to.

  Inside smelled of polished wood, starch, and perfume used sparingly.

  “And this must be Virgil Hollis.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Full name again. Spoken like a fact that mattered.

  Virgil Hollis. Three weeks old. Zero accomplishments to date, he thought.

  A blur rushed down the aisle.

  “Walter James, slow down!” a woman called.

  Walter.

  James.

  Ellie Mae caught him before he collided with a pew.

  So that’s Ellie Mae up close.

  I watched everything from Mother’s arms. The way people nodded at Father. The way conversations dipped slightly when certain subjects brushed past.

  The preacher stepped forward — thin, gray at the temples, a small metal pin catching the light on his coat.

  France.

  He spoke about the prodigal son. Wandering. Returning. Forgiveness.

  Interesting choice of story, he thought. Given the global circumstances.

  Behind us, two men kept their voices low.

  “They’re postin’ that register notice this week.”

  “About time.”

  Father’s jaw tightened — barely. But I felt the shift in him.

  June 5.

  Men twenty-one to thirty.

  He fit neatly into that category.

  Well. That’s inconvenient timing, he thought.

  The hymn began. Mother sang softly. Father stood still, hat in hand.

  I studied the room.

  In my old life, I could live in an apartment building for years and not know who shared my wall.

  Here, every person in this room knew exactly who Thomas Hollis was. Who Lila was. Who I was.

  If Father left, they would all notice.

  If he didn’t come back—

  I stopped myself.

  Let’s not spiral during the third verse, he thought.

  After the sermon, conversation bloomed quickly.

  “You headin’ to Memphis tomorrow, Thomas?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Rail yard steady?”

  “For now.”

  “Cherry Valley’s been busy with war talk lately.”

  Cherry Valley.

  There it was.

  So that’s home.

  Cherry Valley, Arkansas.

  It sounded smaller once I knew its name.

  On the walk back, Mother spoke quietly.

  “You’ll go register?”

  “Ain’t much choice,” Father said.

  Understatement seemed to be his specialty.

  Back at the cabin, the smell of frying salt pork filled the air. Biscuits followed.

  Father sat on the porch with a folded newspaper.

  “The Memphis Appeal,” he muttered.

  Electric lights expanding in parts of the city. More shipments moving through the rail yard. Numbers from overseas.

  Electric lights.

  Meanwhile, I was celebrating the ability to hold my own head up for six consecutive seconds.

  Progress is relative, he thought.

  That evening, fireflies blinked between fence posts as the sky darkened.

  Mother rocked me slowly.

  “You did good today,” she whispered.

  I refrained from screaming in a crowded building. I’d call that success, he thought.

  Her heartbeat steadied beneath my ear.

  In my other life, Sundays meant coffee shops and pretending the week ahead didn’t exist.

  Here, Sundays meant being known.

  Cherry Valley. A white church. War talk in low voices.

  I didn’t know yet what kind of man I would become here.

  But I understood something clearly.

  In a place this small, nothing happened quietly.

  And history was already knocking.

  Outside, the mist returned to the fields as night settled over Cherry Valley. Inside the narrow cabin, beneath the soft rhythm of a rocking chair, Virgil Hollis drifted toward sleep — no longer only a stranger reborn, but a name spoken aloud in a town that would remember it.