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THE FIRST CHAPTER IN A TRILOGY OF PAIN, SUFFERING, AND LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. AT LEAST, I THINK THAT’S LIGHT.

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If Fort Stockton had a color, it would be beige. Not a soft, comforting beige either, but the kind that makes your lips chap just looking at it. The town had been in a drought so long that people had stopped praying for rain and started praying for shade.

At the corner of West Dickinson and God’s good patience sat the Almost United Methodist Church. Nobody remembered how it got that name. There were theories—some theological, some legal, one involving a poker game and a missing deed—but Pastor Joel Peterson never got a straight answer. And he’d been asking for seventeen years.

That Thursday morning, Joel was sitting in his office with the blinds cracked just enough to watch a dust devil spin across the church parking lot like it had business to attend to. He held a mug that said “World’s Okayest Pastor” and was seriously considering whether it was meant as a compliment.

Membership was down. Attendance was down. Joel himself? Very much down.

He loved this church, loved these people, but lately every sermon felt like shouting into a well. God used to feel close—not always cozy, but close, like a ranch hand who showed up on time. These days, Joel felt like he was preaching to folding chairs and drywall, hoping heaven was still tuned to the right frequency.

And now, his middle son, Eli, was about to head off to Texas Wesleyan–San Saba. A good school. A Methodist school. A five-hour drive and a goodbye Joel wasn’t ready to say. That would leave only Colt at home — thirteen, opinionated, and already two inches taller than his dad.

The house was getting quieter. The church was getting emptier. And Joel was starting to wonder if he was just some old shade tree waiting for lightning that wasn’t coming.

Back at the parsonage, breakfast was underwhelming but hot — scrambled eggs, toast, and whatever fruit hadn’t turned. Sarah sat across from Joel, still in her robe, hair in a bun that said I tried and I quit at the same time.

Colt was shoveling eggs like he was in a race against himself. His Jim Bowie High hoodie was half-zipped, his Fightin’ Knives lanyard hanging from one pocket. He had to be at Eggs & Ammo by 4:00 p.m., where he stocked jerky and checked IDs like a mini-deputy.

The Eggs & Ammo store motto had recently changed — again — to:
“Hunting season or just breakfast, we’ll help you gun it.”

“I had a weird dream,” Colt said, mid-chew. “I was on a horse, but the horse was also the algebra teacher, and it kept asking me what X equaled.”

“That’s what you get for watching Walker, Texas Ranger before bed,” Sarah murmured, staring into her coffee.

Joel smiled, then looked at his wife. “You okay?”

She blinked, then said, “I want to have another child.”

Colt stopped chewing.

Joel nearly dropped his fork. “Come again?”

“I miss having a little one in the house,” she said. Her voice was soft, like she didn’t want to scare the words off. “Eli’s leaving, James is gone, and Colt is too busy to even be annoyed by us anymore.”

“I’m still annoyed by y’all,” Colt offered helpfully.

Joel stared. “Sarah… we’re in our fifties.”

“Not that far into them,” she said. “And I’m still healthy. I checked.”

“With who?”

“WebMD.”

“Lord help us.”

She looked at him, really looked, and Joel saw it — the sadness pooling behind her usual steadiness. The emptying house. The hollow of purpose. The way motherhood had been her sacred calling, and now that calling felt silent.

Joel reached across the table and squeezed her hand. He didn’t know what to say, so he just held on.

Joel stepped out to leave for the church, still rattled by breakfast and half-wondering if they still sold baby bottles at the Walmart in Odessa. He climbed into his blue Ford Taurus wagon — a rust-sprinkled chariot that had served him well since Eli was in kindergarten. It coughed to life with its usual protest.

He was halfway down the block when he heard it — a low groaning creak, like the gates of heaven opening on unoiled hinges.

Then he saw it.

Coming down the hill was what looked like a steel coffin on roller skates: a 1960 Lincoln Continental Mark V, stripped to bare metal with white doors, riding on mismatched suspension and the eternal optimism of one Doodle Diboll.

The Lincoln didn’t so much drive as aim. Its Mustang II–style front suspension gave it the turning radius of a cruise ship, and the rear drum brakes, scavenged from an F-150, were more of a philosophical concept than a mechanical reality.

Joel didn’t even have time to honk.

The Lincoln T-boned the Taurus at 12 miles an hour — not fast enough to injure, but more than enough to destroy. The Taurus crumpled with a sigh. The Lincoln rolled back a foot, proud and unapologetic, like a monument to poor judgment.

The driver’s door creaked open, and out stepped Doodle Diboll, shirtless under a denim vest, with a wrench in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Well,” Doodle said cheerfully, “that’s one way to realign a bumper.”

Joel opened his crushed door with effort. “Doodle, what in the righteous name of John Wesley was that?”

“She’s a 1960 Continental. One of only 1,461 two-door hardtops ever made,” Doodle said proudly. “Started restoring her back in 2012. Shelved her in 2016 when the twins were born and the garage flooded. Picked her up again last month after I found the floor panels under the bass boat.”

Joel pointed to the wreck. “She doesn’t run.”

“She’s got a 4.6-liter V8 in the bay,” Doodle said defensively. “Fuel-injected. Out of a Crown Vic. It just doesn’t start. Yet.”

Joel surveyed the scene — mismatched doors, patches of bare steel, a backseat filled with chrome trim, window glass, floor mats, badges, and what appeared to be a disassembled dashboard.

Colt jogged up barefoot from the porch. “Looks like someone parked a scrapyard on the side of your car, Dad.”

“There’s a carburetor under the backseat,” Joel muttered.

Doodle shrugged. “Or a catalytic converter. I lose track.”

Joel took a long breath. His Taurus was gone. His wife wanted a baby. His faith was dry as the Pecos. And now, he’d been rear-ended by a rolling parts bin built from the dreams of Ford engineers and the reality of Fort Stockton toolsheds.

“I’ll walk to work,” Joel said finally. “Call your insurance. And maybe a priest.”  Of course, the Continental hadn’t had insurance since long before Elvis took his final seat on the throne at Graceland and broke the hearts of middle-aged America.

At the church, Joel stood in the empty sanctuary, looking out at the same cracked pews, the same flickering overhead lights, and the same dusty pulpit he’d stood behind for nearly two decades.

The weight of it all — the dwindling flock, the unexpected wreck, his wife’s plea for new life in the middle of his own unraveling — sat heavy on his shoulders.

He stepped up to the pulpit, opened his Bible, and stared at the words until they blurred.

Unto Him a child is born…

He closed the book.

Then he whispered to the ceiling, “Lord, if you’re trying to get my attention, you’ve got it.”

The sanctuary remained quiet.

Except, maybe — just maybe — for the faintest sound of laughter drifting in through the stained glass, like heaven had a sense of humor after all.

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