On the Outside Looking In

The Episcopal Conference Center was once a hotel, and it was a significant improvedment from our last accommodations—the room that had crawled with roaches and bred mold like it was a vaccine laboratory. As it turned out, our host and hostess were a bonus. Not only were they the caretakers of the center, Gus was a Perpetual Deacon for St Mark's Church next door. When he smiled, his face squenched into a knot like the top of an orange where the stem had been removed. When he was slightly...