The Reverend Mr. Cosmo Bostworth packed the picture of his wife, Jean, and their three daughters into his satchel and snapped it shut. Resting his wrists on the latches, he paused to look around. Forty years. The phrase kept rolling through his mind. Forty years.
He studied the soft green walls, the wooden bookshelves that were old when he was new, and the large oak desk that was no longer his. Well, he thought. It’s the new guy’s now.
Reverend Bostworth gave a small, involuntary guffaw. Everett Bradley Young. The young reverend will be Reverend Young. It always made him giggle.
He turned off the lights and shut the door one final time. In the small Church garden, the roses had been pruned down and wrapped in straw for the winter, and the red-leaf maples were two-thirds bare.
He was just pulling up the collar of his jacket when he heard a clatter coming from the rec. room and there, standing with her back to the window, was Charlotte Withholdt. She was pulling around tables and trying to push aside chairs.
For just a moment, the Reverend’s chivalrous impulses threatened to take over. But his inner voice said: You’re eighty years old, You’ve filled your furniture-moving obligations. And anyway, Charlotte isn’t my problem any more - the new guy can handle it.
Mr. Bostworth turned and walked down the driveway to the back parking lot and the new silver AirStreamer waiting there. Inside, his wife, Jean, was finishing last minute arranging.
“Everything ship-shape and ready to go,” she announced as he walked in.
Mr. Bostworth stowed his jacket in a tiny closet and climbed into the driver’s seat. Jean sat across from him. The engine started with a deeply satisfying rumble.
“Florida,” he sang out. “Here we come.”-
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