Free Sweet Carolina Morning by Susan Schild

Pulling a list from her purse, she thrust into Linny’s hand a list that was entitled “Linny’s Possible Dream Wedding Venue . ” “Here’s a list of the venues we need to visit today.”
    â€œDream wedding, huh?” Linny gave a rueful laugh. “Might be safer to title it, ‘Hope the Third Time’s a Charm Wedding Venues.’ ”
    â€œCut it out,” she said with a warning look. “We’ll visit three places today. Two or three months’ lead time narrowed down the choices, but your wedding planner— moi —came up with a few creative yet low-key options. We need to get on this chop-chop.” She turned to Linny and gave her a buck-up-now smile. “This’ll be fun, Lin. I promise.”
    â€œAll right, all right. But remember, let’s keep it simple,” Linny grumbled. “Any talk of doves being released and we’ll marry at the magistrate’s office.”
    Kate made a face. “On your wedding day, you can’t go to the courthouse and mingle with the unhappy people: drunk drivers, girlfriend beaters, child support dodgers. It’s terrible karma.” She shivered dramatically.
    Linny slumped as best she could in her seatbelt. Neither the picture-perfect wedding at St. Alban’s Episcopal nor the sunset-on-the-beach ceremony in Bermuda had brought her good karma. The sky brightened, and rays of sunlight peaked through the clouds in the east. Linny thought about how fervently Jack had embraced her before he’d dropped her off at home last night. “I’ll fix this,” he’d promised. “Everything will be all right.” She felt a surge of hopeful optimism. “Let’s go find us the perfect spot.”
    â€œGood,” Kate said, looking relieved. She pointed at the navigation screen on her dash. “I entered all the addresses before I left the house.” As she tooled down the farm road, she seemed to be making a beeline for every rut.
    On the way back up a particularly deep pothole, Linny bumped her head on the window glass. Rubbing it, she asked, “Can you try to aim for the good parts of the road?”
    â€œWhat?” Kate slowed, looking puzzled, perched as she was on the cool gel pillow on her seat, and realized what she’d done. She smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Lin. Jerry says I’m having trouble focusing.”
    â€œDo you want me to drive?” Linny asked.
    â€œNo, I’m fine.” Kate pushed her sunglasses up her nose, firmly gripped the wheel, and drove on. “First stop is right up the road at Mama’s new church.”
    Linny shot her sister a doubtful look. “I haven’t been inside a church in a long time.”
    Kate pulled onto the blacktop and took off at a sedate speed. “It might be fine. I don’t think it’s like the old-timey Baptists. Mama says they’ve got a new preacher who’s real progressive.”
    Remembering a comment her mother had made before she’d left on her trip, Linny scrubbed her eyes with her fingers. “Is that the same preacher Mama said would think her cruise was a floating Gomorrah, so she told him she was going on a missionary trip with Ruby and Dessie to fix up poor people’s houses in Appalachia?”
    â€œOh dear.” Kate’s sunny expression clouded and she pushed a hand through her curly hair. Pulling into the parking lot at Sanctifying Redeemer Baptist Church, she turned off the engine and looked at Linny. “Well, we’re here. We may as well see it.”
    Both sisters sat for a moment, eyes wide, taking in a fieldstone and timber stunner of a building.
    â€œWow. I didn’t know it was this big,” Kate said. “Mama didn’t mention that.”
    Linny thought about the worn front steps and uneven floors of Mama’s little home church, which had been destroyed by a fire the year before. She shook her head doubtfully. “This