"Yeah," I said, hiding my snicker over the dress. "Say, I wanted to thank you for handling my chips. I'd have lost my shirt if I hadn't let you show me how. I wanted to slip you a cut, but you bugged out of there."
"I figured you should handle our money, Billy Joe," she said. "Anyway, can't take money for my gift."
She had me shaking with excitement. "You have a gift?" I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
"Just some nights. Since I broke my vow, I've lost most of my prophecy. My real gift is healing. Lost all of that," she concluded, not bitterly. "God is punishing me."
Gravel crunched as she came slowly across the roof toward me. The fag end of her cigarette made a spinning arc in the night as she snapped it over the side of the roof. Now there was no way to see her at all. Perception is nice in the dark. I tracked her automatically.
"What was the vow you broke?" I said.
She sighed, near me. "I divorced my husband, my own darlin' Billy," she said. "There's no divorce in Heaven."
"Tough," I said. I thought I was her darlin' Billy. Talk about Double-think! "Will you miss never having a man again? I mean, once you've been a wife—" I added, letting it drift off.
"God has been good to me," she said out of the dark. "He let me see my own future, that he would give me a husband again."
That was a curve. "Isn't that an even worse breaking of vows?" I said. "I mean, if in God's sight you're still married to Billy Joe?"