Chapter One

Let's keep him," said Florence. They were about to sign the lease. "He looks like he likes it here."

In the flowerbed, a small cement statue, two feet tall, robed, bearded, in mid-step looks down at the rounded rim of the swimming pool. In one hand he holds a spade, in the other a plume of kale or chard. The house's previous occupants had left him. Or maybe the occupants before them. A frost of green moss along an eyebrow. Part of a finger fallen off. Coin-sized circles, charcoal gray, of lichen.

"Saint Fiacre," said Arthur. He'd recently seen an article on him in one of the gardening magazines. "Also known as Fiacrius, I believe. Fiachra."

"Mmm," said Florence. She was already tearing up some weeds in the raised bed next to her hip.

"The patron saint of gardeners," said Arthur.

"And women who can't conceive," said Florence, bent over, uprooting tall grasses. "And taxi drivers."

Arthur laughed. "Nonsense."

"And potters, tile makers . . . hemorrhoids."

"Hemorrhoids get to have a saint?"

"That's what one of your magazines told me," she said. "I read it on the john." She stood up straight. "Do you think we could bring out a part of that rambler rose? Plant it right here?" She shimmied her arm up, a move from one of her dance numbers a long time ago, to demonstrate where. "A trellis?"

Arthur stood at the pool's edge, watching the water's surface get spackled with light. "I don't see why not," h