Adamsville State Penitentiary
Death RowWith the man’s first step, the others on the Row began a slow tapping on their cell doors.

The tiny procession reached the end of the pod, and the rest of the way through security and all the way to the death chamber was lined on either side with corrections officers shoulder to shoulder, feet spread, hands clasped behind their backs, heads lowered. As the condemned reached them, each raised his head, snapped to attention, arms at his sides, feet together.

What a tribute, he thought. Who would ever have predicted this for one who had, for so much of his life, been such a bad, bad man?

October, seventeen years earlier
Touhy Trailer Park

Brady Wayne Darby clapped his little brother on the rear. “Petey, time to get up, bud. We got no water pressure, so . . .”

“Again?”

“There’s a trickle, so give yourself a sponge bath.”

“Ma already gone?”

“Yeah. Now come on. Don’t be late.”

At sixteen, Brady was twice Peter’s age and hated being the man of the house—or at least of the trailer. But if no one else was going to keep an eye on his little brother, he had to. It was bad enough Brady’s bus came twenty minutes before Peter’s and the kid had to be home alone. Brady poured the boy a bowl of cereal and called through the bathroom door, “No dressing like a hoodlum today, hear?”

“Why’s it all right for you and not for me?” “Whatever.”

“Straight home after school. I got practice, so I’ll see ya for dinner.”

“Ma gonna be here?”

“She doesn’t report to me. Just keep your distance till I get home.”

Brady rummaged for cigarettes, finally finding five usable butts in one of the ashtrays. He quickly smoked two down to their filters, tearing open the remaining three and dumping the tobacco in his shirt pocket. Desperately trying to quit so he could stay on the football team, Brady couldn’t be seen with the other smokers across the road from the school, so he had resorted to sniffing his pocket throughout the day. If he couldn’t cop a smoke from a friend after last class and find a secluded place to light up, he was so jittery at practice he could hardly stand still.

Brady grabbed his books and slung his black leather jacket over his shoulder as he left the trailer, finding the asphalt already steaming in the sun. Others from the trailer park waiting for the bus made him feel as if he were seeing his own reflection. Guys and girls dressed virtually the same, black from head to toe except for white shirts and blouses. Guys had their hair slicked back, sideburns grown retro, high-collared shirts tucked into skintight pants over pointy-toed shoes. Oversize wallets, most likely as empty as Brady’s, protruded from back pockets and were attached to belt loops by imitation silver or gold chains.

So they were decades behind the times, even for rebels. Brady—an obsessive movie watcher—was a James Dean fan and dressed how he wanted, and the rest copied him. One snob called them rebels without a clue.

Brady scowled and narrowed his eyes, nodding a greeting. The fat girl with the bad face, whom Brady had unceremoniously dumped more than a year ago after he had gotten to know her better than he should have in the backseat of a friend’s car, sneered as she cradled her gigantic purse to her chest. “Still trying to play jock?”

Brady looked away. “Leave it alone, Agatha.”

“More like a preppy,” one of the guys said, reaching to flick Brady’s schoolbooks.

“You definitely don’t want to start with me,” Brady said, glaring and calling him the foulest name he could think of. The kid quickly backed off.

Brady knew he looked strange carrying schoolbooks. But the coach kept track.

The trailer park was the last stop on the route, and the yellow barge soon drifted in, crammed with suburbia’s finest: jocks, preppies, and nerds—every last one younger than Brady. No other self-respecting kid with a driver’s license rode the bus.

In a life of endless days of open-fly humiliation, this boarding ritual was the most painful. Brady took it upon himself to lead the group. They could hide behind him and each other, avoiding the squints and stares and held noses as they slowly made their way down the aisle looking, usually in vain, for someone to slide over far enough to allow one cheek on the seat for the ride to school.

“Phew!”

“. . . brewery . . .”

“. . . smokehouse . . .”

“. . . B.O. . . .”

Brady neither looked nor waited. His daily goal was to find the most resolute rich kid and make him move. Today he stared down at the short-cropped blond hair of a boy who had been trying to hide a smile while pretending to study. Brady pressed his knee against him and growled, “Move in, frosh.”

“I’m a sophomore,” the kid huffed as he made room.

On the way home, Brady would ride the activities bus. There he would for sure be the only one of his type, but football earned him his place among the jocks, cheerleaders, thespians, and assorted club members. Wide-eyed at first, they seemed to have grudgingly accepted him, though they still clearly saw the trailer park as a novelty. One evening as he trudged from the bus, Brady had been sure everyone was watching. He turned quickly, only to be proven right, and felt face-slapped. At least the trailer park was the first stop at the end of the day. 11 a.m.

First Community Church
Vidalia, Georgia

Reverend Thomas Carey knew he would not be getting the job when the head of the pastoral search committee—a youngish man with thick, dark hair—dismissed the others and asked Grace Carey if she wouldn’t mind waiting for her husband in the car.

“Oh, not at all,” she said, but Thomas interrupted.

“Anything you say to me, you can say to her.”

The man put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder and spoke softly. “Of course, you’re free to share anything you wish with your spouse, Reverend, but why don’t you decide after you hear me out?”

Grace assured Thomas it was all right and retreated from the sanctuary.

“You tell her everything?” the man said.

“Of course. She’s my—”

“She knows we saw you at your request, not ours, and that we didn’t feel you warranted a visit to hear you preach?”

Thomas Carey pressed his lips together. Then, “I appreciate your meeting with us today.”

The committee chairman pointed to a pew and leaned against another as Thomas sat. “I need to do you a favor and be frank with you, Reverend. I can tell you right now this is not going to go your way. In fact, we’re not going to bother with a vote.”

“That doesn’t sound fair.”

“Please,” Dark Hair said. “I know these people, and if I may be blunt, you rank last on the list of six we’ve already interviewed.”

“Shouldn’t you poll the others on their—?”

“I’m sorry, but you have a three-year Bible college diploma, no real degree, no seminary training. You’re, what, in your midforties?”

“I’m forty-six, yes.”

“Sir, I’ve got to tell you, I’m not surprised that your résumé consists of eight churches in twenty-two years—the largest fewer than 150 members. Have you ever asked yourself why?”

“Why what?”

“Why you’ve never been successful, never advanced, never landed a church like ours . . .”

“Surely you don’t equate success with numbers.”

“Reverend Carey, I’m just trying to help. You and your sweet wife come in here, I assume trying to put your best foot forward, yet you look and dress ten years older than you are, and your hair is styled like a 1940s matinee idol.”

Dark Hair extended his hand. “I want to sincerely thank you for your time today. Please pass along my best wishes to your wife. And be assured I meant no disrespect. If it’s of any help, I’m aware of several small churches looking for pastors.”

Thomas stood slowly and buttoned his sport jacket. “I appreciate your frankness; I really do. Any idea how I might qualify for a bigger work? I don’t want to leave the ministry, but our only child is in her second year of law school at Emory, and—”

“When there are many Christian colleges that would give a minister huge discounts?”

“I’m afraid she would be neither interested in nor qualified for a Christian school just now.”

“I see. Well, I’m sorry. But the fact is, you are what you are. None of your references called you a gifted preacher, despite assuring us you’re a wonderful man of God. If you cannot abide your current station, perhaps the secular marketplace is an option.”

5 p.m.
Head Football Coach’s Office
Forest View High School

Brady hadn’t even thoroughly dried after his shower. Now he sat in Coach Roberts’s cramped space with his stuff on his lap, waiting for the beefy man. Every player was listed on a poster on the wall, his place on the depth chart and his grade in every class there for all to see. Brady knew what was coming. He should have just skulked out to the bus and, by ignoring the coach’s summons, announced his quitting before being cut.

But he knew the drill. Never give up. Never say die. Keep your head up. Look eager, willing.

Finally Roberts barreled in, dropping heavily into a squeaky chair. “I gotta ask you, Darby: what’re you doing here?”

“You asked me to come see you—”

“I mean what’re you doing trying to play football? You’re a shop kid, ain’t ya? You didn’t come out as a frosh or a soph. I smell smoke all over you.”

“I quit, Coach! I know the rules.”

“We’re barely a month into the year, and you’re makin’ Ds in every class. You’re fourth-string quarterback, and entertaining as it is for everybody else to watch you racing all over the practice field on every play, we both know you’re never gonna see game time. Now, really, what’re you doing?”

“Just trying to learn, to make it.”

Brady couldn’t tell him he was looking for something, anything, to get him out of the trailer park and closer to the kids he had despised for so long. They seemed to have everything handed to them: clothes, cars, girls, college, futures. No, he wasn’t ready to dress differently; he took enough heat from his friends just for carrying books and playing football.

“Listen, your teachers, even the ones outside of industrial arts, tell me you’re not stupid. You’re a good reader, sometimes have something to say. But you don’t test well, rarely do your homework. What’s the deal?”
Brady shrugged. “It’s just my ma and my brother and me.”

“Hey, we’ve all got problems, Darby.”

Do we? Really? “Like I said, I quit smoking, and I’m trying to get my grades up.”

“Look, I want to see you succeed, but frankly you’re a distraction here. I rarely cut anybody willing to practice and ride the bench—”

“Which I am.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t working, and I don’t want to waste any more of your time.”

“Don’t worry about wasting my—”

“Or mine. Or my coaches’. If you’re determined to get involved in some extracurricular stuff, there’s all kinds of other—”

“Like what?”

Coach Roberts looked at his watch. “Well, what do you like to do?”

“Watch movies.”

“Don’t we all? But is it a passion for you?”

“You have no idea.”

“You want to be an actor someday? study theater?”

Brady hesitated. “Never thought of that, but yeah, that would be too good to be true.”

“Now see, with that attitude, you’ll never get anywhere. If you want to try that, try it! Talk to Nabertowitz, the theater guy. See if there’s a club or a play or something.”

“There’s rumors about him.”

“Do yourself a favor and keep your mouth shut about that. Those artsy people can be a little flamboyant, but the guy’s got a wife and kids, so don’t be jumping to conclusions, and you’ll stay out of trouble.”

Brady shrugged. “I’d be as new there as I was here.”

“Oh, I expect you’d be a sight among that crowd, though there’s all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff I’ll bet you could do. But I need to tell you, football is not your thing.”

Wherever we’re going, I won’t be staying. That much I can promise. I’ve run away seven times—never once to anything, just away from. Maybe that’s why they call me a “runaway” and not a “run-to.”

The way I figure it, these “ideal placements” by Chicago’s social services never add up to much. And anyway, so far, my life has been subtraction. Two parents and a brother and me. Take away one brother, and that leaves two parents and me. Take away one parent, and that leaves one parent and me. Take away another parent, and that leaves me, Dakota Brown, age almost 16, trying not to wonder what it will be like when I’m the one taken away.

Bouncing in the backseat of the social worker’s car—the front seat has too many papers and folders about me to fit the real me in it—I decide it’s time for a list. I love lists. You can take a mess like Ms. Social Worker has going for her in the front seat and, in a few minutes, turn it into a list that fits on a single sheet of paper. Lists bring things under control. My control.

I take my list-book out of my backpack and turn to a clean page. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I catch the frown of concentration on the social worker’s face. She’s too busy trying to get us out of Chicago traffic to worry about what I’m doing in the backseat.

I know her name is Ms. Bean, but in my head I keep thinking of her as “the social worker” because things are easier that way. She’s not a bad person, and I’m not trying to get her into trouble or anything. But because I’m so good at what I do—running away—I’m bound to make her look pretty lousy at what she does. She thinks she’s driving me to my new foster family, where I’ll live happily ever after and forever be a pleasant anecdote for her to share with friends and family and future fosters everywhere.

Poor Ms. Social Worker. She is doomed to fail. The State of Illinois has not invented a foster family from which I, Dakota Brown, cannot escape.

In my list-book, I form an action plan.

The Plan:

A. Pay attention to the route leading to my new location. It is also my route out.

B. Control reaction to new setting. It’s important that the social worker believes I like my new digs.

C. Headache. This will be my medical weapon of choice, the only complaint I’ll voice, my one excuse to get out of whatever needs getting out of.

D. Observe. Knowledge is power.

E. Never cry. At least, never let them see you cry.

F. Never get angry. (Yeah, right.) Don’t let them see the anger.

G. Never “confide,” as the social worker likes to call it.

H. Be friendly, but do not make friends.

“Dakota, what are you writing?” Ms. Bean asks.

“Sorry.” I close my list-book and flash a smile to the rearview mirror.

“Don’t be sorry,” she says, smiling back at the mirror. This action makes her come up too fast on the little sports car in front of us.

“Ms. Bean!” I shout.

She slams on the brakes, forcing the car behind us do the same. Horns honk. “I hate traffic,” she admits.

I wonder how she ended up in Chicago when she hates traffic so much. But I don’t ask. My mind reaffixes the Ms. Social Worker label, and I stare out the window.

Ms. Bean is not the clichéd social worker. She’s a stylish, 24-year-old college graduate with light red hair, funky earrings, and clothes I wouldn’t mind wearing myself. I know she’s engaged. But other than the fact that she’s a lousy driver, I don’t know much else about her. That’s the way I like it.

I lean back and close my eyes, hoping she’ll drop the subject of my writing notebook, her driving, and everything else. After a minute, I open my eyes and stare out the window again. Cars whiz by all around us. Every car window is closed. Heat rises from the pavement between the lanes. Even with the air-conditioning blasting, I can smell Chicago, a mixture of tar, exhaust fumes, and metal.

The social worker slams on her brakes again, but I can’t see any reason for it this time.

“Sorry about that,” she mutters. Maybe to me. Maybe to the guy behind her, who rolls down his window long enough to scream at her.

“Don’t stop writing on my account, Dakota,” she says. “Unless it makes you carsick. It always makes me carsick.”

I’m thinking that if I get carsick, it will have more to do with her driving style than it does with my writing style. But Rule #11 on my “How to Handle Social Workers” list is “Don’t criticize. It puts them on the defensive.”

I say, “You’re right, Ms. Bean. I really shouldn’t write while I’m in the car.”

“My sister is a journalist,” Ms. Bean tells me.

It’s more information than I care to know. I don’t want to picture her as a person, with a newspaper-writing sister.

“Charlotte has a mini recorder she carries with her everywhere,” the social worker continues. “Instead of writing notes, she talks into that recorder, even when she’s driving. My dad keeps telling her not to record and drive, but she won’t listen.”

She hits her horn when someone changes lanes right in front of her without signaling.

“How far out of Chicago is this place?” I ask.

“Nice?”

I know this is the name of the town they’re dragging me to, but it takes a second to register. “Yeah. Nice,” I say. “Only are you sure they don’t pronounce it ‘Niece,’ like that city in France?” Both cities are spelled the same, but I’m guessing the similarities end there.

“That would make sense,” she admits. “But no. You’ll be living in Nice, Illinois.” She giggles. “And going to Nice High. And I’m sure you’ll be a nice resident of Nice.”

I manage to smile, although I can only imagine how old this play on names must get. I’m already feeling not so nice about it. “So, are we getting close?”

“It’s still a good ways,” Ms. Bean answers. “The board thought a rural home might be a nice change for you.” She smiles, then lets the “nice” thing fade without comment.

Neither of us says anything, so her last words bang around in my head. The board thought a rural home would be a nice change? The board doesn’t know me well enough to know how ridiculous it is to think a rural home would be just the ticket for Dakota Brown. The “ticket” for me is a one-way ticket out of there.

“Are you writing a book?” Ms. Bean asks.

“No,” I answer, hoping she’ll leave it alone.

“No? A letter, maybe?”

Those files scattered all over the front seat have enough information on me that she should know there’s nobody in the world I’d write a letter to. “It’s just lists,” I say to get her off my case.

“Like a shopping list?”

“Just a list,” I answer, trying not to let her see that this conversation is getting to me.

“Like what, for example?” Ms. Bean can turn into a little kid sometimes. She reminds me of this girl, Melody, who was in a foster home in Cicero with me for two months. Melody would grab on to a question and not let it go until she shook an answer out of you.

“Read me one, will you, Dakota?” she begs.

I’m pretty sure Ms. Bean will keep asking me about lists until I either read her one or get so angry I won’t be able to keep up my cheerful act. That, I don’t want.

I open my list-book and flip through dozens of lists until I come to a social worker–friendly list. “Okay . . . here’s a list of five cities I want to visit one day.” This is a real list I’ve made, but I have a hundred cities on it. Not five.

“That’s awesome!” she exclaims. “Which cities, Dakota?”

“Paris, Vienna, Rome, Moscow, and Fargo.” I stop and close the notebook before she can peek in the rearview mirror at the next list, because it looks like this:

Top 8 Cities I Never Want to See Again

1. Elgin, IL

2. Evanston, IL

3. Aurora, IL

4. Glen Ellyn, IL

5. Kankakee, IL

6. Cicero, IL

7. Chicago, IL

8.

Ms. Bean was my social worker in only the last two cities, but she’s got files on me from the other five. So she’d pick up on this list right away and make a big deal of it if she saw it.

I wait until she’s totally confused and trying to study her map while avoiding crashing into trucks. Then I open my list-book and fill in that blank by #8 of the cities I never want to see again.

When I’m sure she’s not looking, I write in big letters:

Nice, IL

Copyright © 2008 by Dandi Daley Mackall. All rights reserved.

The prison was in the middle of nowhere; at least that was how it seemed to me. Not many property owners must want a facility like that in their backyard, even one for women. So there were no crops of housing developments taking up farmland around here the way they seemed to everywhere else. Not that I thought much about farmland, even having grown up in the middle of it. The only green cornfields I’d seen since I’d left for college were from an airplane as I jetted from one end of the country to the other.

“Are you here for the Catherine Carlson release?”

I looked up in surprise as not one but a half dozen people seemed to have appeared from nowhere. I’d noticed a couple of vans and cars farther down the parking lot but hadn’t seen any people until now. My gaze had been taken up by the prison, a forlorn place if ever I saw one. Even the entire blue sky wasn’t enough to offset the building’s ugliness. Block construction, painted beige like old oatmeal. If the cinder walls didn’t give it away, the lack of windows made it clear it was an institution. The electric barbed wire fencing told what kind.

Two men in my path balanced cameras on their shoulders, and in front of them a pair of pretty blonde journalists shoved microphones in my face while another thrust forth a palm-sized recorder. One on the fringe held an innocuous notepad.

My first impulse was to run back to my car and speed away. But Dilly was waiting. I clamped my mouth shut, gripped the strap of my Betsey Johnson purse, and walked along the concrete strip leading to the doors of the prison. There was an invisible line at the gate that not a single reporter could penetrate. But I knew they’d wait.

At the front door, a woman greeted me through a glass window. Dilly was being “processed,” she told me, then said to have a seat. I turned, noticing the smell of inhospitable antiseptic for the first time. Hard wooden benches were the only place to sit. Evidently they thought the families of those in such a place needed to be punished too. I’d have brought a book if I’d known the wait was going to be so long; there wasn’t even a magazine handy to help me pass the time.

Only thoughts. Of how I would make up for my failures. I’d told Mac, my best friend—and somehow it seemed he’d become my only friend—that this was the first step in fixing things. Keeping a broken past in the past. Dilly’s . . . and mine.

I remembered the day our parents brought my sister home from the hospital just after she was born. The excitement was as welcome as the warmth of the sun shining through the bare trees that early March afternoon. Everyone smiled, and even though Mom was moving kind of slow up the stairs to our farmhouse, she smiled too. It was the kind of excitement you see when there’s a new and hopeful change, like at weddings.

I was five, and even at that age I knew my parents had waited a long time for my sister. I heard Mom say once that she’d envisioned a houseful of kids, but the Lord hadn’t seen fit to bless her with a productive womb. I think I wondered, even then, what my mother would have done with a bunch more kids when I seemed to be in the way of other things she did: lunches with friends she’d known all her life; making decorative quilts and pillows she sold at fairs; canning fruits, pickles, and jam; or endless work on the farm. In retrospect maybe it was a surprise they’d even had me and Dilly; she must have been so tired at the end of the day.

I wondered later if everybody was happier because things you wait for seem better once you finally get them. But in recent years I thought everybody in town might have been relieved there weren’t a whole slew of kids born into our family.

“Go take a seat, Hannah,” Dad had said to me after Mom told us I couldn’t hold the baby unless I was sitting down.

I skipped over to Aunt Elsie on the couch and hopped up next to her, holding out my arms as my mother made the careful transfer. It wasn’t like holding one of my dolls, even though the blanket was made of the same soft material my plastic babies enjoyed. Unlike my dolls, my sister was warm and squirmy. Dad told me not to hold her too tight, so I put her on my legs and pulled back the cover to get a good look at her.

Her eyes were closed, and she wore a pink cotton bonnet. Even then, the straight lines of her brows had been drawn, which later filled in so well. Her cheeks were splotched red and white and her arms and legs moved in four different directions. When she opened her mouth, I saw her flat gums, no hint of the teeth to come someday. I thought she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.

“She’s a dilly,” I whispered to Aunt Elsie, who’d taught me her favorite word for the things she liked. It came from a song called “Lavender Blue,” and while my parents spent so much time at the hospital in those last couple of days, that was what my aunt and I had been doing—going about farm chores singing of things being dilly.

The name on my sister’s birth certificate was Catherine Marie Williams, but neither Catherine nor Cathy nor even Marie ever stuck. She was Dilly from that day on.

Nearly thirty years later, here I was, ready to bring Dilly back home to our farmhouse.

Finally I heard something other than the distant sounds of an institution. Closer than the clatter of plates somewhere, something nearer than the echo of a call down a corridor. I heard the click of an automatic door lock, followed by the swish of air accompanying a passage opening.

Dilly. Instead of prison orange, she wore regular street clothes. Was it possible she was taller? Did people grow in their twenties? She was still short, having taken from the same gene pool I’d inherited, but I was barely an inch taller now. Spotting me right away, she dropped her black leather suitcase on the floor. For a moment the case looked vaguely familiar, but that thought was lost when I noted a shadow of someone standing next to Dilly. My eyes stayed on my sister. She flung herself at me before I had the chance to go to her.

“Thanks for coming,” she said, and her voice was so wobbly I knew she was fighting tears. I choked back my own.

“Thanks?” I repeated. Thanks? How could I not come?

“It’s a long way from California.”

I laughed. “Yeah, another galaxy.”

The woman beside Dilly stepped closer and I couldn’t ignore her any longer. She was tall and thin, dressed in jeans but with a more formal black jacket that somehow didn’t look misplaced over the denim.

I pulled myself away from Dilly and accepted the woman’s handshake.

“I’m Catherine’s social worker, Amanda Mason. We just finished our exit session and she’s all set to go.”

Dilly held up a folder. “Probation rules, contact names, phone numbers.”

“Formalities, Catherine,” Amanda said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

It was always something of a surprise to me that others outside of our hometown knew my sister by any name but Dilly. She certainly looked ready to go home, wearing a spring jacket I hadn’t seen before, carrying a suitcase I now recognized as one I’d left behind when I headed to college so long ago.

“I didn’t know you’d have luggage,” I said when she picked up the black leather case. I didn’t know what else to say.

“The women are allowed to purchase certain necessities during their stay. Clothes, mostly.”

I knew that, because Mom had told me I could send Dilly money—no cash, just cashier’s checks or money orders, no more than fifty dollars at a time—but somehow I never connected that money with actual purchases. It wasn’t like there could be a regular store inside a prison.

“Socks,” Dilly said with a grin. “My feet still get cold.”

When we were little, we shared a full-size bed, before our parents finally bought a set of twin beds. I still remember her icicle feet in winter. “You have a suitcase full of socks?”

“Just about. They never let me keep them all in one place till today. Guess I didn’t know I had so many.” Then she turned to the other woman and set the suitcase down again. “Thanks, Amanda. You—” Something caught in her throat, and she stopped herself. “You did so much for me.” She put both of her hands on the woman’s forearms, and the social worker didn’t even flinch.

Amanda shifted her arms to take Dilly’s hands in hers. “I haven’t done enough,” she said. “Not nearly enough.”

They hugged and I watched, wondering if the prison movies I’d stopped watching since Dilly’s arrest had given me the wrong impression. No hint of inmate animosity toward those in power here.

“Keep praying, though, will you? I won’t stop needing that.”

“You don’t even have to ask.”

Then Dilly slipped away and I had to turn and follow her or be left behind.

Prayer. That was what Dilly had asked for. All our life we’d been told to pray. On our knees, right after we got up, right before going to bed, and as often as possible in between. I might have had faith as a child, but by the time I was in high school, I began wondering what I was praying to. Some light in the sky that saw all the suffering in this world and didn’t lift a finger—a supposedly all-powerful finger—to do something about it?

I’d given up prayer years ago; spiritually, long before I left home for college. Physically, once I stepped foot outside my parents’ home. I eyed Dilly, trying to see if she’d been serious about the request or said it because that was what the other woman wanted to hear. But Dilly was looking ahead, walking out the door.

The reporters were still there when we stepped outside. I meant to warn Dilly, to make some sort of plan about getting to the car as fast as we could, telling her in advance which way to go.

But when Dilly came upon them, instead of hustling past, to my amazement she stopped. For a moment she looked to the ground, then to me, and I thought I saw a hint of uncertainty before she took an audible breath. “I just want to say one thing.” Her voice trembled slightly, and she paused long enough to look down at the sidewalk again, then at each one of the reporters.

“When I did what I did so long ago, I didn’t have any hope. When I stepped into this place, I didn’t have hope. But that’s all changed now because of the Lord Jesus.”

I stared, aware of the silence that followed as the reporters waited to see if she was finished. But that wasn’t why I couldn’t find words or even the gumption to pull her along to the car. What was she talking about? Between this obviously rehearsed statement and the request for prayer, it was as if she’d “done found Jesus,” as Grandpa used to say.

A barrage of questions shot from the reporters.

“Are you going to see your daughter?”

“Are you going to try to regain custody?”

“Has your husband forgiven you for what you did?”

Dilly didn’t answer a single question. Instead, she looked at me, then toward the parking lot. It took the briefest moment for me to realize she didn’t know where to go, which car was mine, so I led the way. I pressed the keyless remote to unlock her door before she reached it. She struggled a moment to get her bag into the rear seat, then settled herself just as I slid behind the wheel.

One of the reporters, the one I’d mistakenly believed harmless because the only technology he held was a pad of paper, had followed us to the car. He tapped on the window. I saw Dilly reach for the button, but quicker than her, I touched the window lock.

“I was only going to crack it,” she said.

“Do you really want to hear what he has to say?”

He was yelling now, his young, impassioned face nearly pressed to the glass. “Did it take prison to teach you you’re not the one to take matters into your own hands? that your daughter’s life is just as important as anyone else’s?”

Dilly and I exchanged glances. I put the car in reverse; there was something militant about the young man that made me want to get away from him, spare Dilly from anything else he had to say. I’d seen judgment in people’s eyes before and I was sure Dilly had too. This guy might be a reporter, but he wasn’t an unbiased one. If such a kind existed.

Dilly stared at him, the brows everyone noticed on her, so thick, so dramatic, now drawn. A moment ago she’d found the courage to speak about something most people kept to themselves: faith. Now she looked like the Dilly I’d known when we shared the same roof. Timid, malleable. Maybe hoping I would take her away as fast as I could.

I backed out of the spot even as a thousand questions came to my mind too. I wanted to resist asking, though, unlike the guy with the notepad. His emphasis had been all wrong. He’d asked about the effect of prison, unconcerned about what Dilly really believed these days.

I still felt awkward after being away from her so long. But even that wasn’t enough to keep me quiet. Once an older, wiser sibling, always so. I figured it gave me the right to be nosy.

“Did you mean what you said back there?” Since I was navigating out of the now-busy parking lot, I had to focus on driving, avoiding the need for eye contact.

“About Jesus?” She looked behind us at the reporters now packing up. “Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

“What did you mean?”

“Just what I said.”

I didn’t know how to rephrase the question to get an answer I could understand, so I found the silence I probably should have stayed with. Once we pulled away from the prison grounds, Dilly touched my forearm much as she had the social worker’s. I spared a quick glance, keeping both hands on the wheel.

“I’ve changed, Hannah. God changed me.”

I wasn’t yet sure I believed her. I wasn’t the only one who’d grown up in a house where rules were more important than people, work more important than any kind of play, keeping up an appearance of holiness more important than living a holy life. We’d both vowed never to set foot in a church once we moved out of our parents’ house, and I’d kept my end. I thought Dilly had too. I knew she’d stopped going to church after she got married. But lately . . . Did they even have church in prison?

“Since when has God done anything for either one of us, Dil?” I asked.

“I wanted to write you, tell you all about it—”

“Right.” Even I heard the cynicism. I’d received exactly three letters from her the entire six years she’d been in prison, despite the hundreds I’d written. Well, one hundred, anyway. That first year. After that I just sent money orders as I made my plans. True, I’d made those plans without input from her, but I’d made them to benefit both of us.

Her eyes, brown like two spots of oversteeped tea, shone with sudden, yet-to-be-shed tears. “You know me, Hannah. I’m a talker, not a writer. I tried a thousand times to write, but every time I did, my brain froze. I can’t explain it on paper. It’s something I wanted to tell you in person.”

“What about last Christmas? I visited you then.”

She let out something that sounded a little like a Ha! but not quite as cynical as me. “In front of Mom and Dad? Are you kidding? I couldn’t explain it with them there.” She sat back in her seat, and laughter squeezed out one tear, leaving her eyes dry. “Not that everybody wouldn’t have liked to see a good argument—from Mom and Dad about what grace and forgiveness really mean and from you about . . . about everything. The inmates would’ve laid bets for a winner, except if nobody drew blood they wouldn’t have been able to figure out who won.”

I didn’t know if she was being sarcastic or not, since our family didn’t argue. We hid all our resentment and anger, especially from each other. Even now I held my tongue. For a moment I felt like I was back home, preparing to listen to one of Dad’s endless sermons at the family altar he’d set up in the corner of the living room.

I sucked in a breath. “Okay, let’s have it, then.”

But Dilly didn’t reply. She shook her head, her whole body facing me instead of the dashboard. “I will tell you, Hannah. Everything. But not right now. Not yet. I need to know something first.”

I glanced at her again, prepared for the questions I knew she’d ask.

“Have you seen Sierra?”

I nodded. “Yesterday.”

“They let you? Nick’s mother let you—you know, in the same room? You talked to her? How is she?”

I shook my head. “I went to her school. They wouldn’t let me into her classroom, but they told me she was there. That she’s all right. Then I waited outside until the buses came, and . . .” I was tempted to lie, to tell her I’d seen Sierra close enough to prove what the school receptionist had said, that Dilly’s daughter was okay. “I saw all the kids get on their buses, and they looked happy.”

Whatever joy, whatever light I’d seen in Dilly’s eyes since the moment she mentioned her daughter’s name began to fade before I’d even finished talking.

“So she wouldn’t let you see her?”

There was no way I’d describe the phone conversation I’d had with Nick’s mother; I didn’t use that kind of language. Nick had never really taken charge of his own daughter’s care, but his mother had taken full responsibility for Sierra. One thing she’d stipulated: no visits from anyone in our family.

“I’ve got to see her,” Dilly said, so low I barely heard her.

I knew seeing her daughter was only the beginning. I knew what she really wanted, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Did I really want a fight to restore everything to the way it used to be or should have been? What if we won?

But I reminded myself that when determination was greater than fear, people could do just about anything, even take charge of someone like Sierra.

All I had to do now was make sure that determination stayed stronger than my fears. All I had to do was convince myself, and then Dilly, that I wouldn’t let my fears stand in the way.

Because if I knew Dilly—and I still did, even when she seemed different—my guess was that our future held three of us together. Somehow, in some way.

Me, Dilly, and her daughter, Sierra.

But not God.

God Talks to People Every Day

Read Chapter 1 in How to Hear from God. Then read in your Bible the Scriptures designated below and answer the questions that follow. When you finish, check your answers in the answer key provided at the end of this book.

TO WHOM DOES GOD SPEAK . . . AND HOW?

God has spoken to all people in their inner consciousness, through creation of the natural world and through creating within man an inner void that only God can fill.

1. Read Romans 1:19-21.

a. To what part of a person does God make Himself evident?

b. What does God reveal about Himself to all mankind through His creation?

c. What happens when people do not honor and glorify God, even when they know and recognize Him as God?

2. Read Romans 14:12.

What is required of each of us?

3. Read Isaiah 26:8-9.

a. What is our heartfelt desire?

b. Whom does our soul yearn for?

c. What does our spirit seek?

WHAT DOES GOD SAY TO ALL MEN AND WOMEN?

God speaks to men and women for very specific purposes—He speaks to them so they may know what is lasting and what isn’t, so they may carry out His will, so they may live forever, and so He may direct their daily footsteps.

4. Read 1 John 2:17.

a. What passes away and disappears?

b. What remains forever?

5. Read Proverbs 3-6.

What does God promise to the person who seeks to know, recognize, and acknowledge Him?

6. Read Jeremiah 29:11-14.

a. When does God hear us?

b. When does God reveal Himself to us?

c. What does God reveal to us when we seek Him and pray to Him?

d. What does the Lord do for us when we find Him?

WHAT DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT SPEAK TO US?

God speaks to those who seek to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in all they do. The Bible says all people can hear from the Holy Spirit if they will only seek God and receive Jesus as their Savior and receive the Holy Spirit Whom the heavenly Father sends.

7. Read Luke 11:13.

To whom does God the Father give the Holy Spirit?

8. Read John 1:32-33 and John 14:15-20.

a. Who is the One Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit?

b. Where does the Holy Spirit reside?

c. What does it mean to be baptized in the Holy Spirit?

d. Why can’t the “world” (unbelievers) receive the Holy Spirit?

9. Read John 16:12-13 and John 14:26.

a. Into what does the Holy Spirit guide us?

b. What does the Holy Spirit announce and declare to us?

c. What does the Holy Spirit cause us to recall?

10. Read John 6:45.

As those who listen to and learn from the Father, Who is our personal Teacher?

WHAT DOES THE HOLY SPIRIT KNOW TO TELL US?

The Holy Spirit knows all about us—all about the way we should conduct our lives—and about God’s plans and purposes. The Bible gives us examples of men and women who have heard from the Lord, including great details about God’s plans and purposes, as well as the consequences of their obeying the Lord’s instructions.

11. Read Matthew 10:30, Psalm 139:16, Acts 17:26-27.

What does the Holy Spirit know about us?

12. Read Matthew 7:13-14, Deuteronomy 30:19, and Jeremiah 21:8.

a. How does the Bible describe the “gate” through which the Holy Spirit leads us?

b. How does the Bible describe the “way” the Holy Spirit leads us to follow in life?

c. What critical choice does the Holy Spirit help us to make?

13. Read Genesis 6:13-17.

a. In this passage, what did God tell Noah that He was going to do?

b. What did God tell Noah to do?

14. Read Exodus 7:1-5.

a. In this passage, what did God tell Moses about Pharaoh?

b. What did God tell Moses about Aaron?

c. What did God tell Moses that he was to do?

d. What did God tell Moses about the way Pharaoh would respond to Moses’ message?

e. What did God tell Moses would be the end result?

15. Read 1 Corinthians 2:10-13.

a. What does the Holy Spirit unveil and reveal to us about God?

b. Why does the Holy Spirit reveal to us the thoughts of God?

WHAT ARE GOD’S PROMISES TO LEAD AND GUIDE US?

The Lord promises to be our Shepherd—to lead and guide us in the paths He desires for us to walk. He tells us that we will have the ability to hear His voice. God speaks to us—our role is to listen intently for what He has to say to us and then to obey Him fully.

16. Read Ezekiel 34:11-16.

In this passage, what does the Lord promise to do for His sheep?

17. Read 1 John 2:27.

a. What does this verse say about the permanent source of guidance that we have in the Holy Spirit?

b. What does this verse say the anointing of the Holy Spirit teaches us?

c. What does this verse challenge us to continue to do?

18. Read John 10:4-5.

As His “sheep,” what did Jesus say about our ability to hear and follow Him?

19. Read Psalm 46:10.

What is the best way for us to hear from the Lord?

20. Read John 2:5.

What should our response be when the Lord speaks to us?

PRAYER TIME

As you have read Chapter 1 and have completed this chapter of the workbook, has the Lord spoken to your heart and mind about His desire to speak to you personally on a regular, daily basis?

I invite you to use the space below to write out a prayer to the Lord, asking Him to speak to you about the matters in your life that are of greatest concern to you. Ask Him to speak to you about His plan for your life. Ask Him to give you an open heart to hear what He says. And . . . express your desire to obey whatever it is He tells you to do.

Copyright © 2004 by Joyce Meyer

AWAKENING

The alarm barely penetrated David’s sleep. He fumbled with the unfamiliar hotel clock, found the button, and pressed.

Ten minutes later, another alarm blared at him from across the room. Although he had set it himself, he threw back the covers and stamped toward the sound, slammed it quiet, then burrowed back into his pillow.

An hour later, morning sunlight through the sliding glass door played on his face. He opened one eye. Outside, aspen and birch leaves filtered the light. A swallow flitted by. He sat bolt upright and looked at the clock beside him.

Already 6:30! He only had one day here, and now he had wasted the best hour.

David had wanted to rise before dawn, to inhale these surroundings as the trees and lake became visible. He loved rising at dawn to see the sunrise and feel some control over his day, though he hadn’t done so in years. Now the sun was already bright in a blue sky.

He felt little control over his life these days. The communications company where he worked had downsized, firing half his colleagues. Maybe he’d be next.

To make matters worse, he felt betrayed by his boss, Frank, who had persuaded him to give up a very good job to take his current position. Now David realized Frank had known all along that his company was in trouble, that David’s strengths would enable him to function with fewer people. It was particularly galling that Frank had lured him not with money but with a mission he knew David believed in—providing hope to mentally ill children. David cared deeply for children and had been willing to swallow a reduced salary. He had accepted the deal but now would have to do the work of at least two people and as a result had come to detest Frank.

Twisting his body toward the window and putting his feet on the floor, he reached over to pick up a photo of his wife, Marcia. It was his favorite—she was looking out from under a beach umbrella with an impish grin. At least Marcia wouldn’t let him go.

David stood, ran his fingers through his reddish brown hair, pulled his jeans on, and buttoned them over his flat belly, the result of careful eating and no-nonsense workouts. He had always brought passion to whatever he did and drove himself to be self-disciplined and to make a difference in the world. He inserted the coffee bag into the cabin’s little Black & Decker coffeemaker and filled the carafe only halfway. Lately he wanted his coffee stronger and stronger. He felt like he had been an ice skater pumping full-bore through life and gaining speed but had suddenly hit a line of dirt and crashed.

Marcia had arranged this cabin for him. “Get away—at least for one day,” she had said. “Go up north this Sunday. Take all day in the woods. Decompress!”

Thank goodness for Marcia. He hated making her feel bad; he wanted to match her enthusiasm for life as he always had. But Frank’s treachery and David’s own career slump made his drive and dreams of significance seem a farce.

The two mugs of black coffee were just enough to wash down the big sweet roll he had bought the night before. Now he was wired, but he sat quietly, staring at the woods and lake. His parents had often brought him here as a child to explore this lake and the trails through the woods. Now he longed for that uncomplicated joy, for the solitude and wonder of sighting a hawk floating above or being startled by the warning snort of a deer. Once he had come upon a doe in a meadow with two speckled fawns, one nursing at her side. He had scarcely breathed as he watched until the fawn pulled away and all three walked slowly into the woods.

Finally David slid open the glass door and walked down to the lake. At water’s edge he watched five seagulls skimming the surface, rising, plunging, soaring in their spontaneous choreography. Two mallards dipped toward the lake and gracefully hit the water.

In that instant, magnificent music erupted into David’s world, resonating throughout his body, music of unknown instruments lifting and inspiring. At the same moment he saw the blue sky shattered by a kaleidoscope of colors and vivid images pulsing from horizon to horizon. On the lake, shimmering, cascading light illumined the waves, reflecting purples, magentas, and greens.

A sliver of something like joy rippled through him and then evaporated. Fragrances filled his nostrils, odors he found so delightful he involuntarily breathed deeply to capture more.

All this happened in a moment and was gone. The extraordinary phenomenon that was forever imprinted on his memory was over in a moment, leaving every sense of his mind and body jolted, tantalized, drawn into the strange, celebratory dynamics, as if his entire being was made for them.

A few years before, David had happened to look out his window during a storm just as a bolt of lightning had struck a nearby tree. It had sheared off half the trunk, and David had been stunned at both the blinding light and the force—like a giant sledgehammer of light that had slammed into his yard.

Now, standing at lake’s edge, he felt the same extreme of force, but far more than a sledgehammer of white light. It had captured the sky with colors and shapes and had reverberated like cannon fire. Yet like the lightning hitting the tree, the mysterious phenomenon was over in seconds. What had it been? Could it actually have lasted just moments, all that grandeur, all that force and image and fragrance already vanished?

He looked around. All was as it had been. No broken trees. No breaks in the lake’s perimeter. Just clear sunlight shimmering on the waves. He scanned the sky. Only a few white clouds in the expanse of blue. He sniffed the air. Nothing but the scent of pine. He looked behind him to the hotel. No one in sight.

He stood on the sand by the lapping water for long moments, letting all the elements of those extraordinary seconds flow through his consciousness.

As he slowly sat down on a bench, the shapes and sounds and emotions still resonated in his trembling body. He could make no sense of what he had just experienced. He felt like a man on a raft in rapids, plunging and spinning through waves, spray, rocks, and logs, not knowing what might befall him next. At the same time, nibbling at the deep pools of his angst was a wondrous elixir of the scents and sounds and images . . . and a tantalizing element of peace.

The mallards flew off. The gulls had settled across the lake, five white, bobbing specks on the waves. Yet the serenity around him did nothing to soothe his inner turmoil. What was happening to him? He looked down at the white pebbles of the manicured walk beside his feet. Everything was perfect, lovely, “decompressing”—yet within him, a maelstrom of weariness, confusion, and desires.

David trudged the pebbled walk to the resort office, his eyes probing every bush, brick, and branch. He picked up a fat pinecone and felt its perfect ridges in his hand. Everything was the same as when he’d awakened this morning, yet in some strange way, his world had changed.

In the office he asked the woman at the counter, “Did you hear that loud sound out at the lake? About half hour ago?”

Cocking her head and scrunching her angular features, the woman looked up from counting restaurant receipts. “Nope.” She looked back down, her fingers still working the receipts.

“It was a strange sound,” he said, “and a huge flash of colorful light. Someone must have heard or seen it.”

She shrugged.

He watched her moving fingers and squeezed the pinecone till he felt a little stab of pain. “I was hoping someone besides me had heard it.”

“Sonic boom!” The hearty voice from behind startled him, and he whirled around to face two older men lounging in captain’s chairs. They wore flannel shirts under battered fishing hats. “Happens up here, young fella,” one of them declared.

The man was sitting back in his chair, eyes on David as if to appraise this city boy. His authoritative tone rankled David.

Despite himself, David put a sarcastic edge on his response. “Not a sonic boom! I’ve heard sonic booms. And there were brilliant, strange lights.”

The man edged up in his chair as if savoring this new development. “Strange, eh?” He turned to his companion. “Hear anything or see anything strange, Ed?”

Ed, heavyset and sunk in his chair, smiled, shook his head, and said, “Naw, Pete. Not today.”

Both men looked at David with amusement. David squeezed the pinecone in his hand so hard he could feel it etching little ridges in his palm. Turning his head toward the woman, David saw she had set aside the receipts, her full attention on the little drama, mouth crinkling toward a smile.

Disdain. The old man’s face was eloquent in showing his contempt, with just a trace of triumphant grin. His expression reminded David of an action movie scene he remembered: the hero, with that same look of disdain, had silenced a bragging Nazi youth, staring him into humiliation.

This old guy with the same look was no movie hero. He was pudgy and looked a little like David’s boss. In fact, the man reminded David far too much of Frank, and he felt rage growing in his chest. He thought of all sorts of cutting responses, yet he sensed more verbal jousting would most likely result in his being humiliated even more.

David looked over at the woman at the desk. Her smile masked a hint of gloating satisfaction. She slightly raised her eyebrows as his eyes met hers and then, maddeningly, she winked at him.

Instead of responding, he turned abruptly and stepped outside. Halfway back to his cabin, he flung the pinecone in a high arc toward the lake.

Copyright © 2008 by Harold Myra. All Rights Reserved.

John Baxter had dreaded this day with everything in him, but the knock at the door told him the time had come. It was the last Tuesday in January, Christmas far behind them and long past time to take this step. He’d made the decision more than a year ago, and now he needed to carry through with it.

“Coming . . .” He walked from the kitchen to the front door and opened it.

“John.” Verne Pick nodded. He was a friend from church whose kids were involved with CKT, and he had a reputation for being one of the best, most thorough Realtors in Bloomington. His expression told John that he knew this was going to be a rough day. “You ready?”

He steeled himself. “I am.” He opened the heavy wooden door and welcomed the man inside. “Let’s move to the kitchen table.” John had brewed a pot of coffee, and he poured cups for both of them.

They made small talk, and after a few minutes, Verne pulled a folder from his briefcase. “We have a standard questionnaire we need to deal with first.”

John blinked, and a memory came over him. When Elizabeth died, it had taken every bit of his strength to walk through the planning of her service. But he remembered this one detail: The young woman from the funeral home who helped him with the process had presented every question couched in concern, as if she wanted to apologize for each step of the ordeal. That’s exactly how Verne was now, his brow raised as he waited for a response.

John motioned to the two closest chairs. “Let’s get the questions out of the way.”

“Okay.” Verne opened the folder and took out the document on top. He drew a long breath. “I guess we better talk about the fire first. It’s bound to come up.”

“Right. Just a minute.” John went to the next room and found a folder on the desk. He brought it back and set it on the table in front of his friend. “The garage has been completely redone, and all the repair work was signed off. Everything’s in the folder.”

“Good.” Verne lifted his chin and sniffed a few times. “No smell of smoke?”

“Not at all.”

“The place is really something.” Verne’s smile was tentative. “Should have it sold by summer, I’m guessing.”

“Yes.” A bittersweet sense of pride welled in John’s chest. “It’s a great house. Held up well through the years even with the fire.”

Verne settled in over the paperwork. “I’ve got some of this filled out already. Let’s do the basics first.” He lifted his gaze, pen poised over the top sheet. “Number of bedrooms?”

John pictured them the way they’d looked twenty years ago. He and Elizabeth in the large room at one side of the house upstairs. Brooke and Kari across from each other at the south end of the hall, Luke in the next bedroom on the left, and Ashley and Erin sharing a room at the north end. He pushed away the memory. “Five.” He took a quick sip of coffee. “Five bedrooms.”

The interview wore on, each question stirring another set of memories and reasons why he couldn’t believe he was selling the place. When they reached the end of the document, Verne bit his lower lip. “The tour comes next. I need to measure each room, get an official square footage.”

“The tour?” John looked toward the stove, and he could almost see Elizabeth standing near the kettle. “John’ll give you the tour,” she would say when company came over. “He’s so proud of the place—I like to let him do it.”

“Sure.” John gave his friend a smile. “Let’s start in the living room.”

They worked their way from one part of the house to the next, and as they went, Verne pulled out his measuring tape and captured the length of the walls.

John remained quiet. He wasn’t seeing his friend taking matter-of-fact measurements of the house he so loved. He was seeing Elizabeth, rocking their babies, Ashley learning to walk, Brooke bringing in a bird with a broken wing, and Kari screaming because she thought it might attack her. He could hear the piano, filling the house with hour after hour of not-quite-perfect songs during the years when the kids took lessons, and he could see the grandkids gathered around their tree each Christmas.

Whatever the square footage of the house, it couldn’t possibly measure what these walls had seen or the memories housed here.

They finished the final room, and Verne closed the folder. “Well, that’s about it. Just one more thing and I can get back to the office and list it.” He walked toward the front of the house. “I’ll get what I need from the car.”

John followed him into the entryway, and when he was alone, he slumped against the doorframe. For a heartbeat, he felt like he was no longer attached to his body. What was he doing, selling the house? Certainly one of his kids should’ve wanted it, right? He had six of them in the area, after all. But John had already asked each of them. Brooke and Peter liked the house they lived in because it was easy for Hayley and comfortable. “We have our own memories here,” Brooke had told him. “The Baxter place would be much too big for us.”

Kari had felt the same way about having her own memories. Ryan had designed the log house they lived in, and it had a sort of rugged lodge feel both Kari and Ryan loved.

Ashley had been a possibility at first. She had told him a number of times that she would love to raise the boys here, where she’d grown up. But she wasn’t painting enough to bring in regular money, and the mortgage on the house would be far beyond what Landon could afford, especially with their growing boys.

Once John had even considered calling Dayne, because it would’ve been nothing for him to loan Ashley and Landon the money—maybe at a lower rate or for a longer period of time.

But Ashley had begged him not to. “I don’t want Dayne to think of us like that, using him for his money.”

John could’ve argued with her, but there was no point, really. Ashley was right; the situation would have been awkward.

As for his other kids, Luke and Reagan needed to be close to Indianapolis for Luke’s job, and things were still very shaky between them. They’d found a nearby church, and John was encouraging them to get counseling at a local center. There was no way they’d be interested in moving again.

Last there were Erin and Sam. At first, when Erin called to announce that they were moving back to Indiana, John thought he had his answer, a way to keep the house in the family. But Sam worked long days, and Erin was busy with the kids. Upkeep on a house with acreage was more than they were willing to take on even for the sake of nostalgia. So they were out.

John wandered into the front room and peered through the window at Verne out front. Way down at the end of his driveway, his friend had taken a large For Sale sign from the back of his car. John’s heart swelled with frustration and futility as he watched Verne position the sign not far from the road. The Baxter house . . . for sale. John gritted his teeth and looked away. This was where he’d wanted to live out the rest of his days, so maybe he was wrong. Maybe this was all a mistake. He looked out the window again and narrowed his eyes.

No, there was no mistake in what he was doing. Living in this house into his twilight years meant sharing it with Elizabeth, and since she wasn’t here, the house could go. It had to. He and Elaine Denning were moving ahead with their plans to marry, and they needed a new place to begin their life together and—

The echo of a mallet against a stake resonated deep within him. It was barely loud enough to hear, but John knew the sound. He took a few steps closer to the window as Verne hammered the sign into the ground.

Why, God? Isn’t there some way to save the place?

In response there was only the sound of another blow, another strike of the mallet.

John winced as Verne finished the job. Yes, his years in the Baxter house were over. The time had come to move on, and with God’s help that’s what John would do. He gripped the windowsill and breathed in deeply the familiar smell of his home. He would survive letting go of this place, because he had no other choice.

Even if it all but killed him to say good-bye.

***

Ashley Baxter Blake flung open the bathroom window, braced herself against the sink, and stared at the mirror. Her hands trembled and her heart raced as she glanced at the clock on the bathroom counter—9:31 a.m. Okay, here goes. . . . She marked the second hand and stared at the mirror again. The next minute was bound to drag, and Ashley couldn’t make it go faster by watching the clock.

How could she have lied to herself for so long? She leaned closer, studying her look. Her makeup didn’t cover the dark circles under her eyes. She was dizzy and weary, drained from another morning of dry heaves, and no amount of fresh air staved off the nausea.

Through Christmas she had given herself a dozen reasons why she might be late—busyness and excitement during the holidays, running after Cole and Devin almost constantly, and the heartache of missing baby Sarah. It could take a year after losing a baby before her body found its normal routine of cycles. That’s what her doctor had told her. A year. It hadn’t been nearly that.

But she’d had just one period in the last four months, and finally Ashley had done what she thought about doing weeks ago. She bought a test, and now in less than a minute she’d know the truth. Not that she needed the test at this point. She touched her fingers gently to her abdomen. It wasn’t exactly bulging, but it was slightly rounded and firm, the way she’d always felt when she was in her first few months of pregnancy.

The difference was that every other time she had been ecstatic about maybe being pregnant, ready to rush to the drugstore for a test the moment she suspected she was a day or so late. Even in the weeks after losing Sarah, she and Landon had wanted nothing more than to try for another child. But somewhere along the journey of letting go of her daughter, Ashley had realized something deep within her.

She couldn’t lose another baby.

By God’s grace and with Landon by her side she’d survived losing Sarah, but another child? Ashley wasn’t sure she’d survive. The sound of her too fast heartbeat echoed against her temples, and she blinked at her image in the mirror. Standing here on the verge of having her answer, there was only one way to explain the way Ashley felt. She was terrified.

Her strange and new fears were impacting every area of her life—even her relationship with Landon. By now she should’ve told him about her suspicions, but she’d kept the possibility to herself. Every time she considered telling him, she stopped herself. If she told Landon, then she’d need to visit a doctor and go through the same steps as last time—the tests and ultimately the ultrasound. And that meant she had to be ready to handle the news that something could be wrong again. News she couldn’t face. Not yet anyway.

Besides if she told Landon too soon, he’d get his hopes up and then if . . . if something was wrong, they’d both be crushed. Almost as if by saying something she would instantly open the two of them to all the grim possibilities. Whereas by keeping her concerns to herself, she could avoid giving Landon a false sense of hope, avoid the doctor appointments, and most of all the dreaded ultrasound.

Ashley squinted at the test window. Was it her imagination or was a line forming down the center? The line that would confirm she was carrying another child? She closed her eyes and breathed in sharp through her nose. I can’t do it again, God. I can’t lose another baby. Please walk me through this.

Losing Sarah was the most wrenching pain she’d ever been through. Yes, she and Landon had found the miracle in Sarah’s brief life, and they would treasure forever the few hours they shared with her. But since then, she couldn’t walk past Sarah’s nursery without aching from the loss, couldn’t drive in the direction of the cemetery without seeing her painting, the one of her mother holding Sarah in a field of flowers in heaven.

She leaned hard against the bathroom countertop, her arms shaking. The doctor had said a repeat diagnosis of anencephaly wasn’t likely, but it was possible.

Landon must’ve known she was worried about having future children, because he’d brought up the subject only once since Christmas. “Do you think about it, Ash . . . having another baby?”

“At first. But lately I try not to.” Her voice had been kind, gentle. But fear put a sudden grip on her throat. “I couldn’t do it again. Go through what we went through with Sarah.”

Landon touched her cheek, her forehead. “My grandpa always told me God never gives us more than we can handle.”

“I know.” Ashley smiled, and in that instant she could see Sarah in her arms, feel that warm little body against her chest. She swallowed, trying to find the words. But they both dropped the subject.

Since then she’d talked briefly with Landon about her fears of having more children. But the truth was, somewhere along the days of pain and grief Ashley had formed a mind-set: better not to have more children than to face the possibility of losing another baby.

The thing was, in her life God had sometimes given her things that He must’ve known she’d survive, and she had indeed come through on the other side. God had always brought her closer to Himself through the process. But she was weary of the heartache, tired of the path of pain God sometimes led her down. If she were pregnant now, she would fight the fear of loss every morning, every hour between now and the birth of her baby. So maybe she hadn’t been crazy to deny the evidence of her body for this long. She simply wasn’t ready to face the sorrow that might be around the next corner.

More than a minute had passed, so whatever was in the test window would be visible by now. Ashley picked up the stick and looked at the two straight lines, both dark and pronounced, and the answer was instantly in front of her. No doubt whatsoever—she was pregnant. Fear tap-danced across the moment, but it was joined by an unexpected partner: the flicker of hope and joy. She was pregnant, and for now, no matter what might lay ahead, a brand-new life was growing inside her. The news was terrifying and thrilling at the same time.

Now it was merely a matter of finding the courage to tell Landon.

Copyright© 2008 by Karen Kingsbury. All rights reserved.