“So you looked it up?”

  “I did. And he was right. It’s the key to everything.”

  Roman had to quell his first reaction, which was to roll his eyes. Nothing was the key to everything. Especially not some Bible lingo. And yet . . . he was curious. He asked the question but kept the contempt in his voice. “So what’s it say?”

  AJ shook his head. “I’m not telling.”

  Now he did roll his eyes. “Don’t be difficult.”

  “I could tell you. I could shout it at you. I could write it and tear it into little pieces and make you eat it, but it wouldn’t mean as much as it would if you took the time and effort to look it up yourself.”

  “You’re being annoying.”

  AJ shrugged. “So be it. Everybody has a choice, Roman, including you. God could make you listen, make you believe in him, but he chooses not to do that. He doesn’t want mindless robots; he wants people who have chosen him of their own free will.” He pointed out the window. “Today you heard people share their stories about how Billy changed their lives, made their lives better, and in one case, even saved a life. You also heard that God was behind it all. If Billy were in this room he’d say that. If you want to ignore all you heard today, ignore the purpose and power behind Billy’s death, then go ahead; but if you want to see what it’s all about then—”

  “‘Purpose and power’? Billy’s death had no purpose in it and has the power to cut me to the quick. That God may try to use his death for his own purposes . . . that’s just selfish.”

  “You would know.”

  Roman couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He needed comfort and empathy, not condemnation. “Get out.”

  “Again, that’s your choice. But remember what the pastor said: ‘A life of self is death, but the death of self is life.’”

  Roman flipped a hand toward the door. “Let yourself out.”

  “As you wish.”

  As soon as the door closed, Roman headed upstairs. This parting in anger was getting to be a habit. It was God’s fault. Ever since AJ started talking about how God had changed him, they hadn’t had a decent conversation.

  He headed toward his room but stopped short in the hall outside Billy’s bedroom. He hadn’t been inside since . . .

  He stood in the doorway and reached his hand around the corner to flip the light switch. The room had no real decoration other than some sports posters on the wall. Decorating had been Trudy’s department. Actually, nothing much had changed in this room since she’d died when Billy was seven. Even the blue and red wallpaper border showcasing various sporting equipment still ringed the room. A red comforter did little to disguise the less-than-smooth bed linens underneath. It had been aeons since Billy had slept here and yet the covers had remained as he’d left them. Billy had never been a good bed maker, and Roman had been the kind of dad who didn’t press the issue.

  Roman started to pull the corner of the comforter to better cover the pillow beneath it, but stopped the straightening and instead plucked the pillow free.

  Billy’s pillow.

  He pressed it to his face and inhaled. Billy! He inhaled again and again, drinking in the scent of his boy.

  He needed more.

  He pulled back the comforter and sheet and climbed into bed, cradling the pillow under his cheek. With his free hand he pulled the bedclothes over his shoulder. Then he closed his eyes and let what was left of Billy enshroud him.

  | | | | | | | | | | |

  Velvet was glad Valentino’s had a buffet. It meant she and John could come and go, to and from the food, and not have to sit and talk much. She filled her plate with lasagna, pizza, and salad, then dove in before John returned with his plate.

  “I’m glad they still make the special. It’s my favorite pizza.”

  Velvet’s mouth was full, so she only nodded. Maybe if she kept her mouth full . . .

  No such luck. After John’s first bite he dabbed his mouth with a napkin and said, “Lianne’s mine, yes?”

  Velvet forced herself to swallow. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

  “No. So you might as well tell me the truth.”

  “Fine. She’s yours.”

  He sat back in his chair and breathed in and out a few times.

  “Not what you expected, is she?” Velvet asked. “Not what you wanted.”

  “After all these years I guess I idealized the idea of a daughter. Pigtails with satin bows, and wearing little pink dresses.”

  “I doubt Lianne ever wore pink, and as far as pigtails with bows . . . Her tattoo has pink in it.”

  “Did she have a good upbringing?”

  Velvet shrugged. “I assume so.”

  John lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

  “I only knew of her when she came to the stadium and applied for a job.”

  His mouth dropped in a gape.

  “Your food’s getting cold.” To spur him on, she cut herself a big bite of lasagna.

  He bit the tip of a slice of pizza, his head shaking even as he chewed. “You didn’t know . . . ?”

  “Nothing. I’d asked not to know. It was a closed adoption. I knew her parents’ names, but that was it.”

  “Then how did she find you?”

  “She didn’t. She doesn’t know I’m her mother.”

  John moved his hands to the side so quickly he nearly toppled his water. He caught it in time, splashing his hand. Velvet gave him an extra napkin. “But your looks, the gray stripe in your hair . . .”

  She ran a hand along her hairline. “What stripe?”

  He realized his mistake. “Then how . . . ?”

  “The same way you figured it out. I saw the stripe in her hair. And then the last name of Skala. Of course her birth date clinched it.”

  “What did you do? I mean, to have her there, sitting in front of you . . .”

  “I didn’t—I haven’t—done anything. Other than hire her. Actually, she wasn’t my first choice in employees, but somehow I couldn’t let her fade away and disappear into the world. I’m still not sure I shouldn’t have just let her go.”

  “But you didn’t let her go. Which begs the question: when are you going to tell her?”

  She stabbed some lettuce. “When I figure out whether I should.”

  “Of course you should. We should.”

  She put her fork down. “Should we? We gave her up. What right do we have to enter her life again?”

  “We’ve already entered her life, or at least you have. It would be different if she were a child or a teenager. But she’s a grown woman, out on her own and—”

  “Pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “She’s pregnant.” She enjoyed the shocked look on his face. “Déjà vu, huh?”

  He shook his head. “We’re going to be grandparents?”

  Velvet choked and started coughing. She grabbed for her water.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Not really. “I never thought of that.”

  “What?”

  “That her being pregnant would make me a grandma.”

  John laughed. “That’s how it works, you know.”

  She didn’t like how easily he accepted the notion. “It’s not like the title has been in my vocabulary, you know.”

  “But now it is.”

  Now it is. To travel from single woman to mother to grandmother in the span of a few days . . . She needed some time for it to sink in. And yet . . . “She might not be keeping it,” she said.

  “She can’t have an abortion.”

  Velvet felt bad for upsetting him. “I don’t know what she plans to do. I’m not exactly her confidante. Actually, when she told me, I confided in her. I told her I’d been pregnant and had given my baby up for adoption.”

  “You were talking about her to her.”

  “I know. Creepy, isn’t it?”

  “Miraculous.”

  Velvet dragged her fork through the cheese on top of her lasagna. It was getting cold and congealed. “Coincidence.”

  John shook his head vehemently. “There’s no such thing. God arranged it.”

  She laughed. “I hardly think—”

  “Why not think?” John said, pushing his plate aside. “What do you lose by believing God Almighty arranged for you to meet your daughter? What do you gain by believing that nothing was behind it except luck?”

  “I would never think it was luck,” she said. “Punishment maybe.”

  “Punishment?”

  “Sure. After we make mistakes, life serves us up a dose of punishment. If God was involved at all, he sent Lianne here to punish and mock me.”

  “Do you think I’m here to mock you? punish you?”

  She put her fork down. “Answer me this: if God had something to do with it, and it’s this wonderful thing you say it is, why would he want us to meet? I haven’t been one of his favorite little lambs all these years.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Ah, come on, John. It’s human nature to love the obedient child best.”

  “Human nature, not God’s nature. He loves even those who hate him. And he never gives up on any of us. Ever. Over and over he arranges circumstances so we have a chance—a choice—to see him, to turn to him.”

  “Now you’re sounding mystical.”

  “It can be mystical, but sometimes it’s very practical. As practical as a young woman in need of a job.”

  He’d always been able to make her smile. “Do you do this often? See God in every nook and cranny?”

  “I do now. But for years and years I didn’t see him at all, even though he was all around me, waiting for me to notice.”

  “So God’s been all around me, waiting for me to notice?”

  “Yep.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Prove he hasn’t been there.” He gazed out over the restaurant. “You know, you haven’t told me what you’ve been doing all these years.”

  With good reason. “I had Lianne, gave her up, moved up in my job, and voilà. Here I am.”

  He shook his head. “There has to be more than that.”

  “Well, there isn’t. At least nothing I want to talk about.” She refolded her napkin.

  “Come on, Velvet. You can tell me.”

  “No, I can’t. I’ve never told anyone.”

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  Wanna bet? She set her napkin back in her lap and gave it a shot. “Let’s just say after you left my life got a bit derailed and it was hard for me to get it back on track. I’m not even sure I ever did, not completely. I’ve never talked to anyone about it, never trusted anyone enough.”

  “You can trust me.”

  She would have liked to, but she couldn’t. She’d spent her entire life being wary and guarded. He might have been comfortable displaying his mistakes to the world, but she was not. She needed to change the subject. “Now it’s your turn. What have you done all these years?”

  He put his fork down. “I messed around a lot, stirred things up some more, then came home and got my head together, found God along with my senses, went to seminary, was a pastor in a few good churches and a few so-so churches, then decided to write it all down. As you said, voilà. Here I am.”

  She was surprised to find that his short explanation was enough for her. What did it matter what had happened between then and now?

  “We’re good at the Reader’s Digest condensed version, aren’t we?” he said.

  “I was always into Cliff’s Notes myself.”

  His grin took twenty years off his face. “We were both into a lot of things back then.”

  She was shocked to feel herself blush. He could be so annoying. “Eat your pizza.”

  | | | | | | | | | | |

  Velvet and John stood in the parking lot, her car door open, their time short. “So, you’re finally leaving tomorrow.”

  “I wouldn’t have to.”

  “I’m not sure you should stay,” she said. “I’m not sure we should tell Lianne who we are. I don’t know her well enough to gauge how she will react.”

  “But you do want to tell her, don’t you?”

  She gripped the top of the car door that stood between them. “Maybe.”

  “Which means you maybe want to see what God has planned.”

  “Trick question.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The thing is . . .” She took a fresh breath. “You can’t unring a bell.”

  “Point taken.” He kissed her forehead. “Bye, Velvet. I do have to go home. But don’t count me out of this. I will be back.”

  She stood outside her car and watched him walk away. Then, to her horror, she realized she missed him. Already.

  If John was right—could he be right?—what was God up to?

  | | | | | | | | | | |

  Peter took the exit off the interstate and by habit turned off his radio. He’d started doing such a thing his first year in college. When he drove home and headed onto back roads, it had seemed almost sacrilegious to have music or talk radio or even noise accompany him.

  There was something mesmerizing about the countryside, the stretches of hay and corn, and the creek beds marked by towering trees that no one had planted. Barns and houses dotted the hills, their long driveways offering a welcome yet keeping a distance between what was private and what was public, between blessed solitude and the commotion of the crowd.

  As was also his habit, Peter rolled down his window and slowed his speed. It was as though there were a wall erected at the bottom of the off-ramp, a barrier that required a fee. It was a fee he gladly, instinctively paid. It was what kept him from telling his parents for 100 percent certain he would not take over the farm.

  A familiar tan pickup approached from the opposite direction. Carl Swenson. As they passed, Peter lifted two fingers above the steering wheel in the traditional country wave. Belatedly, Carl recognized him and lifted his hand. The Swensons had been farming their land for over a hundred years. Many of the area’s farms were legacies: the Swensons’, the Machs’, the Sedlaceks’ . . . and the McLeans’. Pioneer stock one and all. Immigrants who cherished the land, nourished it, cajoled it, and worked it until it bore fruit.

  There it was. The edge of their land. A few hundred feet brought him to their mailbox that held no number, no street, just the name MCLEAN perched proudly—if somewhat precariously—on its peak. But as he drove up the gravel drive with the billows of dust marking his path, he realized he had never come to the farm when his parents weren’t home. An odd feeling of unease squeezed his gut, like a kid being left alone for the first time while his parents went out for dinner and a movie. The bogeyman came out then. Every kid knew that.

  Don’t be stupid, he told himself and pulled in front of the house, quickly rolling up his window so the gravel dust wouldn’t catch up with him and settle inside his car. He grabbed his gym bag and went to the kitchen door, fumbling for his key. He remembered a time when they never locked the place. Back then it was common for the neighbors to come and go from each other’s homes, borrowing this, returning that, without benefit or need of a key.

  But times had changed. Peter had been six when the Swensons’ house had been burglarized and Grandpa Swenson had been hit over the head by the burglar. Ever since then the neighbors had locked things up when they left—though they all knew where extra keys were kept.

  The house smelled of familiar spices. Peter took the lid off the cookie jar and found what he was looking for: molasses crinkle cookies. They were his dad’s favorite and, as such, a staple in the family kitchen.

  With one bite he was transported back to his childhood. How many meals had his mother served around this old maple table? How many math problems and spelling words had been written here after supper as Mom washed the dishes and Dad watched the news?

  His thoughts flipped ahead to having his own family.

  Lianne.

  The baby.

  He lost his appetite and returned a third cookie to the jar. The comforts of home competed with the crisis at hand. What was he going to do?

  Peter heard a truck coming up the drive. It was Tommy Sedlacek, coming to do the evening chores.

  Peter went out to greet him. And help him. Hard work would keep his mind occupied.

  But not free.

  | | | | | | | | | | |

  Roman awakened with a start. He lifted his head from the pillow. Where am I?

  He saw the moonlight reflect against Billy’s sports trophies on the dresser.

  He drew the covers aside and swung his feet over the side of the bed. How long had he slept? The numbers on the clock glowed: 3:16.

  The verse. It’s the same number.

  Whatever.

  He stumbled to his own room, to his own bed.

  The clock in his bedroom now read 3:17.

  He was more than a little relieved.

  NINE

  “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

  ISAIAH 55:8-9

  Peter opened his eyes and looked at the clock. Six thirty. Time to get up.

  Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

  Peter wasn’t sure if any of the saying was completely true, but upon starting his third day alone at the farm, upon starting his second day handling all the chores alone, he felt more . . . complete.

  It was odd how he’d willingly taken on the chores that used to make him groan when he was growing up, telling Tommy Sedlacek thanks, but he could handle them until his parents got back.

  It felt good to use his muscles again. Going to class and sitting around the apartment made him feel more tired than awake. He enjoyed the pull and strain of the farmwork and did not even mind the soreness that followed him to bed and awakened him in the morning. As his dad often said: “It’s a good ache.”

  He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt and the old work boots he’d found in his closet and headed outside. He grabbed a couple of cookies on the way out but looked forward to the eggs and bacon he would make after the chores were through. At college he’d gotten used to skipping breakfast and living on a travel mug of coffee that he’d sip during his first class.