that changes lives and makes them new.

Jesus heals the fractured soul,

makes it breathe,

makes it whole,

gives us hope when hope is gone,

breaks the darkness, offers dawn,

to all who follow, all who dare—

the door is open, love is there.

She tucked it inside the envelope she’d brought with her and sealed it shut.

And stared at the envelope.

But was it true?

Did God handle all our needs?

Though it might have been too hard for her to admit to anyone else, she honestly wasn’t sure anymore.

So many needs for so many people seemed unmet—the comfort for her friend Angie, a divorcée who was sliding deeper by the day into clinical depression. Drugs might handle her needs, but it sure didn’t seem like God was. Or the needs of millions in Africa for clean water—where was God when it came to helping them? Or those who’d been given the diagnosis that changes everything—how was Jesus healing them?

Her.

How was he healing her?

She found a rock that had no note beneath it and was about to place her envelope with the others there at the statue’s base, but stopped.

Truthfully, where was God?

Was he really anywhere at all?

She looked up at the lifeless statue, shiny with rain, then let go of the rock and let it splat into the mud beside her foot.

Then, Christie ripped up the envelope and the poem inside it and let the pieces of paper fall unceremoniously to the ground, where they would eventually rot and turn to soil whether there was a benevolent God watching over them or not.

18

“You know how fast I drove on the way over here?” I said to Tessa as we pulled into the parking garage beneath the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building.

“And how you ignored half the traffic laws in the city?”

“Yeah.” I found a spot. Parked. “Don’t drive like that. Consider that trip a teachable moment.”

“Do as you say, not as you do.”

“Right.”

“Stellar parenting technique there.”

“Thanks.”

We exited the car.

“I still don’t get it,” she said. “What am I supposed to do while you’re in there? Can’t I wait in your office or something?”

“When you become an FBI agent, then you can come see my office.”

“Ha. Don’t they ever have, like, a ‘bring your daughter to work day’ or something?”

It struck me that she’d said “daughter” instead of “stepdaughter.”

“I don’t think I’ll be much more than an hour, but there is a possibility it could be longer. If you’d rather go home, you can take the subway or I’ll pay for a taxi. Otherwise you can stay here in the lobby.”

“You’d pay for a taxi?”

“If that’s what you want.”

She reflected on that, then said, “Naw. I’ll wait.”