His rescue had shown him that God existed and was capable of mighty things. On one hand, he was grateful that God had brought him out of that basement alive. On the other hand, his rescue forced him to acknowledge that God hadn’t chosen to save his mother from her illness.

God had protected Sebastian’s life, so it seemed that God loved him.

God had taken his mother away, so it seemed that God didn’t love him.

In the face of those mixed messages, he’d concluded that he couldn’t count on God. So he’d done everything possible to insulate himself from the kind of vulnerability he’d endured when his mom died.

He’d been certain that his job would give him both security and the ability to right the wrong of his mom’s death with every child he saved.

It hadn’t worked that way.

Isabella Ackerman and his other patients were not his mother. It turned out that what his mother had been to him was irreplaceable. His career and his money couldn’t give him his mother or his childhood back. Nor could they give him safety. Or worth. Or identity. Enough had never been enough.

At this rock-bottom place without Leah, he needed to be honest with himself. The truth? Resentment toward God had been burning inside him like a pilot light for decades. Nothing had extinguished it. Not his gratitude over God’s rescue of him after the earthquake. Not the Coleman family’s support. Not his achievements.

Before he could move forward . . . before he could remember his mother without feeling like a thirty-pound barbell had been placed on his ribs . . . he needed to find a way to forgive God. For stealing his mother from him and, in so doing, teaching him that loving someone was the worst thing he could do to himself.

In his mind, he tested the words I. Forgive. You.

But he didn’t. Forgive God. His emotions remained jagged. The sentences that formed in his head were the opposite of forgiving. How could you? I was just a kid. Not the best kid, but not the worst. I didn’t deserve what you did to me. You ruined me when you took away all the family I had.

He heard a noise and looked over to see Ben approaching. His friend stopped on the other side of his mom’s grave and observed him levelly, waiting for Sebastian to speak.

“I don’t think I can forgive God,” Sebastian said, his voice hoarse.

“For?”

“For taking my mom’s life and leaving me alone.”