There was a hill beside the mission where a trickle of people meandered from the church grounds like ants before disappearing into the rocks. People were sweating as they crawled up the rocky surface toward a cross high in the sky. The brave wanted to touch it. The less brave stayed closer to the base, where a caged monument to the Virgin Mary stood. An altar had various plaster statues of Mary lined along it, and another one sat higher up in the rock face. On the ground in front of the altar lay hundreds of coins, and hanging on the rusted fencing that kept us from touching them were dozens of weathered necklaces with medallions featuring St. Jude.

Places like this felt holy to me in ways that churches didn’t. They were evidence of the randomness of the miraculous, and that filled me with hope.

I left the mission and walked into the desert for a few yards. There were saguaro cacti crowding the landscape, and I came upon one decaying on its side. It was turning black and folding into itself in the sand. I couldn’t help but think its vein work looked just like a human’s, proof that everything was interconnected. I looked up, wanting to share this discovery with someone, but I was alone out here, watching the faraway people line up to be one with God inside the mission.

30.

The case of wine I liked to travel with alleviated any kind of stress over finding liquor stores wherever I happened to be going. It was a habit I’d picked up from my father, or, rather, family vacations I had spent a lifetime taking. On my drive toward home, in a town two hours outside of Los Angeles, I found a homesteader cabin to stay in for a couple of days. I felt better after leaving Arizona, but still not 100 percent, like I was suffering from a hangover that I could not shake. The sun burned at the part of my leg exposed by the driver-side window, and my dashboard said the temperature outside was 105. I assured myself I would be fine, because it was a dry heat. The cabin rentals were cheaper in the summer, and from what I could tell the ones around me mostly stood empty.

My cabin was revamped, with painted concrete walls and newly polished concrete floors. There were still—as with many desert homes I stayed in—dead scorpions in the corners. I had gotten groceries on the way, so I didn’t have to leave, but I had picked out two restaurants on the main road, just in case I felt lonely and needed to speak to another human, even if it was just to order a coffee.