She smiled again and shook her head. “I was looking on a map last night, trying to figure out the halfway point between here and Louisiana. Wouldn’t it be something to pull up in front of their house one day—?”

“Hold up. You know what you should pray? That he’d want to come here.”

“Here?”

“Why not? See where you live. Where he was born.”

“That’s way too much to . . .”

Shawn gave her a knowing look.

“I’d be happy if he’d let us drive to his house for just twenty minutes. I don’t need him to come here.”

“Well, if you don’t want him to come here—”

“No, I do. It just feels like . . . presuming on God.”

“Presuming to tell Him what you’d like? I don’t think that’s presuming at all. And if God says no, at least you were honest with Him.”

The next evening, as Shawn grilled steaks, Melissa brought a bowl of marinated chicken pieces and asked if Shawn would grill them for dinner the next day. With tongs, she put the chicken on the grill and her phone rang.

“Just hit the speaker for me,” Melissa said.

“Hello?” Shawn said.

“Hi, I’m looking for Melissa Cates.”

“I’m here,” Melissa said.

“This is Mandy from Kirsh and Clark. We’ve received a message from David Colton.”

Melissa’s mouth dropped and she glanced at Shawn.

“He said you guys have been talking over the Internet,” Mandy continued, “and he’s open to meeting in person. But, of course, that would have to be acceptable to both parties.”

Melissa couldn’t contain her joy. She gave Shawn a huge smile as she listened, stunned at the call. She couldn’t help thinking of what Shawn had said about prayer.

“Oh yes! Yes, we are. We’d be happy to meet in person. Where do we need to go?”

“Well, apparently, he’s willing to come to you.”

Melissa stared at the phone. “He is?”

“Yes, ma’am. How would you like us to respond?”

Melissa covered her mouth with both hands. She buried her head in Shawn’s chest and he held her.

“Ma’am?”

“She can’t talk right now, Mandy,” Shawn said. “But you can tell David that Melissa is overjoyed that he wants to come see her.”

David made the mistake of telling Nate about his plans for dinner with his family. Nate insisted on being there to shoot video for the documentary.

“We’re just going to eat dinner and then I’m going to give them letters I wrote them. It’s no big deal.”

“What kind of letters?”

“Stuff that’s hard to say. You know, how I feel about them. I want them to know that even though I’m going to see my birth mom, they’ll always be my parents.”

“Dude, that’s like off-the-charts emotional.”