In his savings account was half of the million dollars the expedition had agreed to pay, the rest was in the church’s accounts. He had done the negotiating, had agreed to make their time easier, had two daughters who would be going to college, and a shitty job. There was also the fact he needed his faith to give him something tangible. It had cost him a wife, and when people found out he belonged to this faith, they treated him like he was in a cult. So many dates and friendships had fizzled when they found out about his faith, as if believing in heaven or transubstantiation or different planets for the dead was any less strange. At least here was a door, here was elsewhere, and God had spoken to him.

“Your greed caused this.”

Antony sunk to the ground and kneeled. His shirt clung to his back, the areas behind his kneecaps were sticky, and he could smell his armpits.

“God, please let my daughters be alive.”

“You have proven yourself small and ugly.”

“If my daughters return unharmed, I will—”

“You aren’t in a place to bargain.”

He gritted his teeth, folded his hands together, shut his eyes tight.

“God, I am not worthy of asking you for anything. I come to you.” He could not think of a way to prove his fidelity to God. It didn’t feel right to thank him, but also felt wrong not to express some form of gratitude. His knees were already wobbling, and he had never felt so old. One of the privates who was often assigned to patrol, the nice one who learned people’s names, yanked Antony. He was saying, “You have to go, you have to go.”

“I can’t leave my daughters.”

He looked up into the man’s brown eyes.

“You can’t hear it?” Antony asked him.

“All I can hear is you screaming,” he replied.

They turned together toward the door. Things in the shape of people, but looked like black-and-white scribbles and static, were falling out. Each one took a few steps forward, then popped, leaving a black-and-white cloud behind.

*  *  *

The sisters were arguing about whether to go through the door below. Ayanna thought it best to turn around and go back—they were already behind the schedule she had set—and Olivia argued that if nothing made sense, if there were no guarantees, wasn’t it better to try what was close and possible?

Ayanna was torn between wanting to say, “I love you, but your decisions have made everything harder today,” and “I love you, and your logic does feel sound.”