“So how do we escape the whirling gyres of our fate? How do we step outside of history, of the cycle we were doomed into? How do we not only reflect the light like our mother moon but become the light itself? How do we cast off the darkness of flesh, jealousy and strife and envy, the need to be superior to others? I ask you, who needs to be better than a hummingbird, all movement and color and light, sipping the sweetness of the world? Who needs to be anything more than a flower birthed only for beauty, to spread its food and seed so more beauty can abound?

“How do you find freedom from the tyranny of self, from your own selfish desire? You can satiate it, and yet be hungry only for more. You can gather for yourself all the money in the world and gorge on food and possessions and sex until that desire consumes you. Is that freedom? You can mortify the flesh, deny it, flagellate it out of yourself, bleed that desire dry until your very humanity is gone. Is that freedom?

“Or is freedom to be found together, in community, everyone working for the good of all? Is freedom not the sound of a thousand voices rising together in one roar, a thousand tiny lights shimmering together in a great bonfire so huge the world can’t help but take notice? A tower to heaven isn’t built by one single hand, no. It takes a multitude with one heart and one purpose and one vision. And this tower will not be baffled by many tongues, it will not be thwarted by any jealous deity. No, this tower is no physical thing, no work of the flesh. It is the power and glory of the Spirit working together in all of us, in every hand and heart and mind, to accomplish something beautiful.

“It is all of us gathered, a family, bonded by the Spirit, working together in power and in light.”

I listened to Jeremiah’s words, and I knew he was right. It was everything I could have ever dreamed of. The end of loneliness forever.

The family I’d always wanted.

Chapter 34

I woke up to our bedroom door shutting. I didn’t even remember falling asleep. The tape had ended, so it must have been well after midnight. Thunder boomed outside, and rain rattled the windows. Murphy stood there in her overalls, holding a flashlight.

I lay still, pretending to be asleep.

“I know you’re awake,” she said. “Look, I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said. “Those are all the sorrys you’re going to get from me.”

I kept my mouth shut. It was going to take more than apologies to get me to talk to Murphy again.