AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH YEAR’S VACATION in Italy I knew that the days would pass by horribly quickly. I knew that thinking about how we had ten whole days would only make them start to go even faster. By the fifth day we were there I would try not to think about the vacation being half over. And in the last three days I tried not to admit to myself that soon Mom would say, “The day after tomorrow we’ll be leaving.” At home, ten days was a long time, but not here.

I was as sad as I always was, which was very sad, when Mom said that Rachael and I should pack that night, and just leave out our clothes and our toothbrushes for the train ride home. What made it worse was that on our last full day it had been raining. I had enjoyed myself in Portofino but I would rather have had a last day snorkeling and helping the Banini around the beach.

At dinner Janet held up her arm and said, “My tans already fading!”

Rachael said, “I wanted to swim all the way out to the point alone once this year and now I can’t.”

Mom told them, “Give thanks in all things.”

“I don’t see why,” said Janet.

“Because God is sovereign, that’s why,” Dad answered.

“You mean He had a purpose in making it rain so I couldn’t get more sun?” Janet said.

Then Mom said, “Janet, we don’t say sarcastic things, especially about the sovereignty of God.”

“Janet might have said that in a mocking spirit but as a matter of fact she brings up a good point,” Dad said. “Yes, Janet, you did. All things do work together for the good of those who love Him, the Elect. You never will know what might have happened to you today if the sun had been out.”

“You mean if I had gone out to the point, I might have had a cramp or something and drowned, and God knew it so He made it rain to save me?” Rachael asked.

Mom smiled at Rachael, and Dad gave her head a pat and said that Rachael was beginning to show discernment for the Things of the Lord.

But Janet muttered under her breath, “Or might have been raped.”

Mom turned to her and seemed to grow six inches taller right where she was sitting, eating a plate of pasta with fresh tomato and basil sauce. “What did you say, young lady?”

Janet wouldn’t repeat it even though we all had heard it. I wondered why when we said something once that Mom said should never have passed our lips, since our mouth was the guardian of our body, which was the Temple of the Lord, she would make us repeat it again even louder.

Dad said, “If I were you, I’d obey your mother.”

Then Janet said, “I said, ‘or raped’?”