Hannah worried that this was not a conversation to be having with a teenager. But then Tyler said, “I was so young when my mom died. I don’t remember her very well.” His eyes sought and held Hannah’s. “We have pictures of her. Do you think it would be the same if I talked to her picture?”

“Sure. Some people go to a grave and talk to the person. What you say will come from your heart, and it doesn’t matter if you do it in bed at night, walking to school, or anywhere else.”

He flushed and was silent for a time. “Would my mother really hear me?” His eyes bore into Hannah’s. “I wonder a lot. Is there a heaven? If there is, what’s it like? Will my mother be waiting for me when I die?” He shook his head and looked away, and she was spared having to respond to his question when he turned to her and said, “Nah! I don’t believe all that heaven stuff. I don’t even know if I believe in God. Do you believe in God, Hannah?”

Hannah considered. Over the years, she and God had had an inconsistent and tumultuous relationship. Her mother and grandmother believed in God, and so had she as a child and young adult. They had taken her to church, but not every Sunday. Her father resisted going and joined them only when prodded by her mother on holidays like Christmas. God, as she remembered him, was a grandfatherly man with a long white beard, smiling, sitting on a throne or a huge chair like her father’s.

It had seemed to her that Granny Teresa prayed incessantly, her lips moving, and when Hannah had asked what she was saying and to whom, she would cast her eyes skyward and say, “To him.” When they were out walking, Granny had insisted on visiting every church they passed. She would enter, kneel, and pray way too loudly, which had embarrassed Hannah.

Once, on a Saturday, Granny dragged her into the local synagogue. A service was under way, but they were ushered to seats, and Hannah recalled finding the chanting in another language—Hebrew, her Granny said it was—oddly pleasant and soothing.

“God is everywhere,” Granny explained. “And remember, Hannah, he’s always watching you, so you be a good girl.”

And that left eight-year-old Hannah anxious and worried that a critical or punishing God watched her when she took a bath, when she played with her friends, whatever she did, wherever she did it; and that sense of intrusion into her private moments and thoughts frightened and put Hannah off.