The first card he had received almost two years ago. On its front, an aerial view of the island of Key West. On the back, this message: Everything That Is, Is Holy.

Asher had only to type the quotes into a search engine on the internet to find out where they came from. The first card had led him to Thomas Merton. He had ordered a couple of his books and discovered ways of thinking about religion that he had never thought about: acceptance, identity, freedom. In Merton he found that the key to knowing God better was to know himself better. Reading Merton’s books made him feel there was the possibility of his feeling like a good person again.

Luke used to read and talk about going to the island all the time. It had been his dream to live there. He could see Luke before him now, his eyes alight with the thought of escape: “Down there, people can be who they want to be,” he’d say. Luke had always recommended music and books to Asher as a child and teenager but had stopped once Asher started preaching and became closed off from anyone who didn’t go to his church. Now Luke was sending his quiet recommendations once again.

On the second card there had been a view of the sea in all its glory, a water that begged to be jumped into, the vast green-blue-white ocean fading off toward a purpling sky. On the back: Sometimes the hurt is so deep deep deep, and that led him to Patty Griffin. For years now he had not listened to anything besides gospel music. The way she sang—so full of sadness and trouble, yet always hope—sounded like Luke.

So now here, this third one. He read the quote again and then took note of the little explanatory paragraph at the top of the card:

The sandpiper is a wading shorebird often seen on the beaches of the eastern seaboard. Unlike most birds, the sandpiper is more agile on the ground than in the air.

The underlines stood in the same blue ink as the quote.

At his laptop Asher typed in the quote and the word sandpiper and sure enough there was a poem with that title. He read it through several times, trying to understand what his brother might be saying to him. Asher printed out a copy, folded it into a neat square and slid it into his wallet so he could reread it some more.

He went out onto the front porch. A thin rain was falling, causing breaths of mist to ease out of the ridge cleft across the river.

He had not changed as much as he had convinced himself. When put to the test, he had failed. It was like he had failed his brother once again.

Asher pulled his phone from his back pocket and called Caleb Carey.