That Sunday I woke the boys, plied them with Frosted Flakes, got them dressed, and took them along while Kate slept in.

I hadn’t been to church in years. As a kid, I rarely went because my father loathed organized religion. According to the Gospel of Coach, God was a terrible dad. “What kind of father would let his son die on a cross?” (A fair question.) “No,” Coach liked to tell me when I was little, “if I were God, and you were my only son, do you know what I’d do for you? I’d make you a winner. Every time out, son, you’d win!”

So which church?

I chose the closest.

Grace Episcopal was a beautiful gray stone structure, built in 1847, with Tiffany stained-glass windows, an ornate altar, and Sunday school/ child care for toddlers and preschoolers. A friendly usher pointed us to the basement, where I left my boys as they began a messy but fun-looking arts-and-crafts activity that consisted of gluing dried macaroni to paper plates. “Be good,” I said.

I sat in the last pew. I spent much of that morning learning when to kneel and sit and stand, the complex switch from the black prayer book to the bigger dark blue hymnal to the church bulletin, and somehow, amid all the kneeling and standing and sitting and hymn singing, I managed to eke out a little prayer—something about wanting guidance, the nature of sin, and needing direction. During the closing hymn, when all the other parishioners were standing and singing “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” I dropped to my knees and prayed: Please, I don’t know what to do about Anna Brody’s offer. So, God, if there’s a God, just send me a sign.

KATE

KATE

MOST PEOPLE BELIEVE THEMSELVES CAPABLE OF KEEPING A SECRET. TIM SAYS I’M one of the few who actually can. Even as a little girl, when my mother confided in me things no daughter should ever have to know, I prided myself, almost to the point of gloating, on my capacity for sealed lips. As long as I can remember, it has been one of my best attributes, or so I thought. In my dark period, that endless year before I met Tim, it was my raison d’être. So much so that I once considered having a T-shirt custom-made that would read: I AM AN ACCOMPLISHED KEEPER OF SECRETS.

I know that’s what made Tim so appealing. His lack of secrets. That’s what made our first days together so refreshing. Secrets, the kind I had kept, were exhausting. I was exhausted. And with Tim, I could finally rest.

Anyway . . .