Nothing but the man God had told her to pray for when she should have been praying for her mother. Something hot and wild heaved its way from her stomach upward, making her shoulders convulse. She squeezed her eyes shut again. “That day. She was lying there on the floor, already gone, and all that was going through my head was that stupid number. My mother was dead, and God was concerned for you.”

“Margot.” He stepped closer, so close she could smell his soap. So close she could tell that he was blocking the view of her from the others. Shielding her from their attention as brine scalded her cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault.” It was His. She shuddered and leaned into the window frame, trying and failing to wrestle it all back down. “I should have been praying for her. Not you. That morning, when I was just standing there, waiting for her to come. He should have brought her to mind then. Should have told me to go home, but no. He let me get that stupid fever that muddled my mind, and He said nothing. No numbers to warn me or spur me home or anything. He just let her die and didn’t let me help.”

“Maybe you couldn’t have.” Fingers brushed her shoulder, retreated. “Maybe He wanted to spare you that pain.”

“What?” How did that make any sense at all? Prying her blurred eyes back open yet again, she turned her head to glare at him.

He was too close. Under normal circumstances, she would have backed away or made him do so. Just now, she knew it was to keep their conversation private, and with that she could agree. No one else needed to hear her falling apart. “I could have saved her. If I’d just gone home earlier—”

“Why do you assume that?” His face a careful mask of dispassion and yet, somehow, empathetic, he held her eyes. “Do you hold the powers of life and death in your hands?”

As if that deserved a response. She pursed her lips.