“No. No, it won’t.” His face folded with the pressure of his pain. “I imagined this moment so many times and how I’d react when she came back. I prepared myself for it. I was so sure I’d be able to handle anything as long as she was alive and okay, and physically she is, but she’s not the same person, Meredith. What if she doesn’t come back?” He barely finished the question before breaking down into gut-wrenching sobs.

I wrapped my arms around him, and he clung to me, shoulders heaving. I rubbed his back and whispered, “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Traumatic grief was groundless, a free fall into space. Unless you’d been there before, you couldn’t understand what it felt like. Scott tethered himself to me until the moment passed. He pulled away, wiping his face against his sleeve.

“It’s all my fault.” He choked on another sob.

I grabbed his face with both hands and peered at him. “You listen to me right now, you hear me? We are not going down this road again. None of this was your fault. You didn’t do anything to cause this, and there’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent it.” He’d spent years in therapy weeding through his warped sense of responsibility. It’d been a while since it had reared its ugly head.

He took my hands and placed them back in my lap. “You might not say that if you knew the whole story.”

My insides curled. “What do you mean the full story?” I asked.

He gave the same version of that day every time he was asked—he was perfectly happy, their marriage was great, and they loved their life. He’d kissed her goodbye in the shower before he left for work and that had been the last time he’d ever seen her.

He patted me on my thigh. “Never mind. I’m just being stupid.” He moved me off his lap so we could stand. “You’re right. I’m just really tired. Let’s go to bed.”

KATE

THEN

I tossed the toilet paper into my cart and scanned the aisle for our brand of paper towels. I wanted to get on the loudspeaker and announce that I’d been called for discipleship. I’d woken up like a giddy kid on Christmas morning and hadn’t stopped smiling. Even my argument with Scott this morning and Abbi’s ridiculous tantrum about her shirt hadn’t bothered me.

This was what it was like, and all the disciples had been right—when you knew, you knew. It was inexplicable. But what did I do next? I quickly reminded myself that I didn’t have to do anything. God would continue to reveal himself to me in the same way he’d done last night. Just like he had revealed himself to Ray and everyone else. I wanted to clap. I was officially part of them. I was all the way in.

The checkout lines were long, but I didn’t care. I didn’t know how I was going to make it until five, when I could see Ray. I had a huge deadline Friday, and it would take me all day to get the notes from my sources together. What would he say when I told him? He had to be expecting it. How many times had he said he could sense I was special?