I stayed down there for twenty minutes, playing with my big new toy, then took advantage of a break in the rain to hobble back up to the apartment. When I went to the kitchen to make some tea, I noticed the answering machine was blinking.

“Hi, Grace. It’s Jack.” I nearly dropped the teapot into the sink. I missed the next part of his message because I was so surprised, and finally tuned back in when he apologized for not explaining that the number was his assistant’s. How sweet! I wished someone was here to hear this. I grabbed the phone and called Missy. “No more waiting till tomorrow after work,” I told her, “come over tonight for dinner. You’ll never guess who left a message on my machine.

Missy ran her hand over the steering wheel. “All righty then. Where should we go?”

“I don’t know, just around. Go up to Joy’s and see if she’s home.” Missy started the car and backed out of the space as I flipped through the radio presets looking for good driving music. “This is unreal,” I murmured.

“I know; it’s incredible.” Missy suddenly squealed. “He sat right here!” We both laughed, and she launched into an obsessed-fan routine. “Oh my gosh, he sat right here, my butt is right where his butt was; his hands were on this steering wheel!” She kissed the top of the wheel. “I’ll never wash the interior of my car again!”

We laughed till we cried. “Stop!” I finally commanded, “You shouldn’t drive when you’re laughing that hard.”

“Should we test the antilock brakes?” Missy waggled her eyebrows at me.

“Good grief, no, thank you.” Missy chuckled, and we sang with the radio the rest of the way to Joy’s house, where we gushed all over again as we told her what had happened. She called Taylor, and we all had dinner and talked for a couple hours before leaving for the evening. But once I crawled into bed, I hovered on the brink of sleep for two hours, unable to drop into unconsciousness because of all the thoughts pinging around in my head. Apparently I hadn’t completely scared him away with my bizarre message from God. I wondered what he thought of all that. I wanted to ask him, but I was not about to call him. I forced myself to be content with the fact that if he wanted to talk about it, he certainly knew how to find me.

Later that week the girls and I had a valentine writing party. I had to write them for my kids, which inspired the others to revisit the childhood tradition and write some too. We were sprawled around the living room with the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack in the background.