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wasn’t just looking for some other box to check off her list. If that was it, as much as he loved his wife, Neal just couldn’t play along. This wasn’t a cappuccino machine or a plasma TV they were talking about but a person. And people needed parents who did more than get on planes and close deals.
    He kissed Dyanne’s hair and rolled over onto his side, reaching under the bed for Living a Life that Counts, the book from the new line he’d been reading. After reading another short but deep chapter, Neal gripped the book’s pages tightly before shoving it under their bed. He laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes for prayer, a habit that had come back to him with an awkward ease.
    God, what am I missing? I have everything I need and most of what I want. But something just isn’t adding up. Not for Dyanne, either. She thinks a baby will fix that. I think only You can fix it. If we’re supposed to have a baby, show us. Get us ready…
    As his wife turned and rolled onto her back, Neal thought about the question that his father-in-law had raised to him a few days before they’d left New York. “If you had unlimited money, resources and time, what would you do? What is your passion? What do you believe?” The question haunted Neal as much now as it did then, when the only answer he could come up with was himself.
    He believed in a lot things: taking care of his wife, working hard, getting plenty of exercise, eating healthy, making money, doing good in the world. But he didn’t believe a lot of people. Everybody he met seemed to be out for some kind of con, including his wife. His own parents were the picture of perfection, but underneath that beauty ran a subtle cruelty, waiting to crush anyone who stepped out of line. He’d seen that same thing in his wife as she destroyed a beautiful yard to create her own idea of a fantasy landscape.
    And now she wanted to create a baby for the same purpose. His plan to stay away from Dyanne had dissolved at the first sight…and first scent of her. Except for a few stolen lunches and a layover in Atlanta, they hadn’t been together for weeks. As though she were thinking the same, Dyanne’s hand moved along his spine, pausing at his neck before rubbing his head.
    Neal closed his eyes, remembering how many times she’d touched him this way, only to have one of them whisk out the door for a trip or take a late-night call. Could his wife want a baby because she was lonely? Or could God be using this to get to her, too?
    He turned over slowly, throwing his thigh over his wife’s smaller, but just as solid leg. He didn’t know what God was doing or how it would all work out. Head rubbing, however, he understood perfectly.

The Once-Was
    I once was a star,
    Shooting to the moon
    On mile-high heels.
    My hips spanned the
    Galaxy, curving at the speed
    of light. My light is gone now,
    My wonder moved
    On, taken residence in your
    Eyes. In your laughter, I
    Hear echoes of my reign,
    Top notes of the once-was.
    For you, I’d gladly give it
    All again, flinging my hopes
    Into outer space, tossing my words into
    The black silence, once and for all.
    Â 
    â€”Karol
Upon waking, first Sunday after Hope’s move

Chapter Three
    K arol Simon once stood in the foyer at church with Hope, looking for new moms to encourage.
    This morning, weary and alone, she’d hidden from them.
    They found her anyway.
    One of the newest moms thrust a chubby baby in Karol’s face. “I think he has thrush. His mouth is all white. I remember Miss Hope telling me something to use? Vinegar maybe? Someone said you might know…”
    She took a deep breath and the baby. He returned her smile, just wide enough for her to see his coated tongue. “Yes, vinegar. Swab his mouth with it. You’ll have to do yourself, too. Call the doctor. Maybe some gentian violet. It’s messy, though. They have quick pills now.