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Wesley didn’t call my parents. But still, he should be guiding us through this. It’s on him that he couldn’t hear the truth.
    “Jane, give me the knife if you’re not going to be careful.”
    “I’m being careful! You yell at me to come do this, then you hover over me like I’m six. Let me do it.”
    Mom reaches for the knife. “Jane, give me—”
    I jerk back. The blade skates across the edge of her palm, and Mom’s yelp silences the chatter in my head. Clutching her hand—blood runs and smears—Mom glares at me like she hates me. Everybody rushes up, talking at once.
    “What happened?” Tim asks.
    “Mom? What happened?”
    “Nothing. Just an accident.”
    “Let me see. What happened?” Dad tries to take charge.
    “I’m fine. Take the sauce off the stove, or it’ll burn.”
    “Mom.” I speak above the rest. “Mom, I’m sorry.”
    Her lips press together until they’re white. “If you weren’t acting like a brat, it wouldn’t have happened.”
    Mom? Something happened at Rivercall.
    “Not one of the good towels.”
    Dad shakes his head. “I don’t care about towels.”
    “I do. Get one of the old ones from the linen closet.”
    Something happened, Dad. I need help. The words bunch in my throat, aching to be said. But I can’t say them. Mom and Dad will think I’m insane.
    “There’s antibiotic ointment in the cabinet,” Mom tells Tim. “And the big bandages. No, behind there.”
    I walk away. Nobody notices except Yuri, but he doesn’t say anything. Grabbing my Bible, I go upstairs.
    The moment I’m in my bedroom and it’s finally quiet, I remember the mission trip email.
    Dang it, who cares about the stupid email right now?
    But if I don’t take care of it, nobody else will. I’ve spent my whole life helping to take care of my brothers and sister, and it’s given me a deep love of order, lists, and Post-its. So I’m the youth group leader. I’m in charge of the winter mission trip and collecting items for the women’s shelter. I’m the responsible one, the one who sweats the small stuff. I’m the Type A personality everybody avoids until they need me.
    Sitting down, I tap it out quick: dates, location, goals, driving times, more information at the next youth group meeting. I add a reminder that everything for the women’s shelter has to be collected by the first of next month. Sending it out, I go back to chapter seventeen of Matthew. Before they find the piece of money in the fish’s mouth, Jesus casts a devil out of an insane boy, then scolds His disciples for not having the faith to save the boy themselves.
    If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Holly, is that why you used a fish to deliver your message? To lead me to this passage and warn me that I’ve lost the faith to save anybody?
    Or maybe I really am going crazy, and this is … no, no! The catfish was real; Tyler saw it too. The ring is real. All of this is happening.
    I kneel down, resting my elbows on the seat of my desk chair. Holy God, in Jesus’s name, I pray. Help us. Give me some sign. I don’t know how or why any of this is happening, but I know that You are good and infinitely merciful. I know that You will never abandon us …
    No. I don’t know any of that anymore.
    Want to hear something I never told you, Holly?
    It was after your me-maw got really sick, when we were waiting at the hospital. Remember the too-bright halls always bustling, even late at night? Sometimes it was actually fun—exploring everywhere and playing tag up and down and across the elevator bank. Remember the corner of the lobby we’d staked out, watching people and talking and laughing until our faces hurt?
    But that whole time, I felt like there was something I needed to do. Something I’d forgotten kept wiggling at the base of my brain. I thought and thought, but I couldn’t figure out