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with Christy for about a month, were earning credits toward their college degrees by volunteering and assisting with the children. Boy, that Christy really was a saint. She wasn’t just helping out the eleven special-needs kids; she was also giving the gift of hands-on education to these innocent high school girls. When I told her she must have a busy schedule, she shook her head. “I’m just doing our Lord’s work,” she said earnestly. “He spoke to me several years ago and told me that I was to be his beacon of light in the darkness of these poor children’s lives. And when the Lord speaks to me, I have no choice but to follow His word.”
    I wondered if the Lord also told her to wrap her table in that hideous plastic cover, but I held back. The noise in the place was starting to grate on my last good nerve. I could feel the urge for a cigarette rearing up, so I knew I had to make this visit a short one. Christy handed off the Down syndrome child to one of the helpers and told the kids, including Fletcher, to take a seat at the table and be quiet. That took another ten minutes because one of the toddlers blew lunch on the carpet. Once they were all settled, they were instructed to hold hands and Christy led a prayer over the milk and cookies. She didn’t realize it, but I was saying my own prayer simultaneously. It went something like, “Dear God, get me the fuck out of this hellhole.” I no sooner said, “Amen,” than Fletcher let out a loud guffaw and looked up at me, winking his good eye. That simple reaction reminded me why I was there.
    I asked Christy if I could use the restroom as a ruse to check out the joint. Since the milk and cookies were free flowing in the living room and the kids would soon be high as
a kite on sugar, I figured I’d have an easy roam of the large house without any interruption. But as I left the room, I stole a glance at Fletcher. He was trying to give me a not so subtle clue as he kept dipping his head to the floor and pointing that one good eye toward the kitchen.
    The kitchen? I thought. He nodded, really pointing his head toward the floor as he did it.
    This is the first floor , I thought. He shook his head at me.
    There’s a basement? I thought while realizing that this entire mental conversation with him “defied logic.” Fletcher nodded.
    “Let’s sing Him our praises!” Christy exclaimed, as she led the motley collection of cookie-crunching characters into “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
    It was the perfect time to duck into the kitchen. Obviously, I didn’t have a lot of time to “feel” the scene as I usually do. My eyes traced the large yellow kitchen with the happy-face clock and the collector plates on the wall, each with a verse from the New Testament scrolled on them. Cheerful . That’s exactly how anyone would describe this kitchen. And neat. God, for a woman who had eleven special-needs kids, the kitchen was immaculate. The adage on the dish towel said it all: A clean home is a godly home. I’ve always thought that a clean home is a sign of a wasted life, but what the hell do I know?
    A series of eight engraved plaques covered the length of the wall above the sink. It seemed that Christy had been honored by eight different organizations in Denver for her “tireless dedication” to special-needs children. I’ve been presented with three plaques in my life — two for saving people’s lives — and I couldn’t tell you where in the hell they are located if you held a gun to my head.

    A large chalkboard filled the wall on the other side of the kitchen. On it was written: “What are we grateful for?” followed by ten answers that I was pretty sure Christy wrote in somewhat erratic handwriting. “Jesus” was the first answer, with “This Home” and “Christy” ranking numbers two and three, respectively. It was decent of Christy to give herself third billing after Jesus. It’s important to stay humble.
    I looked over to a door that held