Prologue

June 1980

The pain in his legs is gone. His body is numb, beyond sensation; his mind has followed, for the same reason: too much, too much. On his knees for hours, imploring God for mercy, digging deep into himself for proof of the faith that would save his baby's life, kneeling and praying and begging God to spare his child — O Father, as You spared Abraham's child — knowing God had not spared His own Son, knowing God might take his child as well. His daughter, sweet and beautiful, Rachel Marie, so beautiful and dying from the moment she emerged into the fallen world. Born frail, born so ill and helpless, but not hopeless — Do not lose hope, brother, keep faith in God and He will grant his miraculous mercy — but God appears to have a more difficult test of faith in mind for him.

Melissa, the wife chosen for him by Brother Ezekial, given to him to bear his children and be his partner in the great work of salvation, Melissa sits in the straight-back wooden chair, the baby in a light blanket on her lap. Melissa, weak herself from almost two days of labor, weak from bleeding that still has not stopped, weak from sitting in the chair with her baby in her lap, one hand lifted in supplication and the other resting on her daughter's tiny, fragile chest; lightly on the chest, the breath coming so difficult. Melissa, her face closed and locked: in prayer, in shock, in grief? He can not tell, no longer looks at her. She sits only inches from him, their dying daughter in her lap, asking God for a miracle — he can only believe she was asking God what he had been asking for — their daughter and an abyss of fear and grief between them.

But fear is wrong. Fear speaks only of faithlessness, of human pride, of a lack of trust in God's mercy, God's will. Your Father loves you, brother, and His will for you, for your daughter, is not for us to question but to give worship and thanks. Thanks. For hours, with his knees screaming in pain, his leg muscles cramping, quivering, his back wanting to collapse on the floor (and weep and weep, he refused to acknowledge how much pain he felt in body in mind, simply kneel and pray and believe); for hours, desperate to find the core stone of faith he knew must be there. If he could find that faith, that tiny bit of belief that confirmed all he had been learning the past four years with the Family, God would hear his prayers and grant him his miracle. If he could find that faith.

Instead he found physical discomfort, and he found fear, and he found himself worthless, unworthy. His body spoke louder than his faith, his faith silent and missing and the pain simply overwhelming him until, with the abrupt snap of a candle flame snuffed, he legs and back were quiet. His mind, too, still. To any of the Family gathered around him — standing or sitting, he alone on his knees, he alone with the burden to bring God's grace to this child's terminal body — he appears to be at peace in worship and supplication. He os not at peace, nor is he in pain. He is simply vacant. He knows God will not spare his daughter; at some point, soon, she will breathe a final breath and then she will be gone. Like David, when his son was taken as payment for the murder of Uriah and the taking of Bathsheba, he will rise and refresh himself and give thanks to God. And go on with his life as if all is well.

Perhaps it will be well. Rachel will die and he will give thanks, and then he and Melissa will rest, will praise God, and in a month or so, conceive another child for the glory of God. He would will later and occupy this body that kneeling in failed prayer. He will find his way back to his body, his life, his duty. And perhaps his faith, his lost and broken faith, his faith shattered and gone. Please God, the only prayer he can hold now, please God let me believe again. You've taken my child. Let me live. O Father, let me live.

And where he has gone, he never will be able to tell. In time, he will make himself forget that he had even been gone, that he had begged for his own life and faith in place of his daughter's. It was is much, too much, and he can never tell Melissa, Brother Ezekial, God, himself. No one. As soon as he can, he lets that secret die, too. As soon as he can.

September 1987

She is amazed at the peace she feels. I should be in tears, she thinks, but I almost feel ... happy. Christ, she must be insane with grief, but she knows that isn't true. She is at peace, no matter how strange and wrong, she is at peace. But a strange peace; Yes, that's a good way to think of it: a strange peace. It would have to be something different at a time like this, a peace she could never have imagined, not a lessening of pain but more like comfort. But the strange part, the part of it that makes her wonder, is that she feels both comfort and joy. Joy, here, now, for this: I'm burying my child and I feel joy?

But she cannot hide from what she does feel. After weeks of anguish and tears and hope that failed utterly, her grief is spent. Or transformed. Or something. She is tired of grief, tired of crying and hoping and losing the battle every day to find something that would save her little boy, the doctors and the tests and the useless goddamn medicines and treatments, all of it useless but to stretch out the inevitable another week or two. Stretch her hope another day, another day, and in the end her baby died, and today she is saying the final goodbye to his little body.

But not to him, she realizes with a smile she keeps inside her heart. Not to him! That is it, that is how she can feel comfort and that slight touch of joy. All she is giving up today is his body. She carried that body inside her's for too little time, only eight months, although the doctors assured her that had played no part in his difficulties, that sometimes babies are not formed well and there's no reason, none that they know. It wasn't her fault they told her repeatedly, as if that was the main thought in her head, but she never would have had that thought had it not been thrust upon her. She had been a good mother before she had conceived, had eaten well, exercised and rested and seen her doctor and done everything right, everything well.

Blame is absent from her thoughts. Her longest hope and dream had come true: she had become a mother! Who or what should she blame for that? Since she was a little girl, caring for her little brother as her mother watched with her own warm smile, her greatest wish in the world was to be a mommy. To have her own baby, maybe two or three or more, but to have that one, her first. She had asked God to make that come true at one point, but then she had stopped asking God for anything, had gone to the clinic to end her first and much-too-soon pregnancy. After that, she took the responsibility for herself, made the choice of when and with whom her own choice, although finding the right father had proven more difficult than she had ever imagined. But she had found Matt, had become his wife and then the mother of his child — our child — and then she had found herself alone as he had been unable to cope with what his child — our child — had been.

So she sits alone, her father and brother on either side, a small gathering of friends around them, and she says goodbye to her beautiful baby's broken, miraculous, beloved body. She closes her eyes and lets the peace overwhelm her. Eyes shut, a gentle wind blowing cool, the scent of rain lingering in the grass and fallen leaves, she looks inside and sees him there, sweet and sleeping and perfect. Oh my baby boy, I love you so, and she has never been happier in her life. She stands there, alone with her child, peaceful, quiet, content.

March 1989

And as if it were a movie, as if he were living a movie and not his life, his real life, time stops and nothing moves. Silence, stillness, nothing moving, not a sound, nothing but the insane scream of terror as he realizes his worst fear has come true. One moment, his child — his son! — was emerging into the world; and then, he saw what was happening: The child, motionless, blue, silent, unbreathing, dead; stillborn and lost before he could be held once, kissed and cuddled and sung to and read books and played with and given boxes of Legos and taught to ride a bike, throw a ball, not cross the street, kissed goodnight every night for years and loved and cherished — gone before even one touch.

Time is still. Time is gone. Everything has left but grief and horror...

...and then, of course, a mere second emerged from his mother's body, the child squirms and wriggles, taking a deep and relentless first breath, squawking just the tiniest bit. Time resumes, the entire world returns, beautiful and amazing and with a future as forgotten for the moment as the imagined disaster. Now he is being handed a pair of medical scissors to cut the umbilical cord, and he does, wondering to himself at how solid it is; he can feel the cord resisting the pressure of his fingers on the scissors. This was his baby's lifethread for the past nine months, he realizes, the source of oxygen and nourisment; this was all the baby had needed. Even as a little bundle of undifferentiated cells, a tiny thread of blood vessels and tubing had kept the ... he never can remember when it goes from zygote to cytoplast to embroyo and all the rest ... the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìbaby?¢‚Ǩ¬ù had been much simpler, if less accurate.

And now he has cut that connection, and soon Terry's body will push the rest of it out, its work done. The doctor examines his child — his son! — to ensure all is well, that the pregnancy and birth have been as perfect as they had hoped. She checks mouth, nostrils, body, all of the little clues she and the nurses will track to convince themselves and the parents and the hospital that this child is healthy and can be given over to the na?√⬨√òve, inexperienced couple. From now on, this kid is his responsibility. Holy crap, I'm the daddy! And the doctor, her quick examination complete, hands him his son, swaddled quickly and expertly so that arms and legs are snugly held and only his little face is exposed. And she hands the baby to him.

To him. His child, his baby, his son, after all this time of imagining and dreaming and hoping, he is walking around the delivery in a daze, completely overwhelmed with a goofy happiness. His baby, in his hands; too tiny for his arms, needing only his daddy's hands. O you are so beautiful. Later he will recall how he felt, using a term of the day: blissed-out. And he will realize as he says it, this was the reason that phrase existed. He is in bliss, the one time in his life he will ever feel as he fdoes then. People had told him, other parents with their wisdom and hard-gained experience, that there is no way to prepare sufficiently for parenthood. They had meant the sleepless nights, the unexpected problems, the sicknesses and minor traumas. But no one had warned him just how incredible he would feel in those first five minutes.

He will again never in his life feel this alive.