LITMIR.BIZ

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from setting up a tent on a quiet green space or sleeping in a car because there is no other place to go.”

      She leaned forward and held up her hand. “It’s easier to pretend we’re immune, isn’t it?”

      After a moment she wrapped up that part quickly. “Today there are families with well-educated wage earners blithely living in homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars who will be out on the streets by next year. Faltering businesses will go under. Family wage earners will fall ill or lose jobs. A child with special needs or an aging parent might already have consumed all their financial cushion, so there’ll be no savings to start over. I can spin a hundred scenarios for you. One of them might even be yours.”

      She let that sink in and wondered how many people in the pews were squirming.

      She finished her sermon. “I am grateful to our council for agreeing to let the Fowlers live in an otherwise empty apartment. This isn’t a solution to our nation’s homeless problem, but it is, at least temporarily, a solution for one homeless family. I’ll be grateful to all of you who support this decision. I will even be grateful to those who don’t but who come directly to me to discuss it so we can learn from each other.”

      She ended with a short prayer that asked for guidance and enlightenment. Then she lifted her hands as the strains of the introduction to their final hymn began and watched the congregation rise.

      Only then, as her eyes sought Shiloh to try to read the girl’s reaction, did Analiese see Isaiah Colburn, who had been sitting beside the girl and had risen with everyone else. For a moment, just an instant, their eyes locked. Isaiah gave the slightest of nods.

      This time there was no mistaking him. And this time there was no mistaking her own reaction. Isaiah was here in Asheville, and for better or worse, her life was about to change.

chapter ten

      MONDAY, OFFICIALLY HER day off, was the best opportunity for Analiese to sleep in. This Monday she was up by seven, morning prayers said, shower already behind her, and neither had done anything to elevate her mood. She was about to devote the day to finding help for the Fowlers, and while she was glad to do it, she suspected by day’s end she would have experienced the same slamming of agency doors that they had.

      She considered a new prayer beginning with “Excuse me again, Lord, but here’s a long list of things bothering me,” and then naming everything that had kept her awake through a long night, in order of importance.

      She rejected that idea because putting the list in order was impossible. This morning everything was equal. The woman who cornered her after the second service and politely explained that the Church of the Covenant had a reputation to uphold and homeless people wandering in and out would not enhance it. The man who told her that ministers who took on projects without congregational consent didn’t last long.

      And no, she had not asked either if they were feeling a need to speak up for the lawyer who had questioned Jesus. Both had been at the church longer than she had. Both had taken leadership roles.

      Of course many people had offered their support, and some had sincerely meant it. But the two most significant people she had wanted to see had disappeared. Shiloh had slipped out during the final hymn, most likely embarrassed her family laundry had been aired during the sermon, and even after Analiese had climbed the steps in the parish house to find the girl, no one had been at the apartment.

      Then, of course, there was Isaiah.

      Why did her mentor and friend keep showing up, then vanishing? Of course she had been busy with parishioners after the sermon, listening to their comments, shaking hands, whisking one family into her study for emergency counseling because a son had been arrested the previous night. By the time that family left, the building had been nearly empty. And Isaiah had not been among those few who were still waiting to see her.

      “You could have left a note,” she said to the empty house.

      In answer the grandfather clock chimed 7:30 and the telephone rang.

      She knew better than to answer without checking caller ID. She was available for emergencies, but on her one day off she was firm about not taking calls that could wait another day. She couldn’t see the name and phone number without her reading glasses, so she waited for the answering machine, grabbing the receiver when she heard her sister Gretchen’s voice.

      “I know, I know this is your day off,” Gretchen said after Analiese’s hello. “But I’m going to be gone all day and the girls are eating breakfast. This was my only chance to leave you a message. I didn’t expect you to answer.”

      “I was up. What’s wrong?”

      “You’ve had that kind of week, huh? Jumping to the worst conclusion feels natural to you?”

      Analiese carried the phone into the living room and plopped down in a corner armchair. “You have no idea.”

      Gretchen didn’t ask for details. “Well, nothing’s wrong in Providence. The girls and I are just wondering what you’re doing for your birthday. Because it’s a big one, and we thought you might like to come here to celebrate.”

      And there in living color was the other thing on Analiese’s “what’s bothering me” list.

      “It’s just another birthday,” she said casually.

      “It’s number forty, glamour girl, and even you have to be feeling that just a little.”

      Analiese lifted her feet to the ottoman and closed her eyes. “Why? Because I’m in a stressful job, alone and childless?”

      Gretchen ignored that. “Why don’t you visit us and we’ll do the day up right? Maybe Elsbeth can fly in, too. Can you get away?”

      “Not in this century.”

      “They don’t deserve you, do they?”

      Analiese could almost hear her sister checking the clock over the stove in her sleek Country French kitchen. Gretchen’s daughters would be eating, possibly squabbling, just as she and her sisters had done, and in a moment Gretchen would start reminding them to hurry. There was no time to share feelings. The fact that she and Gretchen had connected and were talking at all was surprising.

      As nice as this was, now she felt even lonelier.

      “I’ll come this summer,” she said. “My vacation’s in June. Maybe we can get to the beach for a day or two. Elsbeth, too.”

      “We’re going to France in June, remember?”

      Analiese did now. “Sorry, of course. Henry’s job, plus the girls in a language school.”

      “You have no idea how competitive college applications are. Fluent French will help.”

      Analiese thought of Shiloh and how, despite her obvious intelligence, she would never even be competitive for community college unless somebody intervened quickly.

      “I miss you,” she told her sister. “We’ll find a time and a way to see each other.”

      Analiese hung up. She had chosen her life path, and she wasn’t sorry. Still, somehow, she was alone and turning forty. And now the man who would best understand how she felt, a man who himself would never marry and have children, was playing peekaboo and refusing to get close enough for a conversation.

      Wasn’t that for the best anyway? Since he was the man she most wanted and could never have? Self-pity was closing in fast.

      “Time for a long walk.” She got to her feet and went to find the right shoes.

      * * *

      Shiloh knew her mother was sick, really sick and not just giving-up-sick. But now that Belle was feeling a little better, she was messing around in the kitchen, trying to act like a regular mom. Unfortunately there was nothing regular about the way she wiped crumbs to the floor and

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