Anyway, pretty soon he and Sophy's dad were working on digging a drainage ditch because the ground was too wet to grow anything. And while you obviously couldn't grow mangos here, if the soil was drained they thought they could try to grow apples and pears, and if that didn't work Sophy's dad had heard you could grow Christmas trees. Of course, there were hardly any other black-hairs here, but they didn't care. They were all doing better. Sophy's dad even seemed to like her mom, now that she had these tapes and was really trying to learn English, and Sarun wasn't sending anyone IMs, because there was no cell service. And Sophy was perfect as an angel, so polite and hardworking, her dad looked at her one day and said, "Now if you go to Cambodia, people will say, Yes, that is a Cambodian girl. So polite! Whose family does she belong to?"

"I thought you told the judge you didn't want me," she said.

And her dad just laughed then like Sarun, and that was about the happiest moment of her life.

"Someone must have borrowed my mouth and made strange words come out," he said. And when he did that lopping thing with his finger then, it was like he was trying to lop his bad words out of her memory, so she wouldn't hear them anymore.

Life wasn't perfect. Like there were all these flies! And her mom missed her friends, and the temple too, messed up as it was. And when they got Sophy's sisters back, it wasn't going to be easy to convince them they were going to like it here, because there was, like, no movie theater or mall, or anything. And it was a lot easier to make money in their old town because everyone knew from everyone else where to find work. Like there were factories making medical supplies and airline seats and stuff, and at night you could always, like, make key chains, or bag up parts for a kit. Doctors were easier to find too, and food and medicine. And you could walk places. Here you needed rides for every single thing, which was hard because they weren't on, like, any kind of program. Like they were just this special case some pastor had thought should be part of his ministry but that other people wondered about, especially when they found out that Sophy's family wasn't even the Cambodian family they thought they were. Like the one time Ruth came to visit she said that the pastor in charge of them wasn't the church pastor anymore, and that some people were glad, but that she was so upset she was leaving too, which was why she came, to break the news. It made them feel so bad. And who was going to help them figure out what to do about school and stuff now? Because what a good student Sophy was going to be this time! An A student, she'd always liked how that sounded. An A student, straight A's, all A's. Ruth said they shouldn't worry and that someone would help. But in the end, she just disappeared like Carla and n.o.body else showed up, and the first thing that happened in school was that this boy offered to help Sophy figure out what was going on. Hershey, his name was, like Hershey chocolate, he said everyone called him that all the time. And she felt sorry for him because it wasn't his fault that he was named Hershey, and he felt sorry for her back, and wanted to show her stuff like how to sign up for free lunch and how to get her locker to stay shut. It was the kind of help she had to make sure her dad never knew about, but she didn't, like, know how to explain it, and before she could Hershey came by the trailer because she left her protractor at school and he knew she couldn't do her homework without it. And that was the end of school.

And that was too bad, because even going for a little while made Sophy realize that she actually missed school. Like she even missed their old school, with the wack teachers and the wack kids and the wack stories, it was lucky they had the whole summer to figure out what to do next.

Then Hattie came over with the wheelbarrow, and they all liked her more after that, Sophy especially. She liked Hattie's dogs and Hattie's cookies, and she liked the way Hattie said, Ants do like peonies. And then Sophy's dad changed his mind about Hattie and wanted her to teach Sophy Chinese, and maybe do home schooling, since Hattie used to be a teacher.

But then he hurt his back. And then he asked for white rice. Sophy said, "You've stayed off white rice all this time. Do you really want to go back?" Like so respectfully. But he said yes, just a couple of bowls until he felt better. Then he didn't get better and didn't get better, until he was not only eating white rice but drinking again too, and smoking weed. Which everyone smoked in Cambodia, or at least the men did, in fact Sophy's uncle used to grow it on his farm-pure stuff, not like the stuff Sarun used to bring home. Sophy's dad didn't smoke it in their old town because it was illegal in America and someone could report you, but here there was no one to report you anyway. So he was not only smoking it again now but making Sophy's mom put it in chicken soup, the way they used to in Cambodia.

"We should move somewhere else," he said sometimes, when he was high.

"But, like, where? Where can we move?" asked Sophy.

"What about Long Beach."

"Dad, there are, like, so many gangs in Long Beach."

"Cambodia," her dad said after that. His eyes were even more jittery than usual when he was high, and huge-like. "We should move back to Cambodia."

But how could they go back to Cambodia when all they had there was, like, an uncle who could get blown up by a land mine anytime? And what would the kids do? When they only half spoke Khmer if they spoke it at all, and couldn't read or write one word?

But that's how he would talk, and all Sophy could do was be really gentle and polite, hoping he would stop. And sometimes that worked, sometimes he stopped if she talked sweet enough, or if she prayed.

The praying was a new thing she knew her mom and dad wouldn't like. Because she wasn't praying to the Buddha, and she knew what they would say. They would say she was forgetting her culture. Never mind that she was half Chinese, actually, they would say to be Cambodian was to be Buddhist, and that, like, would be that. But the blue car was coming to their house all the time, and her mom would never get in it, and so sometimes Sophy did, because wasn't it rude to keep saying no to the driver when she was so nice? Sophy knew how the driver might feel because her mom was ting moung with everyone sometimes, even Gift. And hadn't the church been really nice to them too? Of course, it turned out later that this church was actually different from the other one, but Sophy didn't realize that in the beginning, like she thought they had to be the same because why else would the car be coming? And she really liked the driver, Lynn, who was short and, like, couldn't talk for some reason-like she could understand and she could write, but she couldn't talk, it was almost like she was from Cambodia or something. And she never looked offended when they said no, they weren't going anywhere, she always just shrugged and held up this piece of paper that said NO PROBLEM, and winked. She was so nice that one day when Sophy's mom was out housecleaning and Sophy was alone watching Gift, she decided to try going. Why not? She asked Lynn to wait a minute while she ran out to ask her dad if it was okay. And he was, like, drunk, and he and Sarun were digging, and the way she asked, so quiet-like, she wasn't sure he even heard her, exactly, or gave his permission. He just kind of moved his head then went on digging while she, quick, asked Lynn to wait just another minute while she put Gift's diapers and stuff into a grocery bag. And then they got in. The blue car had a ca.r.s.eat for Gift that you wouldn't think he'd like but that he actually loved because everything was so interesting, even she thought it was interesting. Not that the drive was so different from the drive to the grocery store, but somehow she was just more noticing. Like Sophy didn't see one other trailer with crates for stairs like her family had, she thought they should really get rid of theirs. And she saw that a lot of other people had whirly things or flags or little decks with planters on the railings, and of course that some people even had, like, real houses. Sophy didn't like the ones that were falling down with sinking porches and peeling paint, but some were neat. Like the car stopped at this blinking red light, and right there on the corner she saw this little white house with blue shutters and a flag with a flower on it hanging over the door, and a little walkway between two little squares of lawn. And the more she looked at it, the more her eyes filled up with tears, it kind of reminded her of the heart house. She even tried to show it to Gift, but he was too busy playing with his feet to care.

The church center was two towns over, and in a white house too, only bigger and older, and with a giant cross that took up pretty much a whole wall. The entrance had a half-moon window, and a big curving staircase with a little door under it, and a lot of old wood paneling, but there was also a new wall of hooks and cubbies for the kids' stuff. A short lady with frizzy hair welcomed them right as they walked in and asked, "First time?" And when Sophy said yes, she said, "Wonderful!" as if Sophy had just said the best thing ever. Then she showed Sophy where to put her stuff, and the funny thing was that she seemed just the right height person to be doing that. Like she was the perfect height for the hooks and cubbies, and hardly had to bend down to show them. And the other funny thing was that Gift got it right away that this was a place for him. Like he looked at all the shoes lined up in the other cubbies, and when Sophy took his shoes off and put them in his cubby, he crawled over and patted them. They were the only ones who brought their stuff in a grocery bag, but the lady didn't seem to care, and Sophy at least put the bag in the cubby neatly, so it wouldn't mess up the whole thing.

In their old town there were all these youth centers where you could hang out and get free food, but it never occurred to anybody to see if there was a center where you could bring babies, since between Sophy and her sisters and their dad, there was always somebody who could watch Gift while their mom worked. But now that Gift could crawl so fast and was pulling himself up and cruising, this was so great. Like they had this play s.p.a.ce in the bas.e.m.e.nt with carpet, and there were blocks and b.a.l.l.s, and a little picnic table with paper and markers, and even, like, a little playhouse with a little play kitchen. And a corner that was all trucks! Gift practically jumped out of Sophy's arms when he saw the trucks, and when Sophy had to change his diaper, she could only get him to lie down by letting him play with a truck at the same time.

There were other babies there too, and other people taking care of them, which was the part Sophy liked. Like it was great when the short lady introduced her to brown-haired Renee, and black-haired Simone, and blond-haired Kate, who were, like, from all over! Like Renee was from Detroit, and Simone was from Vietnam, and Kate was from a farm pretty close by, but they all helped take care of a baby, like Sophy. Or babies, in Kate's case. She had twins to watch after! Which was why she came as often as she could. Because how could she even let them out of the house back at the farm, when one could go one way and the other another and there was, like, dangerous equipment and pitchforks and fertilizer everywhere? Simone had two kids to watch too, but hers were one older and one younger, and that was easier in some ways, but harder in others. Like the older one was old enough to know she should not just run off, but the younger one would pull the older one's hair, and then the older one would get really mad. So Simone had to kind of keep them apart, which wasn't so easy at home because they lived in a trailer, like Sophy's family. And so she came as often as she could too. Lucky Renee was like Sophy, with just one kid to take care of, she said she hadn't even realized before coming that she was so lucky, and that was how Sophy felt too, like she hadn't even realized. "We are so blessed," Renee said, cooing at Gift and trying to teach him to give a high-five, and when she said that, Sophy felt like she knew just what Renee meant. We are so blessed.

None of them could believe Sophy had never been to a Bible study cla.s.s before, or that she hadn't even realized that that was where she was going, really. But they were excited she was going to be in their group! They got her a pamphlet about their church that said "Where friends become family" on it, and they got her a Bible to keep too, and made her put her name in it. Then they showed her how it had two halves, the Old Testament and the New, and explained how even though the pages looked really thin, they didn't tear as easy as you'd think. Cla.s.s didn't start for another half hour, so they just hung out for a while, and that was fun, because the three of them were already, like, a team and did what Kate called zone defense. That meant that you didn't follow your kid around, but just kept an eye on any kid that was near you. Like you tried to notice if someone had a smelly diaper or was acting funny-like if they were taking a nap under the picnic table or something, the way one of Kate's twins was one day. That turned out to be a virus, but there were all these other things it could have been, Renee said, like a staph infection, or meningitis, stuff Sophy had never even heard of. And that alone was probably a reason to come back to the center, to find out about viruses, and how it was bad to put soda in Gift's bottle. Like Renee said that right away, that juice was one thing but soda was bad, and that Gift shouldn't be eating so much candy either. And Simone said that if he was a boy he should probably wear boys' clothes, and not just any clothes because that was confusing for Americans. And Sophy figured that Simone could probably say that about what was confusing for Americans because she was Vietnamese and had been through it herself. Of course, Sophy wasn't going to go telling her parents she'd learned anything from a Vietnamese! Though now that she was talking to Simone, she could see that every Vietnamese was different, the same as Cambodians. Like wasn't Sophy different from her mother and father and brothers and sisters even though they were a family? She was, she was different.

And it was a good thing she liked Simone, because people put them together right away. Like when the short lady came down, she said, "I see you've found Simone"-because somehow Sophy was meeting Kate and Renee, but was finding Simone. And they really did have a lot in common, because they both had black hair and so on, but Simone was actually a lot older than everyone else. Like she was nineteen. She looked sort of like Sophy and Kate and Renee, but they were all fifteen or sixteen, and Simone was hipper, that was the other thing. She did her nails, and her hair was feathered, and she carried these cool silk bags in beautiful colors that her aunt sent her from Vietnam, Sophy could never look at those bags without thinking what it would be like to have an aunt back home who sent you things, and to get little silk bags in the mail. Like that just seemed so great.

She was lost in that first cla.s.s, and a little worried whether the short lady could really watch Gift and all the other kids by herself even for just an hour, but she liked it. Like she liked the room, which was originally the dining room of the house, they even sat around the original dining room table, like a family. The leader was this woman named Ginny, who had blond hair and wore a chain with a cross draped over the collar of her turtleneck like a lot of the girls did. And everyone was really nice, but especially Ginny. Like she would always make sure Sophy was on the right page, and she would look at her special a lot, so that Sophy would know if she had any questions, she could just ask. Sophy didn't ask any, though, because the whole thing was, like, so surprising. Like she thought it surprising that someone who looked like Simone would hunch over a book like that, so studious. And that the cla.s.s would spend so much time talking about just, like, a couple of sentences-that was surprising too. And that they talked about all these people-like Paul and Peter and Jesus-like they knew them, even though they were all dead. Or at least she thought they were dead. Anyway, the time went by fast, because the story was interesting. Like they were talking about some king named David, who promised a cripple he was going to give him back all the land he had lost, and told him he'd be welcome at his table forever, only to have the cripple say, "What is thy servant, that thou shouldst look upon such a dead dog as I am?" And the group all agreed that that was probably how they would feel if someone said that to them. Like dead dogs, and like they just couldn't believe it.

"Except that you can believe it," said Ginny, looking at everyone with her green eyes. "You can. Believe it. You don't feel worthy, but you are. In G.o.d's eyes you are worthy."

After cla.s.s, the center had a singing group back in the bas.e.m.e.nt, where the kids played in the middle and their caretakers sang songs about lambs. It wasn't as interesting as the Bible study cla.s.s, and Sophy could hear what Sarun would have to say about that kind of song almost more than she could hear the song itself. Like she knew how he'd sing the words his own way and roll his eyes and say, They are, like, on something. And she felt funny because she didn't know the words, and Gift wouldn't stay in the middle the way he was supposed to either. But still they stayed the whole session because Lynn was expecting them to stay, and because the room was so much nicer than the trailer, and because of the doughnuts and the soda and the cookies. The cookies weren't as good as Hattie's, but they were good enough that Sophy started going twice a week after that, on Mondays and Thursdays. And she really looked forward to it, and found that even when she went home she could still see the center in her mind-like she could still see that arched window, with this little crystal ball that threw rainbows all over, and she could still see the neat little entrance area where people stashed their stuff. On rainy days all the kids' rain jackets would be hanging there, and that just amazed her, because some of the kids had such beautiful little jackets, with ladybugs and cats on them. She tried not to stare at them, the same way she tried not to stare at the special bags people had for their baby stuff. But after a cla.s.s where they talked about prayer and the part of the Bible where it says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss," she tried praying, not with evil, selfish motives, but with right purpose, the good purpose that Ginny talked about. And right the next day, the most amazing thing happened. Like Sophy came into the center and this lady just walked right up to her and said, "Would you like a jacket for your baby?" And even though Sophy said he's not my baby, the lady reached in her bag and said, "Please take this. I was about to give it to the church to give away." And it was this yellow jacket with a patch pocket like a b.u.mblebee, just the right size for Gift. Sophy was so amazed, she couldn't even say thank you. It was just, like, so wack! But the lady didn't seem to mind, she just smiled and left.

And then Sophy found out that her Bible study group leader was not just any Ginny, but Hattie's friend Ginny! Not that Sophy guessed, Ginny was the one who asked, quiet-like, "Aren't you Hattie's new neighbor?" And when Sophy said yes, Ginny said she had kind of thought so, and that she had been sending a car for her for some time, and had been filled with gladness when she heard that Sophy had finally started to use it.

"You sent the car?" said Sophy.

And Ginny said yes, and smiled, and said, "Of course, you didn't have to use it. But I knew you would someday."

And when Sophy asked how she knew, Ginny said she just knew. "Don't you ever have things you just know?" she asked. And when Sophy said she couldn't think of one, Ginny said that if Sophy ever did, she should write it down and tell her. And Sophy laughed and said okay, she would write it down. And Ginny said if it wasn't a Bible study day, she could still find her in church. "Do you know where the church is?" she asked. And when Sophy said, "In the living room?" Ginny laughed as if Sophy had said something funny. "Yes," she said. "It used to be down in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but we've grown so big, we had to put an addition onto the living room. Now it's right down the hall. Have you been there?" And when Sophy said no, because she thought it was for Sundays, Ginny said, "Well, I go there pretty much every day just to sit and pray. It's been the saving of me. So when you think of something you just know, you can come have a look there." And Sophy said, "Okay."

It's been the saving of me.

Sophy didn't go right away. Like she couldn't think of something she just knew. But then one day she went to take a look, and as soon as she walked in, she did know something. Like as soon as she walked in she knew she just wanted to sit there and look up at the windows so bad, and maybe Gift knew she wanted that too, because he was quiet for a change. So quiet, that she could actually sit down with him in her lap for a few minutes, and let him play with her b.u.t.tons and put his fingers in her mouth while she looked around. Probably if anyone had asked her before that whether she cared about rooms and whether they could change her being, she would have said no, especially since she had never even thought before about whether she had a being. But sitting there, she suddenly knew that she did, she had one, and that it was being changed. It was. The church wasn't fancy. But she loved the windows all around, and she loved the mural up front with, like, these purple-blue mountains dipping down to a bright bright river that wound around to a big glowing cross. She loved the airiness of the s.p.a.ce too, and she loved it that it wasn't crammed full of gold statues. Like she loved it that there wasn't incense burning and making her cough, and that it wasn't full of Cambodian women afraid of k'maoch either. It was different here. Like everyone at the temple in her old town was suffering so bad inside, but couldn't do anything but suffer and be good and wait for their next life, while here, people were being reborn, like, right away! In this life! They didn't have to build up their good karma little by little, never knowing if they'd built up enough. They could be saved today, all they had to do was accept that Christ had died for their sins. And that was it! In fact, there wasn't anything else a person could do, really-they couldn't save themselves, no matter what they did. Because that's what it said in Ephesians, that no amount of good deeds would help, that people are saved by faith, and faith alone. So that, like, the only thing that would work was accepting Christ's sacrifice and love. Which was hard for Sophy to really get, in the beginning. Like it almost seemed like cheating.

But that's why the Bible was called Good News! And it wasn't even in, like, one pa.s.sage in the Bible, it was in a million of them. How the Lord knew everything about you, like your downsitting and your uprising and all your thoughts and ways to begin with, and how He didn't look on outward appearances, but on the heart. So that you didn't have to undo anything bad you'd done, you just had to be truly sorry. Like King David had an affair with Bathsheba, and before he repented, all he could do was groan and lose weight. But once he repented, G.o.d forgave him just like that! Just like that, his transgression was removed as far as the east is from the west, and he wasn't the only one who started all over. Paul did too, and a lot of other people. They were all reborn in Christ, Ginny said, as they had to be, because new wine needs new bottles. Then she asked if people knew other people who had been born again, and they all did, except Sophy. And that was embarra.s.sing until she remembered that her dad had been reborn, in a way-not into a brand-new life, but into his brother's life-and that his first wife had sort of been reborn out of the mud, but then died. She didn't really expect them to care, but they listened like it was the most interesting thing they'd ever heard, and finally someone asked if she wanted to be reborn like them, or in a different way. And when she said in a different way, they cheered, and when Ginny said, "It says in John 3:3, 'Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of G.o.d,' " Sophy started crying. Because she did so want to be reborn. She wanted to be reborn into the right life, her real life. Her old life was just so wrong.

"I don't know why I was born," she said. "I am so ashamed. Sometimes I think I should kill myself."

She couldn't believe those words came out of her, but they did, and what happened next was, like, even more unbelievable. Because right then and there Ginny made everyone bow their head and pray for Sophy.

"She is crying out like Jonah, Lord, she is crying out of the belly of h.e.l.l!" said Ginny. "Hear her! Hear her!"

And they all held hands and prayed that G.o.d would hear her, and when Ginny asked Sophy if she felt the power of that, she said yes, because she had. It was like having her sisters back, she wasn't alone anymore.

A couple of weeks later, the church had this special camp meeting like they did every year. They got together with two other independent churches, and rented a campground, and organized all kinds of special things. Like they had activities and food, and were giving out devotional books for free. Sophy couldn't go for the whole time, but she came for some of it, and brought Gift, who loved the children's group. And she loved everything!-starting with how you crossed this little bridge over a stream to get to the campground, and how the first thing you heard was the ringing of a bell to call people to service. She loved the Ping-Pong tables and the dining room and the first-aid building, and she loved the smell of the barbecues and the pines. The pines were these big round trunks rising right up out of the ground, with nothing else growing around them-like the floor of the forest was all just clear and open and bouncy with pine needles. And the meeting hall was cool too, this big huge building, with enormous flap doors on three sides of it. The doors were propped open on poles, so that they made these covered entrances that made you feel like you were going inside, except that inside still felt like outside because there were so many doors, and what walls there were had these big windows. There was a pop-up in the middle of the roof too, with windows all around it, so that the light just poured in, and you could feel Jesus looking down. And everything was, like, old. Like the wood and the windows with their little panes were old, and the organ and piano up front on kind of this open stage were old too. There was a big plain cross just standing up there by itself, and a long long altar, kind of like an eternal bench, along the whole front of the hall. And there were these huge hangings with quotations from Galatians and Hebrews that looked like they had been there for even longer than the pine trees outside, and were going to be there until the end of the earth. Of course, there were some new things too, like a projection screen and a computer, and a tilted table with b.u.t.tons and lights for the sound system. But everything else was old, even the hymnbooks piled up at the end of the pews were old. It was cool.

Sophy loved it that there were all these strangers mixed up with people she knew, because somehow that made it even more special to see Kate and Simone and Renee, like they were old friends. Renee was having trouble with her knee, like don't you know it would be G.o.d's plan for her to tear her meniscus, she said, complaining-like. But Kate and Simone and Sophy helped her around and brought her drinks and carried her backpack, and that made her feel better. And Sophy loved that as much as Kate, probably, she loved being able to help a friend. The four of them sat together through the songs and announcements, and through some sermonizing Sophy didn't understand but didn't mind listening to because it was nice to be sitting there in this big open s.p.a.ce with the ceiling fans going, and because it was fun hearing other people sighing and saying Amen to things even if it wasn't their turn to talk, and because the preacher told a lot of funny stories about bad things he'd done, and what Jesus had said to him to straighten him out. The preacher wasn't from their church and didn't look like much, just a normal guy walking back and forth with brown hair and a mike in his hand like someone on TV. He had these big half-moons of sweat under his arms even though no one else was sweating, and that was weird, because it was warm out, but not really that hot, and that kind of made you want to laugh at him in a way. But no one did laugh at him, because they liked the stories, even though every one of them started with something like skipping Bible study because of the World Series, and every one of them led to "And Jesus said to me, Bill ..." They were all the same, but you really did get the feeling that Jesus talked right to him like that, and that maybe you could get Jesus to talk to you like that too. And that kept you interested, like his sermon, which started out pretty bleak with Job 18, but went on to talk about different kinds of hope and how hope was usually a good thing, but could be a bad thing if it made us blind, like if it blinded us to the difference between a trial and a chastis.e.m.e.nt, for example. Like if it meant we just started blindly hoping G.o.d was going to work everything out for us, and if as a result we failed to change when G.o.d was telling us to change. And he talked about how we should welcome chastis.e.m.e.nt, painful as it was, because it was G.o.d's message to us, and because it was a form of love.

"For as the Bible says in Hebrews 12:7, 'What son is he whom the father chastiseth not?' " he said. "The Lord only chastises those He sees as His children. The Lord only chastises those who are His chosen. But you know, the chastis.e.m.e.nt is lost unless we learn from it-unless we learn the lesson He is trying, in His great love, to teach us. The chastis.e.m.e.nt is lost unless we try to understand what we need to do to get right with G.o.d. And that is why I ask you now to look in your hearts, and to think whether G.o.d has chastised you in any way. I ask you to look in your hearts and ask if He's been trying to tell you something, if He's been trying to teach you. And if He has, I ask you to embrace that, and to turn to the Lord our G.o.d now-to embrace the only hope which is true hope, namely the hope in G.o.d. In Hebrews 12:1, Paul tells us, 'seeing ... we are compa.s.sed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight'-and so let us do that-let us now lay aside every weight. Compa.s.sed about with our own great cloud of witnesses, let us now accept the Lord's chastis.e.m.e.nt and lay our weight aside."

And then this music started and the preacher started calling people up to the altar in the front of the hall, and for a moment n.o.body went. And that was embarra.s.sing because who would, like, just walk up there in front of everybody? But first a few people started going up, and then a lot of people, and pretty soon it seemed just, like, normal for Sophy to help Renee get up there, and then to stay herself, even though she'd never done it before. Because there were all kinds of people up there, men and women, young and old, a lot of them with their heads buried in their hands, and the preacher wasn't telling funny stories anymore.

"Are you carrying a weight just like Paul was talking about?" he was saying, his voice all, like, big and rolling and coming from all around you. "Are you carrying a weight you would like to set down? Can you feel it there on your shoulders, if you reach back can you feel it in the muscles of your neck, do you just know it's there, all the time, something you're so used to you don't even think about it as a weight, something you might even forget about during the day, but that rises up to torment you the minute the busyness lets up? It's something that haunts you, something you can't escape. You turn a corner, and there it is, and you turn another corner, and there it is again. Your torment. Your chastis.e.m.e.nt. It's something you've tried to hide, something you've tried to deny, but that weighs you down and weighs you down, that causes you more pain than you think you can bear but that is just the Lord preparing you, really-preparing you for this moment, now, in this tent-helping you understand that this is what He wants from you, to come up here and lay your burden down. He wants you to lay it down so that you can feel hope again, the only true hope, which is hope in Jesus Christ. He wants you to lay it down so you can get right with the Lord. It's what He wants, it's what He's trying to get you to do. So if you feel Jesus is speaking to you now, if you feel called to the altar, come up. Let the Lord enter you, come up. Come up."

Sophy didn't even realize until she got to the altar with Renee that she'd been carrying a weight around. And the first minute she was kneeling down, she didn't realize it either. But once she kneeled a little longer, she suddenly realized that the preacher was talking to her special, inviting her special because he knew, he knew. "You've sinned," he said. "And it weighs on you, doesn't it. The knowledge. It weighs you down and sets you apart from others," he said-and when he said that, she suddenly remembered what she did with Ronnie, and how she'd gotten pregnant, and how terrible that was, and how she didn't have one person in the world she could tell, not even her sisters because she was so bad and it was so terrible. So that pretty soon she was crying like everyone else, remembering and crying, and just so glad when Ginny suddenly showed up and knelt down beside her, and put her hand on her back, and asked if she could pray alongside her. Because that was the first time she told anyone how her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had hurt so bad and how she had thrown up and thrown up, and how it was like she was possessed by the devil, how it was like the devil had entered her body, so that it wasn't even hers anymore, it was the devil's. She told Ginny how she got to be so tired she couldn't keep her eyes open in school. And she told Ginny how on her second day in the foster home she woke up in a circle of blood-how everywhere there was just blood and blood and blood, and how she hoped it wasn't going to, like, stain the sheets and how she was trying to figure out what to do except that she was cramping and cramping so she couldn't think and couldn't stand up, and how she wanted to call for help but didn't want to call Wayne or Jane or Big Erica who she barely knew, and so how she just struggled to the bathroom alone and was just lucky it was empty, because it wasn't always. And she told Ginny how she sat on the toilet then, while people came and knocked on the door and yelled but thank G.o.d went away to the other bathroom so she could at least sit there sweating and cramping by herself while these, like, huge b.l.o.o.d.y clumps came out of her, they were so big they kind of slid down to the bottom of the toilet bowl and piled up, she just hoped she didn't see a baby down there. Which she definitely could, because it had been in her for, like, three months, she thought, or maybe longer, every day she had been trying to figure out how to get rid of it but didn't know how, she just wished she would die. Like she wished her sisters or her parents or Ronnie or someone would come in and find her all by herself and dead, but not, like, with her pants down and her underwear dirty, and the linoleum floor all a mess. It was a long time. But after a while she finally got herself into the bathtub, and turned on the hot water, and closed her eyes so she couldn't see the water all, like, red all around her, and her bloated body floating in the middle of it like one of the dead people in the water after the t.i.tanic sank. Even now it makes her want to kill herself to think about sometimes, though sometimes it makes her take extra good care of Gift too.

In a way she still can't believe she told Ginny.

But Ginny just nodded and nodded and listened and nodded and said that life was sacred, and that she, Sophy, was G.o.d's child, and was born to reflect His glory, but that people have sinful natures. All around them people were crying, but Ginny wasn't crying. "Romans 3:23," she said in this gentle voice. " 'For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of G.o.d.' The Bible doesn't say some have sinned. It says all. All have sinned. You're not alone, child. You're not alone. And you're right to be upset. 'For to be carnally minded is death'-that's what it says in Romans. To be spiritually minded is life and peace, but to be carnally minded is death. As you know. Because you've felt it, haven't you-that it was death. How lucky you didn't have to have that baby cut out-you could have gotten so lost that you had it cut out. But the Lord spared you that, didn't He. He said, Sophy, you have sinned, but I am going to have mercy on you. And He did. He chastised you in the most helpful way-bringing you here to us, to your salvation. So that it was an act of love! An act of love! We have to give thanks for that." And Ginny hugged her and handed Sophy tissues from one of the boxes along the altar while Sophy said how she hadn't thought of that. She hadn't thought of how things could've been even worse, though she was still sorry she had ever slept with Ronnie. Because that was so wrong, she said. And she was glad she got punished, she really was, and sometimes when she looked at other girls now and saw how they were dressed, like, in the summer especially, she just knew where they were headed, she said. And she wanted to tell them, but knew that they'd just laugh and so she hated them, she said. She did. She hated them. Then she cried and cried and cried some more. She cried so much that she was afraid when she stopped, she might not be able to see anymore, like her mom in the refugee camp. She was afraid when she stopped, her eyes might not work. But when finally she did open her eyes, she saw the most beautiful thing instead. It was this bird flying across the meeting hall, this white bird. Taking off from a support pole and flying right away. "Did you see that bird?" she asked, though she was almost afraid to ask. Like she thought Ginny was going to roll her eyes the way her sisters and her had rolled their eyes back when their dad told them that story about the white flower opening beside his parents' grave. But Ginny didn't roll her eyes. Instead Ginny looked at her hard and said, "Maybe it wasn't just a bird. Maybe it was a dove." And when Sophy suddenly remembered, Renee!-how was Renee going to get back from the altar?-it turned out that someone else had already helped her. "Don't worry," Ginny said. "You are walking with G.o.d now. G.o.d is showing you the way." Then she said, real quiet-like, "Isaiah 54:4: 'Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded, for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth....' And not only will you forget; in His great mercy, G.o.d will forget, too. G.o.d will forget, too. Do you know what He told Jeremiah? He told Jeremiah that there would be a new covenant with the people of Israel, and that He would 'remember their sin no more.' And the way He forgot their sins, He'll forget yours, too, child. He'll forget yours, too." Sophy thought it was funny how Ginny repeated herself, and how she called Sophy "child." Like no one had ever called Sophy "child" before. But she didn't mind. The strangeness was, like, so strange it wasn't strange. And when Ginny asked her, "Do you accept Christ's sacrifice for you?" she said yes. And when Ginny asked, "Do you call upon the name of the Lord?" she said yes. And the next day Ginny brought Sophy this real silver cross on a chain, and said it was hers for keeps. And Sophy said she would wear it always, and never take it off.

Change my heart O G.o.d; make it ever true.

Change my heart O G.o.d; may it be like you.

When back in her old town, Sophy's probation officer used to say, "Think how bright your future could be," Sophy never knew what he was talking about. Like it was just another thing he liked to say besides "You have a choice" and "You make your own fate." Because, like, what was a "bright future," anyway? She always wanted to ask him that. But now that she was leaving the desert of her past, now that she was headed for the Promised Land, she felt like she finally understood the words. Her future was going to be bright.

But first G.o.d must have wanted her to cry, because she cried at just about every Bible study group meeting, for weeks. And that was okay because there was always someone there with a tissue for her, and a hug. So that more and more, she found that she could not wait to get back to the Bible study group. More and more, she found that as soon as they opened their Bibles, she felt this peace come into her. And more and more, she found that the words sank in deeper, and that the lessons seemed harder and wiser. Like when they read that pa.s.sage about how G.o.d gave the Israelites manna in the desert, and told them not to save it, only to have some of them try anyway, so that it bred worms and stank, Ginny talked about how hard it was to put your whole faith in G.o.d, and that was so true! It was hard not to try to take care of things yourself. Like could you really just let the Lord sit on the throne of your life? Could you really just leave it all to Him, just like that? Sophy found that a lot to think about. And the time they talked about Paul, and how he failed to practice the good deeds he desired to do, and instead did the evil deeds he did not desire to do, that was a lot to think about too-like how we could be strangers to ourselves like that, even enemies. Like that was so true and so sad.

And it was sad too, when they talked about what it meant to belong to the family of G.o.d, and how that could be at odds with your family of origin, because it was like the Bible knew her whole life then. It was like G.o.d knew how hard it was going to be for Sophy to choose Him first, like He knew how hard it was going to be for her to think about leaving her family even if it was so she could be adopted into a better family. It was as if He knew that she was going to be an enemy to herself in this way. "In Ephesians 1:5, the Bible says, He 'predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,' " Ginny said. "Do we all understand what it means that He predestinated us? It means He foresaw our struggle. He did. He foresaw it. But He foresaw, too, that we would give ourselves to our new family." She looked at Sophy then with her green eyes, and they were, like, a special effect-like they had this special power. "He had that faith," Ginny went on, and it was as if she knew that Jesus Christ had faith in even Sophy. She knew.

He had that faith.

Sophy couldn't always come to services on Sunday, but that week she did, and as soon as she sat down she could see that G.o.d meant for her to be there, because Pastor Blake was talking about her, and her struggle. "Think about what Jesus tells the apostles in Luke 18," he said. "In Luke 18:2930, He says, 'Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of G.o.d's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.' There is no man who shall not receive manifold more. There is no man who shall not receive life everlasting. It's a great deal, isn't it? It's the deal of a lifetime, a deal you wouldn't want to pa.s.s up, a deal you couldn't pa.s.s up. Eternal life! Eternal happiness! Naturally you want to take G.o.d up on this special offer. And yet maybe your family of origin is against it. Maybe they're threatened by the idea that you're about to win the lottery. Maybe it makes them feel their own poverty. Or maybe they're Christians themselves, and are mostly happy for you, except for a particular family member who cannot welcome the Good News. Not that he or she is a bad person. They're not. They're good people, who love you. But they're like people who just have to have their coffee in the morning. You know how some people just have to have their coffee in the morning? Because they've been having coffee in the morning their whole lives, and just can't imagine starting their day with tea? They can't change, can they? Of course, if they really wanted to, they could. And maybe there are good reasons why they should. But no matter how good the reasons are, they are going to resist, aren't they? They are going to insist on their coffee, and that you have coffee too. You can tell them, Well, tea has antioxidants. You can tell them, Tea has less caffeine. You can offer them tea every day, just in case they'd like to try it. But in the meanwhile, you've got to drink what's right for you. You can't drink coffee because they can't handle change, even if that's a challenge. Matthew 18:17 tells us that if a brother refuses to listen to the Word, you should tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen to the church, you should 'let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.' In other words, a pagan and a tax collector. You should make him as welcome as a pagan and a tax collector. But it isn't so easy, is it? It isn't easy, and yet we need to understand that this is exactly what Jesus Christ our Savior asks of us. Isaiah 30:13 tells us how important it is to keep a wall around our belief. It tells us how the devil goes looking for weak spots, and how fast the wall can fall, and how important it is to know where the broken-down spots are. And so often we find that it is just one or two people that make up our gap, don't we? It's not everyone. It's just one or two people. And so often we find that if we think about it for a moment, we know who those one or two people are. So let's take a moment today, and look in our hearts, and maybe we can share the names of our greatest challenge with others later, so we can begin to think how to deal with them. So we can begin to think how to close up our gaps and take advantage of the Lord's good deal. Because we wouldn't miss out on the deal of our lives, would we? We wouldn't want to miss out."

And the next Bible study cla.s.s, that's what they did. They went around the table, naming their persons of challenge. And when they got to Sophy, she surprised herself with her answer.

"Sarun," she said. "My brother Sarun."

Because when she thought about telling her family the Good News, when she thought about telling them about the love and peace she'd found in the Lord, Sarun's voice was the voice she heard the loudest. Like she could hear her mom and dad, but she'd been telling them her whole life about how she didn't know if she really believed in kam and k'maoch anyway. And her sisters were just, like, whatever. Sarun was something else.

"Can you hear him?" asked Ginny. "Can you hear his voice if you try?"

And sure enough Sophy could, easy. It was easy to hear him laughing and laughing.

"Let's see if you can hear what he would say," said Ginny. "What would he say when he was done laughing?"

"You got to be s.h.i.tting me," he said. "You been listening to that superst.i.tious bulls.h.i.t? That gang be shooting up something serious. That gang be ripping you off."

But what? What were they trying to rip off?

"They're the Khmer Rouge all over again," he said. "They want to control you. Control your mind." He tapped his head. "You know those remote control cars, you push the stick left and the thing goes left? You push the stick right, and the thing goes right?"

"Has he ever even been in a church?" asked Ginny. "Ask him. Has he ever been in a church and really listened, with an open heart?"

"Have you ever even been in a church and really listened, with an open heart?"

"No, and I'm not going to listen to none of that s.h.i.t."

"Because you'd rather hang out with your friends and break into video parlors and steal the computer chips out of the machines," Sophy said. "You'd rather steal them and fence them so you can buy cars to crack up."

"That's right, man. You got it." He laughed. "I've already got an old man who wants to tell me what to do f.u.c.king twenty-four hours a day. I don't need two."

"That is so sad," said Ginny, and the look on her face was truly mournful and sorry-like her eyes were far away, and her mouth was soft, and she held her cross in her hand like it was someone's heart. "I'm sure it hurts you to know how he thinks. To hear how angry he is. How bitter. How he can't let go of his bitterness and how he doesn't want you to, either. How he doesn't want you to move on. Because you love him, don't you?"

"I do."

"Matthew 18:9 says, 'If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.' But that's not so easy with someone you love, is it."

"No," Sophy said. "It isn't."

"It isn't so easy to let him be unto you as a pagan and a tax collector, like Pastor Blake said Sunday."

"No." Sophy bent her head then, and probably would have cried, except that Ginny looked at her with such kindness.

"Just know we're here to help," she said.

Reading the Bible by herself was hard and weird. Like Sophy wasn't much of a reader to begin with, and it sounded so strange, with all the thous and shalts and saiths and begats. She didn't like the cover of the Bible either, with, like, that goth writing. And she didn't like those thin pages, and that tiny print with no pictures. The only thing she did like was the material of the cover, and the way you could kind of bend it in your hand. Like it was so soft, and nice to hold. And she liked the gilt at the edges of the pages, and how it made the edges of the pages soft too, and she liked the way the bookmark hung back behind the book when you were reading-how it was right there to mark your place when you stopped, it was almost like it knew you were going to need it, like it knew you, and was sort of waiting for you. It was, like, the exact opposite of the words, which she could never have read without the Bible study group. But now she read the way they read in cla.s.s, just a little at a time, like it was this million-piece puzzle you worked on bit by bit, or like she was learning a secret code. She marked her Bible up the way other people did, too, with, like, this special highlighter that didn't go through the page. And she prayed all day, the way Ginny said she should, practicing her faith, and increasing her belief. Because she did have doubts, she couldn't help it. Like did she really believe Mark when he said that if you tell a mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea," it would move? She didn't think that would work, she really didn't. Even if you said that without doubt in your heart, she didn't think it would work. But she thought she might conquer her doubt one day if she tried, and in the meanwhile she thought she should not pray instead of reading, but should, like, both pray and read. Because Ginny said that prayer was like a house she was building, but that the Bible was the rock she was building her house on. So she wrote on a piece of paper, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," and put that in the beginning of the book, to help her get started on days when it was hard. And that helped, she thought, it really did.

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

It did.

Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again.

There's a strange van in town-a white van, with more panels than windows. It's the kind of under-detailed vehicle that puts Hattie in mind of fetal pigs-that looks as if it got pulled off the line before it reached full van-dom. A thing designed for equipment, really, not pa.s.sengers. And what a strange way of driving it has, going up and down the road the way it does. Hattie can't help but notice as she crosses the room to wash out her brush: up and down, up and down, until finally it stops at the top of the Chhungs' driveway. Sarun lopes up the hill as the kid in the pa.s.senger seat jumps out to open the tailgate. Maybe four or five kids in there? All black-hairs, and presumably Cambodian, though who knows. Gangs, Hattie knows, can be pan-Asian, mixed-race, anything; even thuggery's multicultural these days. Sarun climbs in; the back doors close; the door-closer hops back into the pa.s.senger seat up front. The van speeds off with a roar. Hattie sits down with a frown.

Did anyone get out?" Sophy asks later. She's brought an old tennis ball for Annie, and is playing fetch in the house-something Hattie would not normally encourage. But how amazed Sophy is to find that dogs will chase things! And what an interesting way of throwing she has-her hand springing open as if she's setting a bird free. She opens her mouth, too, the way Gift would, as if that will help somehow.

"More wrist," says Hattie, gently.

Sophy adds more wrist. Still, Cato and Reveille barely look up. Only Annie, foolish Annie, scrambles madly after every ball, dribbling or not, her back paws slipping out from under her.

"Did anyone get out?" Sophy asks again.

"No," says Hattie. "No one got out. That is, except to let Sarun in." She thumbs through their textbook, undoing some dog-ears. She irons out the creases with her thumbnail.

"Sarun got in?"

"He did."

Annie catches a ball on the fly, leaping up gracefully into the air, but Sophy doesn't notice. Neither does she see how though Annie lands ker-plop on her hip, the ball's still in her mouth; her tail's going wild.

"His friends from the city?" asks Hattie.

Sophy nods, trying to wrest the ball out from between Annie's teeth. "We were doing so good," she says. And though as she speaks, Sophy does manage to pry open Annie's mouth, reclaim the ball, bop Annie on the nose with it, and send it back across the room, the bounce is entirely in the ball. Her voice has none.

"You're still doing good," says Hattie. "Your family's going to be okay."

But Sophy's forehead crumples anyway-despite the dogs, despite Annie, despite the soft light and soft air that they seem to pull in around them. Such happy animal innocence! And should not innocence touch innocence?

Sadness, though, will stake itself off. "You don't understand."

"He said he would quit that gang," says Hattie.

Sophy nods.

"Your father's going to be upset."

Sophy nods.

"And just when you were starting over." Starting over being the town pastime, it does seem.