Daniel sat on his bed, Bible on his lap, reading the Song of Solomon.
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
As a young man, he had set Julia as a seal upon his heart, and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do to break that seal. Had he not tried to drown his love in holy water? Had his heart not scorned all the spiritual wealth the Church had offered in exchange?
No matter what he did, the flame still raged. Daniel had to admit that he knew it always would.
On the phone with her, he’d sounded like a jackass, barely able to speak. It was all he could do not to blurt out his feelings, not to tell her how much he’d missed her all these years, how much he missed her still. He knew hearing her voice again would hurt, but there was too much at stake.
Despite the pain, he was glad he’d called.
He flipped the pages back, took another stab at the Book of Job, with the usual results.
Twenty years since the priests took him in, and he still wasn’t much good at accepting God’s many mysteries. Maybe Nick was right after all. Maybe by calling Julia, Daniel was attempting to subvert the will of God. But even with his mind full of Job, he didn’t feel wrong about it. If it was wrong, he would be judged for it when his time came. And he could live with that.
Because, in the meantime, he might’ve just saved some lives.
Andrew Thibodeaux sat in front of the television, flipping channels. Flipping past no-money-down real estate wealth-building systems and magic kitchen appliances, revolutionary exercise equipment and spray-on hair. Sat in front of the television, eating spicy pork cracklings by the handful and drinking Diet Dr Pepper and wondering how his life had come to this. Almost a year since his wife ran out on him with that asshole cop from Gretna, and a week didn’t pass he didn’t vow to forget all about her and move on.
He’d promised himself that he would make big changes in his life, go back and get his GED, enroll at community college. Maybe even become a policeman himself. He was still young enough, and he knew he was plenty smart.
He’d promised himself that he would knock off the junk food, start working out, get back in shape. All it took was a little willpower.
He’d promised himself a lot of things over the last twelve months. But he just kept on going to work, coming home, eating crap, and staring at the television. He hadn’t even taken their wedding photo off the wall.
He didn’t think he was still grieving over the dead marriage. At least, he didn’t
God, he was tired.
He remembered something from high school science, before he dropped out.
All his life he’d felt that God had bigger plans for him, that his life would someday amount to something. He’d prayed for guidance, but the Lord had not yet seen fit to answer him. When his wife took off, he thought it might be a sign. But if it was a sign, it was one he couldn’t read. It didn’t point him anywhere.
He pressed the remote control’s little button again, but the channel didn’t change. He reached over, pulled a fresh pack of batteries from the end table’s drawer, and loaded them into the remote.
It still didn’t work.
On the television screen, Reverend Tim Trinity was talking directly to the camera. It seemed he was talking directly to Andrew.
Reverend Tim said God wanted to work miracles in Andrew’s life.
Maybe the broken remote wasn’t an accident. They say God’s signs are everywhere but we’re usually too busy to notice them. Maybe the remote control stopped working on exactly this channel for a reason. Maybe this was one of God’s signs.
Maybe Reverend Tim had a message for him.
Andrew put the chair into full recline and settled in to listen.
God, he was tired.
The alarm clock woke him two hours later. The television was off, although he could not remember shutting it off. He put the chair upright, stood, and worked the kinks out of his neck, walked to the bedroom and shut off the alarm. He climbed into his work clothes, brushed his teeth, and made a couple of peanut butter sandwiches. He wrapped the sandwiches in tinfoil and put them in his lunchbox, along with couple cans of Dr Pepper and a fresh pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco.
He grabbed his hardhat and headed to the refinery.
Andrew punched in early and went to the refinery’s cafeteria for a coffee before his shift. He took his paper cup to a long table, where the foreman was just winding up a story that had the guys in stitches.
“…so if I fall asleep on the job today, y’all can blame my mama,” said the foreman.
“Coming in late, that sounds really bad,” said Andrew.
The foreman laughed. “Get your mind outta the gutter, Andy. I was just telling the boys ’bout my late night telephone adventures. First, Mama calls in a tizzy, sayin’ there’s some emergency, and she gave my number to our old preacher. Then the preacher calls, goin’ on about how he’s had some kinda vision, and we gotta shut down the refinery. Guy sounded totally sauced too.”
“Your preacher’s a drunk?”
“Hasn’t been our preacher for a long time. Moved away after Katrina, now he’s a big shot in Hotlanta, but Mama used to drag me to his church in the city. Tim Trinity.”
The paper coffee cup stopped halfway to Andrew’s mouth. “Reverend Tim?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
