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fingers, which felt strangely numb and, despite the moist air, dry like chalk. He studied them as if what he saw might bring an explanation, might bring order to a universe gone mad.
He remembered the timid young girl in her pink and yellow dresses, the diminutive sister, always his little shadow. She was as short and skinny as he was tall and stocky, as though they couldn’t have come from the same genes. But one look at the face and everyone knew they did.
He remembered after they moved from Chicago to Portland, how he drove her to that party at Jefferson High when she was a freshman. How she peeked inside the doorway on her tiptoes to be sure there was someone she knew. How she looked back at him and said she’d decided not to go in. And how he made her go in because he knew that’s what she wanted. She’d thanked him later. She’d been such a little mouse back then. And he had been her lion, her protector.
He relived the moments on that old Mississippi road where those white boys had thrown the broken beer bottles at him and Dani. He’d wrapped his arms around her to protect her, but it was an instant too late. One of them hit her and cut open her throat. He remembered her blood flowing out on his hands. Every time he’d seen that scar since, every time he’d looked at her, he’d wished he could get his hands on the ones who hurt her.
Suddenly a loud tortured voice erupted from within. “I’m sorry, Sis. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

The early September day, unusually hot and humid, felt more like Jackson, Mississippi than Portland, Oregon. The white-hot sun focused down relentlessly, as if some cosmic naughty boy held a giant magnifying glass to torment the dumb creatures below. The anticipation of relief that came with the previous week’s milder weather turned out to be still another broken promise.
Clarence stepped into air-conditioned Emanuel Hospital, feeling physical relief but mental torment. He made his way to ICU. After an interminable wait, they finally let him in to see Felicia. He bent over the tiny girl, casting a shadow on her as he eclipsed the overhead light. He looked at her pint-size body, lying there defenselessly. Intrusive tubes ran into her. A white skullcap covered her head where surgery had been performed. She held to life by the slimmest thread.
Why did this happen? How can people hurt children like this? Why do you let them? Let her live. You have to let her live.
Clarence bargained with God repeatedly, as he had the last four days. He cited his books on God’s promises of health and healing. He grabbed a Bible from the hospital chapel and turned from passage to passage, claiming every promise he liked and skipping over those he didn’t.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
He recited the passages as if they were mantras, as if every repetition might be the one to finally convince himself and God of what the Almighty must do. Clarence pushed aside every thought of the worst. He asked everyone he knew to pray. He claimed God’s healing for Felicia.
“I’ll let you have Dani as long as you let Felicia live. Don’t let her die.” He tried to cut a deal with God, speaking out loud, as if the one he addressed had turned hard of hearing and needed to be roused from slumber by a louder, more insistent voice.
The nurse came in, intending to tell him he should leave. She could see his eyes, smoldering coals ready to burst into flames. This man frightened her. She stepped forward, bracing herself, then whispered to him, “It’s time to go.”
He left the room feeling defeated, having no more power over life and death than did the little girl on the bed.
Geneva greeted Clarence with a hug in the intensive care waiting room. She held onto