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raised up, Marian felt the presence of her late grandmother so forcefully that she heard herself say, “I’m sorry. I know you hate that kind of language.”
    But of course no one was there, and she felt a little silly. All that time working alone calmed her but also made her more and more reflective.
    Jack brought Marian flowers every day. He surprised her with gifts of jewelry. When he was away on business, he sent long e-mails and tender letters. Other women compared their husbands to him and always found them lacking.
    At night when Jack fell asleep, Marian would think back over her day. She would count the blessings of her wonderful life, and she would pray. But as she was thanking God and feeling so blessed, a memory of the pain she had caused her ex-husband often pushed its way into the dark room and settled on her like an ache. Her prayer would shift then, and she would ask, “God, how can such a wonderful life have come from so much suffering? Help me understand.”
    Marian wasn’t nearly as Catholic as she’d once been. “When we were growing up there was a priest at the end of our dinner table every Sunday,” she remembered. “My father was determined we’d all go to heaven whether it killed us or not.”
    When her parents divorced, her dad stopped believing in the God of the Catholic Church, and her mother started believing in all sorts of gods. She moved the kids to Flint, Michigan, and joined the hippie revolution. Marian had dabbled in lots of kinds of faith, but now it was those old Catholic ideas that seemed to be reasserting themselves.
    â€œHelp me understand,” she begged God every night.
    And he did.
    Three years later, she laughed as she told me about her first day in Lily Dale. She had been so innocent, so egotistical, and so wrong. The surgeon wasn’t being cryptic at all. She meant exactly what she said. Marian’s prayers set her on the path toward the truth about her husband and about herself. She was going to lose it all. Everything she had.

5
    B efore coming to Lily Dale, I had consulted only two mediums. The first was a middle-aged housewife in Texas who told me that a man with animals on his wall would soon become important in my life. I was single then and took the message to mean love was on the way. I did meet a man with animals on his wall, an ornithologist with the natural history museum. He was married and did not become important in my life.
    The second medium was a teenage cheerleader prophetess who was visiting churches around Dallas giving messages. I interviewed her over the phone, and she told me she saw a blond little boy close to me. She also said I’d soon receive lots of money and acclaim and buy a black Mercedes. None of that was true. But she did mention that I was having trouble sleeping, which was true. She said God was trying to talk with me, and I was too busy during the day to listen. So he was waking me up. That night when I awoke at 2:00 A.M . I remembered her words.
    â€œGod, are you trying to talk with me?” I asked.
    I was answered by a silence of such dark depth that my mind went utterly blank before it, and I fell asleep immediately.
    Despite my lack of success with mediums, I decided to do my own test of Lily Dale’s powers and made an appointment for areading with Gretchen Clark Lazarony, a fifth-generation resident of Lily Dale. She is one of four sisters referred to in Lily Dale as the “Clark girls,” after their maiden name. Three are mediums, and all look younger than their years. Three are blondes, and they all have pale, beautiful skin. Thirty years ago, Gretchen was one of Lily Dale’s youngest mediums. Now middle-aged, she’s still one of the most respected.
    Her family spent summers at Lily Dale when she was a child. Her parents were not mediums, but they were believers. “When I would tell my mother there was a lady in the corner, she would say, ‘What’s