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“And how is Chaofan?” Invariably I go blank for a moment and then simply say, “He’s fine.” So far, I have never met the right man. So I am indifferent, too lazy to let people know that I have corrected my errors, lest during long and sleepless nights they should sigh over the tragic upheavals of my life. I am actually not too tragic or miserable. If I had wanted to get married, I could have done it ten times over these past ten years. Doesn’t having a new boyfriend in each year of my single life seem excessive? Right! Legally I am still Chaofan’s wife. I’m just too busy and don’t have the time to take care of the various necessary divorce documents. I’m going to wait until I actually decide to get married again before processing all that red tape. Until now, no man has motivated me enough to go through all that.
    Oh, heaven! What more should I say? To tell a holy and pure believer about my utterly chaotic private life would be just like blaspheming against the Holy Spirit!
    Joseph was still mildly and calmly watching me. His eyes told me that in his world there was a real and true God. I envied him with an envy for all people who had a belief in the divine. It was just like I envied those frenzied soccer fans on the soccer field Those people interested me more than all those fit and vigorous soccer stars themselves. Every time I saw their faces smeared with color and waving small flags in tears of either exaltation or desolation for goals scored or missed, I truly envied them. I would never be able to reach their state of self-oblivion. To this day, I still don’t understand soccer.
    At the seashore, Jesus met two disciples who were casting for fish. He said, “Follow me.” The two fishermen threw down their nets and went with Jesus. This made me remember first hearing about kidnapping when I was little. The old folks often warned little children, “Don’t run wildly about. There are wicked people out there, kidnappers. They’ll give you one good smack on the back of your head and off you’ll go with them in a complete daze. Later they’ll sell you away to some far-off place.”
    If you can make me believe in the existence of God, you’re going to have to have the knack of these kidnappers. A slap to knock out the knowledge and experience stored up in my brain and return me—totally unconscious—to the chaos of the time of my birth.

     
    Let me return to Old Town, back to my grandma’s Old Town. It’s also your grandma’s Old Town.
    The well was at the northwest corner of the crossroads by West Gate in Old Town. My grandma’s house was at its southwest corner. In between ran a little street. Behind the well was a yard enclosed by a wooden picket fence. The yard was completely planted with flowers. There was a small church there. When I played by the well, I didn’t yet know what a church was. All I saw was a pretty wooden building. Grandpa and Grandma and lots of people sang songs in that building. The old lady who played the organ was Chaofan’s granny on his daddy’s side. Standing on the platform speaking was his grandpa. People called him “Pastor.”
    The West Gate church had been gone for many years by the time I left Old Town. One day in Lompoc, as I was walking along a little road on my way to work at the restaurant, I looked up suddenly and saw a small church right in front of me. How familiar that wooden fence was, and inside it the yard with all the flowers in full bloom! They clustered thickly around the plain wooden building. It was as if I had already known every tiny thing about this place. In my distraction, I thought I was walking by the West Gate street corner of my childhood and if I turned around, I would see Grandma, standing in the doorway under the oleander tree, waiting for me to return from school. At the church door stood a wooden placard that said this church had been built in a certain year at the end of the nineteenth century. One hundred years. Anything in