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Penny’s left eyebrow went up.
    “Yes, really. Why do you ask? What’s the surprise?”
    “Is my eyebrow up?”
    “Yes.”
    “Rats! I’m going to have to work on that. I do have another little surprise, and I think you’re going to need to read all my facial quirks when I tell you this.”
    I looked hard at her. I’d forgotten how intense Penny’s gaze could be. She had a way of seeing into people as if she were shining a light so the person could search for something lost along the way. I don’t know why I let her do that to me. I could turn away and listen sufficiently without looking. But I didn’t. I allowed her dark eyes to shine their amber-flecked light on mebecause Penny knew things. She saw things way before I did. Right now she was looking for something. Apparently I had it.
    “This is the other thing I was going to apologize to you about. We don’t exactly have everything lined up in Finland. Which I think is fine because all our options are open. But I didn’t want you to feel …,” Penny searched for the right word, “… uncomfortable.”
    “That’s okay. What needs to be worked on? I have the tour book. We could do some planning now.”
    “Yes,” Penny said slowly.
    “What about your aunt? Did she give you any specifics in her letter about things to do?”
    Penny’s finger went up to her lips. “No. You see, I never heard back from my aunt. And before you say anything, Sharon, it’s not that big a deal. We have plenty of money. We can stay at any hotel we want the whole time, if we need to. I wasn’t necessarily planning to stay at my aunt’s house. I just wanted to meet her. But I don’t even know if she’s still alive. It’s not that important, though. We can try to track her down once we arrive. But if we don’t find her, we’ll just have fun exploring.”
    I didn’t say anything right away. I’m certain both my eyebrows were down. Penny was watching me carefully.
    “So, you’re telling me that we got on this plane and we’re flying halfway across the world, but when we arrive, we don’t have any idea what we’ll do.”
    “Yes and no. We’ll take a taxi and find a hotel. Or rent a car. And we’ll find a restaurant and have some dinner. Or lunch, or whatever mealtime it will be then. And,” she added on an upbeat note, “we’ll pray and see what God puts in our path.”
    I wanted to scold her. I wanted to say, “Penny, people like us don’t just show up in big foreign cities in the middle of winter and start looking up names of reputable hotels in a phone book!”
    Before I could speak, Penny said, “I know I should have said something earlier, but I kept thinking I’d hear from my aunt at the last minute. I brought all the information I have about her with me. We’ll take each step, each day as it comes. Like I said, we’ve got plenty of money.” Penny’s eyes were ablaze with dancing sprinkles of hope. “Whatever happens, I know it will be an adventure.”
    I reminded myself that “adventure” had been Penny’s objective all along, even in the church nursery so long ago. And I had told Jeff I didn’t want old age to be the only risky trip I ever took. This was it.
    Risky. Adventuresome. Ridiculous.
    At this moment, the appropriate adjective didn’t matter because when a person is thirty thousand feet in the air, seat belted in business class, she is, for all practical purposes, committed. Two months ago I never would have dreamed up any of this. Two days ago I was still trying to work up the courage to board that plane in Portland by myself. Two minutes ago, however, Penny’s left eyebrow went up, and secretly I wanted it to. I wanted Penny to surprise me and make me uncomfortable.
    “What do you say, Sharon?” Penny looked at me hard. “Are you okay with this? I know you like life to be organized, but the thing is, now we’ll be completely at God’s mercy, and nothing is more adventuresome than that!”
    With a deep breath, I gave my dearest