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steps, gripping the rickety rail.
    That left me and James staring at each other in a kitchen full of dirty dishes.
    “What’s going on?” he asked again.
    I positioned the plastic plug over the drain. “I told Sophie I needed to get away, and she came up with a wild idea.” I started the water.
    He pulled the plug from the drain and clutched it against his side. “You want to go away?”
    “Get away. I felt that way last night.” I honestly didn’t know how I felttoday—except numb. I pointed at his hand and then back to the drain. He tossed the plug into the sink.
    I inserted it again and squirted out some detergent. “And then Sophie got a phone call about a midwife this morning.” I told him the whole story as I trailed my hand through the water, stirring up the bubbles.
    “Why do you feel like you need to get away?” His voice was hurt as he bent down and retrieved the wooden dish rack from under his side of the sink.
    I eased a stack of china into the basin and without looking at him said, “Sophie thinks I need to find my birth family.”
    “Oh.” His voice was gentle now. “Are you ready for that?” James was the one who had been studying abandonment and attachment issues. I was the one who had been trying, at all costs, to avoid talking with him about those things.
    My chin began to quiver as I scrubbed a plate and lowered it into the rinse water.
    “Did the box bring all this up for you?” He swished the plate around and placed it in the rack.
    “I’ve wanted to search since high school.”
    “You never told me that.” His voice sounded hurt.
    “I feel more alone than ever.”
    “You have me.” His voice was tender.
    I nodded.
    James and I had been partners in chemistry lab in high school. Back then, he was the bad boy, partying on the weekends, smart-mouthing our teachers at school, and teasing me about my cap and modest dresses whenever we were together. His parents divorced when he was a baby, and his dad remarried and started a new family. By high school James didn’t have much of a relationship with his father at all. His poor mother was so busy making a living that James had enough freedom to get himself in trouble on a regular basis.
    Though I found him intriguing—and smart, much to my relief, given that he was my lab partner—he made me nervous with his wide grin and reputation as a partyer. Then one day, several months into our junior year, he surprised me by asking if he could come over to study. I told him no. He showed up that night anyway and sweet-talked his way into the house.Dad helped us with our chemistry, something he’d been doing with me all semester, and when we were finished James brought up his English essay on conflict resolution. Dad was happy to help with that too, eventually explaining at length the Mennonite stand of nonresistance. Before James left, Dad asked him to go to church with us the next Sunday. Much to my horror, he accepted.
    Slowly, as James insinuated himself into my home and my church, the two of us went from being enemies to being friends. For the sake of that friendship, we kept things platonic back then. Nine years later, we reconnected when he called me after he found out while at church about Dad’s diagnosis. Soon he asked me out to dinner, and in no time we were dating.
    “We should finish the dishes so you can get back home and study,” I said now.
    Though I was using tomorrow’s midterm test as an excuse, we both knew that I wanted to be alone, that I wanted this conversation to be over. How could I tell James he wasn’t enough? That I needed something more to fill my empty soul?
    He left soon after that, hurt clearly shining in his eyes. I hurried to pack my things. My plan was to go back to Portland for a week and then return here to Dad’s place to go through his things before I decided whether to sell the house.
    After Mama’s death I prayed to God even more than I had before. I never told Him how I felt about her dying;