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he asked. “God?” He was amazed, because this was the kind of thing onlyzealots thought highly enough of themselves to say, and this woman was no zealot. But she laughed gently.
    “No, nothing so bold.” She glanced out the window briefly, as though looking for permission to continue; then she looked back to him. “Unfortunately,” she said, “our country sometimes has a habit of making a mess with its left hand and cleaning it up with its right. We are the right hand.”
24
    The kid saved me. I should probably make that point. He showed me the way out. I saw him running down the street out of the corner of my eye, and out of habit I lifted my weapon toward him. I saw that he was running away from me, and I looked around, at what we had just done, and I saw this kid run down an alley, and I followed him. It wasn’t logical. There was no reason in it. He could have been leading me anywhere, death trap or salvation, and I didn’t care which. You always have choices, but there are times when the split second before you is so starkly illuminated, it becomes clear that everything you are, and everything you are ever going to be, hangs in the balance. And I had one choice to make, which is basically the choice you always have to make in any situation: stay or go.
    So I went. I followed him. I didn’t care where he led me. And he ducked between some houses and down to the river, and then north along the river. I stayed far enough back that he didn’t know I was there, which was pretty easy, because the moonlight seemed to shineon everything, and I could see him clearly up ahead of me, and the noise from the river, wide and beautiful and cursed, drowned out everything else.
25
    They share a conversation in the kitchen, in the suburbs, Cutie and Ad-son clearing up after dinner, the clinking of plates and glasses in the sink, the canned echo of laughter from the television in the family room, the low hum of the dishwasher, and Mrs. Martin sitting alone with him at one corner of the kitchen table.
    “I’d like to talk to you about something, Jonas,” she says, and for a moment he suspects she is on the verge of reaching out to grasp his hand. “Something important.”
    “Okay.”
    “You have traveled a long way to come to us, haven’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you must have had many difficult experiences. Some horrible things must have happened to you.”
    “Yes.”
    “Jonas, did you ever think that perhaps there is a larger plan at work? Did you ever think that maybe you were brought here for a reason?”
    “Well, I don’t … I mean, I’m not sure.”
    “Jonas, I need to tell you that there is a way to clear awayall of these horrible experiences. A way to find comfort. A way to be forgiven for all of your sins.”
    “Yes, well…”
    “Jonas, I’m going to ask you probably the most important question you will ever be asked.”
    “Are you?”
    “It’s the same question I was asked years ago, the same question Mr. Martin was asked, and our children. We have all done this.”
    “Okay, but…”
    “Jonas, will you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and savior?”
    “My what?”
    “Your personal Lord and savior. Will you establish a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?”
    “My … savior from what?”
    “From your sins, of course.”
    “My sins?”
    “Yes, Jonas. Your sins. After all, we are all sinners in the eyes of the Lord.”
    “But were we not created in His image?”
    “That was before. Before we sinned. Now we are all sinners, and must seek His forgiveness by accepting Jesus, whom He sent to die for us, to cleanse us of our sins.”
    “All our sins?”
    “Yes. But we must accept Him first.”
    “All the sins of all the world?”
    “Yes, Jonas.”
    “Then he must truly have His hands full.”
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    Where do you go in your mind, Paul asks, and Jonas tells him sometimes he travels someplace else. He goes there in his dreams or in his waking thoughts, but when he is there, he is