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Atlanta.” I smiled helpfully.
    Rose Bennett didn’t even say good-bye. She just nodded, slipped out the door, and walked up the back stairs.
    I shut the door after her and leaned against it. The Bennetts were moving! Was that good news or bad news? They certainly hadn’t been very friendly. On the other hand, they hadn’t been any trouble either—except for that late party last night. Maybe it’d been a good-bye celebration with their friends.
    My brain was suddenly crowded with awful possibilities. What if a family with five noisy kids moved in upstairs? Or members of a heavy metal band who needed space to practice? I groaned aloud, imagining green spiked hair, black leather, and metal chains. “Okay, God, what’s up with this?” I ranted. “What part of ‘dull and boring’ don’t You understand?”

4

    T he last few days of winter break, my kids acted like caged monkeys with bellyaches. Every time I asked Amanda to do something around the house, she wailed, “But I only have three more days till school starts!”—making it sound like these were her last days on earth. And Josh found some reason to be out every night till midnight, his non-school-night curfew. Funny how popular he was now that he had his driver’s license.
    â€œCan’t we set a limit on how many midnights per week?” I fussed at Denny. “I never go to sleep till Josh gets home, and this is getting ridiculous!”
    Frankly, I was glad when Amanda was invited to spend Friday and Saturday with her best friend in Downers Grove, taking the Metra train out to the south-west suburbs. Patti Sanders and Amanda had gone through elementary and middle school together, Awana Club and summer camp too. But the hour-plus drive on traffic-glutted highways between our Chicago neighbor-hood and Downers Grove meant that the girls hadn’t seen each other that often since we moved. “Have fun, honey,” I said, giving Amanda a kiss at the Rogers Park Metra station Friday morning. Go, go, I thought. Drive somebody else’s mother crazy. And then I immediately had an anxiety attack when the train pulled out. She had to change trains at the Metra hub downtown. What if she got on the wrong train? What if Patti’s mom wasn’t at the station to pick her up? What if some maniac saw she was alone and . . .
    Get a grip, Jodi, I scolded myself as I drove back to Lunt Avenue. Haven’t you learned anything about trust this past year? Didn’t God protect Amanda and you and Denny and all the Yada Yadas when we got robbed last fall? Didn’t God bring Hakim back to your classroom after his mom yanked him out?
    I grabbed one of the worship CDs we kept in the car, stuck it into the narrow slot, and punched through the selections till I found the song I wanted: “God is in control! This is no time for fear . . .” By the time I turned into our alley and clicked the garage opener, I was belting it out with Twila Paris: “God is in control! We believe that His children will not be forsaken!”
    I came in the back door still singing—“He has never let you down; why start to worry now?”—but was immediately drowned out by an awful racket blaring from the stereo in the living room. Josh was in the dining room playing games on the computer but looked up when I tapped him on the shoulder.
    â€œOh good, you’re back.” He headed for the living room, yelling, “Dad! Mom’s back!” And suddenly the racket went dead. I shook my head to stop the ringing in my ears. Blessed tranquility.
    Denny appeared in the dining room archway, shrugging into his winter jacket and carrying his sport bag. “Where’s the car?”
    â€œOh. I put it away. Sorry.” I knew Denny had to coach a basketball practice today at West Rogers High, just forgot in the heady praise trying to drown out my anxiety about Amanda. “Uh . . . what was that