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running around all the time. Bill was sure it would happen at the right time. Maybe when they had a vacation, which they hadn’t had for a year.
    “We talk about it,” Bill said quietly, not anxious to share his worries with his brother. Anything he ever confided to them, they used against him later. And that was too sensitive an issue for him towant to discuss with anyone but Jenny. He would have felt as if he were betraying her, if he shared their concerns with Tom. “There’s no hurry,” he said vaguely.
    “You two aren’t getting any younger,” Tom said bluntly. “But I guess her career means more to her than a baby,” he added unkindly. His family didn’t even know her, but they never cut her any slack. They were all too willing to believe that she was a bad person because she had been born on what they considered the wrong side of the tracks.
    “I’m sure she’ll be a wonderful mother,” Bill said fairly. “And I need to find a church before we start having kids. First things first.” He looked calm about it.
    Tom hesitated only for a moment before he dove in. “What about coming back to the firm? You have a ready-made job just sitting there, waiting for you. You don’t have to knock yourself out finding a church. You can do volunteer work on weekends.” They still considered his dedication to the ministry an eccentric hobby, not a vocation. Bill had long since given up trying to convince them how much it meant to him. “Dad’s not getting any younger. He’s going to retire one of these days, and I think it would be a great comfort to him if he knew you were back in the fold. I know how much the pro bono work meant to you. Maybe we could make some arrangement. You could be a full partner, and take a lesser share of the profits, if you don’t want to take on paying clients.” It had been an issue for them before.
    “It’s not about money,” Bill explained to him quietly. “I feel strongly that we each have our destiny to follow. This is mine. It took me a long time to figure it out. I know I’m on the right path,with the right woman. My marrying Jenny wasn’t an accident. It was meant to be. Just like your being married to Julie.” Tom didn’t comment, he just nodded, but Bill noticed a troubled look in his brother’s eyes.
    “How can you be so sure?” Tom asked him, suddenly serious. Bill seemed so certain about what he was doing, and Tom was never quite sure if he had a crazy streak or was saner than all of them. He seemed totally at peace.
    “It’ll sound stupid to you, I’m sure, but I pray a lot. I try to listen. And I always know in my gut if what I’m doing is right. Or very wrong. I was miserable when I was working at the law firm. I knew it wasn’t right for me. I hated going to work every day, I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. And as soon as I started seminary, I knew I was on the right path. I knew it with my first theology class. It was like a magnet. Everything clicked. It was like that when I met Jenny. From the minute I met her, I was sure. I knew we were meant to be together.” He said it with such certainty that Tom stared at him for a long moment, trying to understand. “Didn’t you feel that way about Julie? You two were so in love,” Bill asked his older brother earnestly.
    “I’m not sure I ever felt that we were ‘meant’ to be together,” Tom said honestly. “She was just the prettiest deb of the season, and that I’d been out with until then, and we had a lot of fun. We were both young. Twenty years later, it’s all different. You need more than just a pretty deb. And people change when they grow up. Neither of us knew who we were then.” Tom had married young, five years younger than Bill had been when he married Jenny, and not as wise.
    Bill wasn’t sure what his brother meant by what he’d said and hedidn’t want to pry. Tom didn’t look happy. Both he and Peter had been married for a long time, to women Bill wouldn’t have