In other words, no one can ever know that we weren’t.


I take another bite of sandwich to give myself time to think. The bread slices are cut thick and rough from a homemade loaf. It reminds me of the day Bailey made me bread. I gave up the girl I love, I broke her heart—both our hearts—all for a lie. Now I might never see her again.


“So now what?” I ask Sophia. “We hole up here in the mountains? What good are we doing the world by running away? Didn’t Jesus say not to hide your lamp under a bucket?”


“Under a basket. You are one hundred percent right, David. But our taking refuge is not a selfish act. Here we can spend hours each day praying for all sinners to be saved.”


“Such a noble sacrifice,” Mara deadpans, then turns to Mom. “When are we leaving?”


Sophia’s laugh cuts off our mother’s response. “That’s up to the Lord. We stay until He comes for us, in days, weeks, months. Decades, if that’s what it takes. Meanwhile, we live in grace and fellowship, for His glory.”


The silence thickens. At the door, Carter widens his stance. I wonder if we have to be supervised for bathroom trips.


I clear my throat. “So, what you’re saying is, we can’t leave.”


“What she’s saying is,” a familiar speaks from the doorway, “why would we ever want to leave?”

My father is dressed in work overalls, his cheeks ruddy and dark hair mussed from the wind, looking . . .


Looking really good, actually. And speaking like a sane person.


I wait for him to say more, to speak in his own words for the first time in over a year.


Dad opens his arms as I stand up. “You found us.”


My feet want to rush forward, but instead I take only a few steps, turning sideways like a soldier presenting a smaller target. “We came to take you home.”


He drops his arms. “I don’t understand.”


“We tracked you. I left my phone in the minivan one time while you were”—I inch closer—“Obviously coming here to build this place.”


Mara makes no move to get up. “We followed David’s phone using the same app you guys use to follow him. Ironic, huh?”


“Well.” He smiles and clasps his hands in front of himself. “I have the world’s most clever kids.”


“And the world’s most pissed-off kids.” Mara grips the sofa’s arm, looking ready to tear it off. “How could you do this to us? How could you just disappear?”


“We never meant to leave you,” he tells her.


“We never meant to leave, period! But you wanted us to sacrifice everything, just like that.” Mara snaps her fingers.


“Not just like that, don’t you see?” My father goes to stand behind Sophia’s chair. “That’s why we asked you to give up so much at the Abandoning. Sophia thought a gradual withdrawal would hurt you less than a sudden change.”


My hope dims further. Just because Dad’s speaking a sane person’s words doesn’t mean he’s turned into one.


Mara looks anything but pacified. “You said you thought we’d be here, but why didn’t you ask for proof of that before you left?”


“Everything had to go just so,” Mom tells her. “Our escape was planned down to the minute. When you weren’t home at two thirty, we were beside ourselves with panic. We wondered, do we stay and try to find you, or do we leave when the vans come to pick us up at three?”


Sophia breaks in, speaking slowly and soothingly. “It was my understanding, David and Mara, that you’d been found by one of my associates. I passed on that incorrect information to your parents. I’m truly sorry.”


She couldn’t look less sorry if she’d won the lottery.


“We thought it was the answer to our prayers.” Dad shakes his head sadly.


“We were so furious at you and your sister,” Mom says to me, “we figured it was best we didn’t see you right away. Give us a chance to cool down.” She glances at my father, who folds his arms, as if to hide the hands he’d wanted to strike us with.


“When did you know we weren’t coming?” I ask Dad. “When did you realize that they’d made you leave us?”


“We suspected when we got to the general store and you weren’t waiting for one of the boats.”


“No.” Mom glares at him. “That’s when I knew, not suspected. I stood on that dock, feeling it in my heart that my children were left behind.”


“Our children,” he corrects her.


“My children. By that point, you’d already abandoned them.”


Whoa. I’ve never seen Mom lash out at him like this.


She stands and advances on Dad. “Remember? You said, ‘Get in the boat, we have to go now.’ What was I supposed to do? Run off into the wilderness?”


“Honey, it’s all worked out for the best. The kids are here now.”


“And if they hadn’t arrived,” Sophia adds, “we would have fetched them for you. I’d planned a second round of pickups for the stragglers next Sunday. A sort of gathering of lost sheep.”


I wonder what my sister and I would’ve done if her people had shown up at the house to take us away. Would we have used Mara’s machete to fend them off? Or Dad’s gun? Hot fury sweeps up my neck at the thought.


I can’t look at them anymore. I spin on my heel and stalk toward the corner of the room, where a cast-iron wood stove sits, unused right now due to the warm weather. What would they do, I wonder, if I kicked in its glass door? Or put my fist through the window over there? Could I hurt myself badly enough to win us all a fast boat trip to a hospital at the other end of the lake? Even if not, the destruction would feel good.


“Sophia,” my father says with quiet urgency, “I need to speak with my son alone. Now.”


Before the wood shop door has even swung closed behind us, I turn on my dad. “How could you leave us? How could you lie to us?”


“You left us first, David. When we woke up and found your bed empty—”


“My bed was empty for three hours!” I hurl at him. “Yours was empty forever! I went to a party one street over. You went to the Adirondacks, where we couldn’t even call you to make sure you weren’t dead.” I want to turn him upside down and shake out the truth. “Were you going to come back when you found out we weren’t here? Were you even going to send a ‘we’re still alive’ note? And why do this in the first place without asking us if we wanted to move?” I stop yelling, only because I’m out of breath.


“I’m sorry.” Dad goes to a worktable and pulls out a metal stool, its feet squeaking against the floor. “I had to get out of that house. This seemed like the answer.”


“We could’ve left that house years ago. You should’ve left.” As much as it hurts to say that, it’s true. We all would’ve been better off with him gone. “What about our deal? I gave up everything I cared about to get ready for the Rush, and in exchange you were supposed to get help if it didn’t happen. You were supposed to change.”


“I did change. I did get help.” He raises his arms. “What do you think this place is, if not the ultimate spiritual therapy? And listen to me: I’m speaking like myself again. You know why? Because here I experience the fullness of God’s creation through all his works, not just his word.”


My head is spinning enough from hearing him speak original thoughts. I don’t need this extra layer of theology. “I’m glad you can talk normally, but you need more than fresh air and freedom from cell phones. You need treatment.” I force out the word he doesn’t want to hear. “You have depression.”


“I wasn’t depressed. I was unhappy.”


I don’t grasp the difference, but his use of the past tense is what crushes the breath out of me. “And now you’re happy? Because you’re away from us?”


“No. I’m happy because I’m away from there.”


“I know it’s hard living in that house. I miss John too, all the time.”


“It’s not about missing. That’s normal.” He presses his palms together, then puts his steepled fingers to his face. “It’s about there being something drastically, fundamentally wrong with the world since he died. I thought nothing and no one could fix it. Then one day I found out the Lord not only can fix it but will. He’ll end all the pain and suffering.”


“Maybe someday, but until then, we have to go on and make the best of it.”


“No, we don’t.” He rests his hands on his worktable with an air of finality. “We have a choice.”


“This is your choice? Escaping the world because you don’t like what it’s done to you?” I pick up a stray table leg from the bench next to me. “Sitting around praying and building furniture? You think Mara and I would’ve been happy here?”


“Yes. I do. You’ll see over the next few days. Life here isn’t easy, but it is rich in spirit.”


“But it’s not for me. I have school, baseball, my friends, Bailey. I gave all of that up for you once. I won’t do it again.”


“This time you wouldn’t be doing it for me. You’d be doing it for yourself.” He moves to the wide bay window, beckoning me to join him. “Come see this.”


I go to stand beside him. From here I can see the lake through a gap in the trees.


The water has turned to gold.


“There’s no direct view of the sunset from here,” he says, “because of the mountains. But this time of year we get the perfect reflection in the lake. And over there, can you see what I made for you? In that beech tree up the hill to your right.”