Page 104 of The Voice We Find

I sing because I’m free;

For his eye is on the sparrow,

And I know he watches me.”

With my eyes closed, I repeat the chorus once more as warmth blankets me from head to toe. And as the last line comes to an end, I remain still ... until a quiet whimper alerts me to a presence not my own.

Natalie stands inside the doorway of the cellar, her arms wrapped around her middle protectively, as tears streak her cheeks.

“Natalie?” Alarmed, I move toward her.

But before I can say more, she pulls the heavy door closed behind her with a thud that echoes violently through the hollowed space, sealing us in.

“Do you really believe that?” Her accusation is a frantic sort of desperate, and it takes me a moment to grasp what’s she asking. “Do you believe that God watches over us?”

“Yes,” I say. “I do.”

Her chin quivers as she fights to suppress her emotion. “I told you that I gave up on the idea of redemption for myself a long time ago.” She wipes her face with the sleeve of her velour tracksuit. “But I want better for him.”

At first, I’m certain she’s speaking about my brother, her husband. But then she touches the small, rounding mound of her lower abdomen, and her tears fall in earnest.

“You’re...” I lift shaky fingers to my lips.

“Pregnant.” Her smile is the saddest kind of beautiful. “I’ll be fifteen weeks tomorrow. It’s a boy.”

I hold my breath as several scenarios battle for territory in my mind. “Does—”

“Jasper know?” She gives a slow shake of her head. “No. You’re the only person I’ve told.”

Words fail me as I move to wrap her into the first hug I can recall us sharing. “I’ll help you, Natalie. Whatever you need.”

When she pulls back, her dark eyes fill with a resolve that seems to radiate inside my own chest. “I need you to pray for my baby.”

And so I do.

27

August

Ican count the number of words Gabby has spoken to me since our argument on one hand, not including the words she had Aunt Judy text me after packing her bags and leaving the house for several days. But even after she returned, she’s only stayed long enough to sleep. So when I found the note Gabby scrawled on the theater ticket taped to my studio door this morning, her invitation caught me completely off guard.

August,

There’s so much I need to say to you but don’t know how. Will you please come tonight?

—Gabby

I hold the ticket in my hand now, backlit by the lights of the Twilight Theater, and note my aunt’s Lexus in the parking lot. Her presence here tonight doesn’t surprise me, and yet her unwaveringsupport of Gabby exposes a raw nerve. Despite my role as my sister’s legal guardian, it’s our aunt she contacted after she accused me of not understanding her.

Of notacceptingher.

The glint of my aunt’s spotless sedan draws my attention once again. Perhaps I’d been wrong not to relinquish my legal rights to someone more capable.

Perhaps Gabby would have been better off if I’d stayed in LA.

Perhaps that’s part of what Gabby wishes she could say to me but doesn’t know how.

It’s eight minutes until the show starts, but I find myself rooted at the stoop of the theater. My palms are sticky with sweat, as if I’m the one preparing to perform for an audience and not my sister and her friends. In truth, I don’t know much about tonight’s show other than what’s printed on the ticket regarding the added accessibility for the deaf and hearing impaired. But I do know that Gabby started meeting with Sophie at the theater shortly after I blew everything up.

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