Page 108 of The Voice We Find

“Then tell me, son. Tell me about her family, her friends, her past relationships, her future goals, her religious convictions.”

He’s asking questions, but something tells me he already knows the answers. Vanessa has no relationship with any of her family members, and the only friends she ever speaks about double as her employees. Vanessa doesn’t have a religion, other than the mantras she speaks over herself after her morning meditation, but I suspect there’s something else he wants me to confess. It’s not enough for him to know I’m living with a woman I’m not married to. What he wants is for me to admit she’s been married twice before and is hinting for me to pop the question before she turns thirty-eight.

“If it’s her age you’re getting at, I’m not concerned about being with an older woman.”

“Then are you concerned about being with a woman who doesn’t love the God you’ve claimed to serve? This isn’t the life He desires for you.”

I rammed a hand through my hair and squeezed my eyes closed as the guilt I worked so hard to suppress tugged at the edges of my mind.

“Come with us to India, son. It’s not too late. We’ve been praying for God to do some big miracles on this trip—” His voice catches. “I love you, August. As soon as we’re stateside again, I can fly back to LA with you. I can help you figure things out and—”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

His silence was deafening.

“You can tell Mom to focus her prayers on someone who needs them.”

“August . . .”

“Have a good time with God in India, Dad. If He still wants me, then He’ll have to come and get me Himself.”

When I blink out of the horrible memory, I’m not braced for the sight of a moving train or the screech of the tracks that follow, but as soon as the theater lights flicker a red warning, my pulse turns into a jackhammer.

The lights cut out.

For an eternity, there is no sound or movement at all, until a single blue spotlight illuminates my sister curled on the floor and an intense ringing sound fills the auditorium. She lifts her head and cups her hands to her ears, franticly looking around.

“Where am I?” Sophie voices what my sister’s hands are asking in ASL from somewhere in the darkness. Her dialogue scrolls across the dark screen behind Gabby. “Why am I covered in mud? What’s wrong with my ears? Where is the train? My parents?”

And then Gabby startles back, her eyes growing wide as the intense ringing in the auditorium drops away completely.

“Do not be afraid, Gabriella.” The deep male voice is clear, resonant.

“How do you know my name? Your eyes—they’re so blue, like mybrother’s. Where are you taking me?” The sleepy yawn in Sophie’s acting voice is perfectly timed with Gabby’s expression and signing in ASL. “My head hurts.”

“I’m taking you to safety. Your brother will be with you soon.”

“My brother? But where are my parents?”

“They are already home.” The deep voice is reassuring. “Rest now and have faith, little one. There is nothing that can ever separate you from the love of God.”

The theater lights turn off, and when they come up again, the screen shows a hospital bed.

Gabby’s eyes are closed as Sophie narrates how the man found her in a muddy ravine, far down the hill from where the tracks washed out and the train car derailed. She explains how safe the man felt, how he spoke with gentle authority, and how his voice cut through the ringing in her ears. She explains how he carried her up the cliffside to the rescue team with ease and secured her transport on the next medical helicopter to a research hospital in Mumbai. Sophie recounts the details of Gabby’s brain surgery and nerve damage and how none of the doctors could explain her survival, much less account for the story of the trained rescuer she insisted was real in a region with scarce medical supplies and resources.

Gabby opens her eyes on stage, and I read the ASL sign for the unique name Gabby gave me early on in her learning. It’s a combination of surfer and brother. She looks right at me as Sophie speaks for her in English.

“My brother was waiting for me when I opened my eyes, just as my rescuer told me he would be. As soon as I was awake enough to speak, I told my brother everything I could remember about the American man with the shiny dark hair and ocean-blue eyes. But my brother had no idea who I was talking about.”

Gabby shakes her head for the audience and holds up her hands to show her confusion.

The familiar conversation catapults me back into the memory of that moment.

Iswallowed against the building sob in my throat as I sat at her bedside in an unfamiliar country. She’d been asleep on and off since I arrived three days ago, and now that she was finally stirring, I didn’t know how I would bring myself to tell her. She was still too fragile, and the doctors here had cautioned me about the stress of too many emotions at once, especially considering the goal was to stabilize her enough for travel back to the States.

But how did I keep something like this from her? Our parents were dead.

“Is he here?” Gabby asked.

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