Virginia was beginning to cool down, and Aaron no longer bloomed into a full sweat just by stepping outside. Now that it was nearing the end of October, he wondered if Grace had gotten any snow yet. He wondered if it snowed in Culver at all. So far, it was hard to imagine.
Mae was still keeping Aaron busy as Hope House’s groundsman and general repairman, although he had graduated from prospective to actual volunteer, with a lanyard and a key to the supply room and everything. With the fall came hours of raking every day, on top of the other duties he’d grown accustomed to. And Mae did not tolerate sloppy or half-done work. James and Jen often repeated the Hope House adage, not quite jokingly: “There’s the Mae way, and the wrong way.” Aaron had no doubt that Mae would wake him at two in the morning to finish a raking job if he let it slide, so he paid close attention. He was forced to recruit some of the resident kids in order to get it all done every day, but he found that he often enjoyed their company. And the boys, at least, seemed to appreciate getting their hands dirty after hours sitting in school.
Except for the hour or two he spent working alongside the kids, Aaron was still spending hours alone every day; with nothing better to do, he prayed. James spoke to God as a friend—not, as Aaron realized he had always done, as a wealthy and kind, but distant, great-uncle. He wanted to emulate that, but it was difficult. Getting to the point usually required several hours of circling the drain—first, thanking God for the sunshine and all of the blessings in his life; then, apologizing for being a sinner; then, asking for God to help people love each other and look to Jesus. Finally, Aaron would find himself out of platitudes and ready to be honest. He talked about Luce a lot, but he also talked about things he thought he’d forgotten or had long since accepted. His father, for one thing. His mother’s attempted suicide and how much it still scared him that she’d come so close to succeeding. His loneliness, and the loneliness that had dogged him for years. He prayed for the guy he’d sent to the hospital in Boston and for the people who had been the closest he’d had to family during those months. He prayed for Maggie’s business and even for Abby to relax and find someone who could make her happy. He apologized for avoiding Henry his entire life, until Henry had suddenly had something that Aaron wanted—Luce. And yes, he prayed for Luce. He prayed for her safety, for her happiness, for her salvation. He prayed that God would tell him it was time to go home or that she would figure out a way to come down here. He prayed for the dissociation he’d felt since leaving home to be resolved.
Virginia was a beautiful place. Sometimes, he was even cognizant of the fact. There was a moment every day, as the sun began to tilt towards the west, when he could look across the horizon and see the mountains, silhouetted against the sky—and yes, they really were blue! He’d never seen anything like that before. And the leaves, once they started changing (a full six weeks after they would have at home), burst into the same riot of color that he was used to, a riot that was visible for miles and miles around, thanks to Hope House’s perch on a high ridge.
Now that the weather was more congenial, Aaron looked forward to the evenings, when he could button up a flannel shirt and sit outside with his Bible and the smell of woodstoves hitting him from the valley below. He was reading through the Gospel of John with James in the mornings and Exodus by himself in the evenings. It hit him one evening that, like the Israelites and a young Jesus, Aaron was having a desert experience of his own. For all of James’ and Jen’s kindnesses and the interactions he had every day, he was alone, but for God’s presence.
“Okay, then, God,” he’d said then. “What am I supposed to be doing with myself in this desert?”
No answer came, but over the preceding weeks, Aaron had grown more comfortable with putting questions out there and trusting that, eventually, something would come back around.