The minivan’s air conditioner gave one last puff of cold
air not long after Silas Fry drove across the Florida
state line. Silas merely lowered the front windows
without saying anything to the children.

How many more hours to Sarasota? Two? Three?

“I wish we were back in Mozambique.” Lena sighed and
fanned herself where she sat in the front passenger seat.
She leaned toward the open window. Her sigh sounded as if
her world had suddenly crumbled. At nearly nineteen, she
tended to see life in extremes. And Belinda had been the
one adept at handling her moodiness.

“Me, too.” Matthew’s echo was born of always wanting to
follow in Lena’s trail.

“I know you do, I know.” Silas forced his voice to come
out around the lump in his throat. Africa, his home.
Their home. It would never be the same without Belinda.
None of them would be.

Despite what Belinda had done long, long ago, he’d loved
his wife to the end. The day a semi had plowed into the
van in which she and some other ladies had been riding
home from a quilt auction. None of those who died had
suffered, the families were told.

Suffering was left for the rest of the families left
behind, spouseless husbands, motherless children.

Silas filled his lungs with the fresh, humid air blowing
into the van. “Your great-uncle said we’ll have plenty of
time to go to the beach after supper tonight.”

The seashore. The ocean had been the one constant where
they’d lived in Africa, not far from the coast in
Mozambique. And, one big reason he’d chosen to move them
all to Florida. In landlocked Ohio, the children had
balked and he even found himself feeling a bit
constricted, his only refuge in the air, flying a Cessna.

Life with Belinda as their hub had fallen apart. Somehow,
with God’s help, they’d find a way to put it back
together again.

Someone had told him children were resilient.

Children?

He often needed to remind himself Lena wasn’t a child
anymore, her studies had ended long ago, and she was
planning to continue her education, not to become a
teacher like her mother, but a medical assistant. She’d
already completed her high school equivalency certificate
and planned to enroll in college in Sarasota.

Matthew, not a child, either, all of fourteen and
idolizing his older sister with her take-charge view of
the world. They’d already discussed him finishing school
in Pinecraft at the Mennonite school, after seeing where
he compared to other students his age. He had a good eye
for building and construction, as well as taking motors
apart and putting them back together. Silas wasn’t sure
where he’d come by his skill.

But Silas couldn’t help thinking of both of them as
children. He’d been there from the beginning, when their
first cries rang out. He’d seen them grow and thrive,
through first words and first stumbles, through the first
days of “I can do it myself.” Especially with Lena, who
seemed to have come from her mother’s womb sure of
herself and the world.