Hope rubs her nose, picks at a fingernail.

        Caleb laughs a little, but not happily. “I didn't know whether to be irritated or amused. I mean, it was such a trite thing to say, but I understood because I hoped, too.” Caleb steps into the room, and Hope knows she will scream if he sits beside her on the bed. “I envied you,” he says. “Your optimism, your faith.”

        Hope smoothes the rumpled sheet, her hand lingering over a cluster of yellowed stains. “Faith didn't matter, did it?” she says quietly. “I mean, I was born to a life in ministry—raised in it, schooled in it, married to it. I've done everything right. We've done everything right. Why us?”

        Caleb does not respond, waits.

         Hope traces the outer edges of the stain with her finger. “You know what I learned? Other than the nature of blood diseases and genetics and chemotherapy. Besides that? After she was dead?”

        “No.”

        “In Lawrence, Kansas, when the elements are right, a tornado forms and people die. There is no plan.”

        “Sure there is.”

        She pounds the mattress with her fist, a blow directed at the stains. She glares at her husband. “There is no plan.” She pushes off the bed and past Caleb.

        “There are reasons,” he yells after her. “Lessons to be learned.”

        “Shut up!” Her voice echoes through the hall. The house grows silent.

        Hope walks to the organ and thinks she will play for a while but hesitates, her attention drawn again to the picture of Missy. She presses her palms together. Her chin rests on her thumbs and fingers cover her nose. Tears fall unchecked. She stares into the face of her daughter.

        “No reasons,” she whispers. “No lessons learned. No plan.” She reaches for the photograph, flinching at the cold rigidity of its frame. She carries it to the sofa and lies down, legs curled beneath her. Her fingers trace the contours of Missy's cheeks, her mouth, her eyes, the same image Hope has traced a thousand times, etched in the stone that rests above Missy's head. She clutches the picture to her chest and closes her eyes. She hears the bed creak in the other room, the cat purring on the floor beside her. She feels the weight of his paws on the sofa and knows he is standing on his hind legs, stretching to see what she is doing. She feels his head nudge the hand that holds the frame. Her grip tightens. Then he is on the couch, settling down beside her, resting his head on her arm.

Published in Calyx, Spring-Summer 2008
"Covenant" received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention in the 2010 Anthology.