Midnight Miracle

Maria studied his nails. He’d just had them done in red acrylic, bright enough to glow in the dark, and sharp enough to slash.

“His name’s Terry, not Cherry. It’s a hard t,” he said to his mother for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Te te te.”

His mother just wasn’t getting it. The echo came back with the heavy Portuguese accent of the streets of Belém. “Che che che.”

Maria looked out the barred window to the streets of the neighborhood where he and mother lived, the Reduto, one of Belém’s seediest. Steam rose from the rain-soaked gutters and rusty Fiats moved by in the dull torpor of the late afternoon. A jack-hammer blasted away somewhere, no doubt across the canal in the Umarizal district, where the new Belém was standing up in high-rises for the money gushing to the Amazon from other parts of Brazil. Maria was more convinced than ever that his life in Belém was coming to an end. Turning his attention back to his mother, he said, “Get rid of the ch sound. We’re not doing a cha-cha-cha.”

“Since when’d you get your fancy pants, you slut….”

“Mother...”

“Speaking English-for-a-whore doesn’t make you better than me.”

“For god’s sake…”

“…and when did you find “God” anyway? Just because you’re fucking some minister…”

“Just stop it…”

“….doesn’t mean God’s gonna go soft on you.”

“How dare you!” Maria’s conversion had been a flashpoint for some time now. Six months and still going strong. Pastor Terry Williams had added longevity, then determination to Maria’s convictions. He’d come down six weeks before from Chula, Georgia, sent by his church to search out fertile ground for establishing a “Midnight Miracle” Mission.

“God isn’t a faggot, last I heard….”

“Mother…..”

“Preacher Terry gets it up, now there’s your Midnight Miracle.”

“Mother, after this job, I’m done,” Maria said, ruing the day he’d mentioned the Pastor’s interest in buying property for his “Midnight Miracle” mission. Sensing opportunity, his mother had struck, and was about to sell land that didn’t exist to a well-meaning man, with thirty thousand dollars in his pocket. Several years of church contributions from the god-fearing people of Chula, Georgia. Tonight, Maria would be setting it all up for mother dear.

“That’s right. Sex change. Rio de Janeiro. Super-star model.” His mothered laughed.

“I’m serious.”

“I’ve got dreams too, you know.” Yes, his mother had dreams of her own, and her latest one was to open a “house of encounters” for well-heeled city folk who could pay good money to satisfy their needs, not like the penny-pinching Johns cruising the streets of the Reduto, looking for a blow-job in the wee hours. Thirty thousand US dollars would pay the price, money from the god-fearing people of Chula, Georgia.

“I’m happy for you,” Maria said.

“You’re gonna be my main attraction.”

“Mother…”

“Come one, come all, see the beautiful Maria.”

“For god’s sake….”

“The most beautiful woman in the world….”

“Just stop it.…’

“…..and with an honest-to-god dick.”

Maria didn’t want to continue the acidic banter, which passed for conversation between them since Maria’s boob job, especially after his mother had smoked some crack. But there was such a thing as respect for the human race. Maybe he hadn’t turned out the way she wanted, but that didn’t give her the right to harass him on a daily basis about his personal choices. In exasperation, Maria said, “No wonder they call you that.”

“Call me what?”

Maria started to tell her what the neighborhood bad boys called her, the crew she lorded over. But instead, he opened a compact and tugged at a false eyelash that wouldn’t stay put. “Never mind.”

“You’re gonna talk or I’ll pinch those fake boobs ‘til they pop.”

“Mother, just stop it.”

“Say it….say it, now!”

Maria looked out the window again, as he always did when avoiding his mother’s gaze, not so easy to do in the cramped apartment.

“Say it!”

His mother was going to get him to talk if she had to put her beretta to his head. In fact, the nickname did justice to her boxy shape, her brillo-pad hair, her sallow complexion, and her filthy mouth. “OK, they call you The Horror.”

For a moment, his mother’s features softened into one of her rare, wistful expressions, and Maria hoped the tirade might be over. But she returned to character with a harsh jag of laughter, only to stop abruptly and ask, “That’s it?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t see what’s so funny about it.”

The Horror wiped her eyes dry, then smiled at her son. “We’ve got a family name now, don’t you see? The Horrors. That’s something your cock-sucking father never gave us.”

* * *

Before heading out, Maria eyed himself in the mirror and was satisfied with what he saw, the hot-babe look that was understated but smoldering, the tropical seductress who could also be the girl next door. On the petite side, Maria was glad he didn’t have the bulk of a big tom. Dressing as a woman with the build of a fullback defeated the purpose. A few years before, Maria had out-machoed the teenage bad boys in his neighborhood on his way to a life of crime. But he’d left all that behind with the onset of his irrepressible urges, becoming a shapely knock-out who made heads turn when he sauntered down the street. Maria’d even made it to the “Beauties of Belém” website, no one the wiser that she was a he.

Out the door at last, Maria headed for the revival hall in Umarizal, stepping over gutters stuffed with scum, and walking past dilapidated grand houses, their state of collapse mercifully concealed by shadow. Emerging from the Reduto, he navigated the busy streets of the Doca with its old boat canal that had become, for all intensive purposes, an open sewer. Maria had come to peace with his mother’s scam, which was to “sell” ten acres of prime real estate to Pastor Terry early tomorrow morning. The sale would never take place, however, because Terry’s money, obtained by wire transfer today and secreted in his hotel room, would be gone, stolen by the teenage crew at his mother’s command. Although Maria had come to peace with the scam, that didn’t mean he liked it.

Maria had done his share of crimes, and there was blood on his hands. But unlike his cohort of teenage thugs, he wanted out. What was the point of church, he often wondered, if not to seek the path to righteousness? Not redemption per se, because he understood he’d been born into the life he led. In fact, Maria’s life goals were now quite simple and modest. He merely wanted to be “decent,” not some bible-thumping moron seized by the gospel, but a wholesome woman who could make a good man happy.

Across the canal, Maria saw the globe of light spilling out from the revival hall, heard the strains of the organ, and the lilt of voices that accompanied it. Just outside on the sidewalk, a crowd of people milled about like schooling minnows, mostly onlookers brought by the voices crackling into the evening air on high volume speakers. Terry had once been one of them, drawn by the happiness of the believers, illuminated by the light it seemed, smiles on their faces, hands in one another’s, the fatherly figure of the evangelist on stage, so compassionate, so welcoming of those who’d stepped across the boundary of belief, and gently admonishing the ones who hadn’t, not with fire and brimstone but with sympathetic urging, with words spoken by a man who’d known temptation and conquered it.

Maria walked down the lighted corridor between the rows of folding chairs, up to the front where his new crew awaited him, the middle-aged matrons whose volunteer work and gossip kept the church functioning and the rumors delectably steamy. They’d taken an early liking to Maria, pleased as punch that a “Beauty of Belém” had deigned to make the church “her” home-away-from home. And she spoke English to boot, which gave her a dollop of high culture. On seeing Maria approach, the women squeezed tighter among themselves to give him room, whispering good-evening and god-bless you in hushed undertones, smiling among each other that their precious possession had arrived at last. Maria was rather late, but that was the ironclad prerogative of a beautiful Brazilian woman. As he sat down, Maria scanned the room and breathed a sigh of relief on spotting the thin form of Pastor Williams, up front with the other church dignitaries. His thinning blond hair looked like the fluff of a duckling in the glare of the stage lights.

The hymns went on for awhile until at last the organ stopped. The Brazilian pastor climbed up to the podium and approached the microphone, his forehead glistening, his jowly face roughed with a hot flush. He looked at his watch. “We’re close to the hour you’ve all been waiting for.”

It took a moment, but soon the congregation quieted, and the only sounds were those coming in off the street. After another swipe at his forehead, the Pastor asked, “Has anyone felt it this past week? The helping hand of Jesus? The Midnight Miracle is upon us.”

The church members looked about expectantly, wondering who’d be the first to rise with the holy spirit. It wasn’t long before a tired, worn voice leaked out, barely audible in the revival hall. Several people shouted, there, there, and pointed at an old woman who’d stood up, and was clasping the chair in front of her to keep from keeling over. The attendant with the microphone moved fast to get her the bulky piece of equipment, which she grasped with both hands. After a false start with a reedy voice, she managed to speak. “This last month I couldn’t pay rent. Medical bills, my own and my grand-daughters, and the landlord said I’d have to leave.”

The woman stopped to collect her thoughts, the microphone wobbling. Several amens punctuated the expectant silence.

“But on the way to the store a stranger handed me an envelope, said I’d dropped it. When I looked inside it was the rent money. I tried to thank him but he’d disappeared.”

The hall erupted into hallelujas so loud they seemed to vibrate the metal ribs of the Quonset roofing.

“I was told my mother had a month to live. Cancer,” a man shouted from across the aisle, and as the faces of the congregation swept in his direction, the attendant darted fast to deliver the microphone. “I stayed up all night praying, and the next day when I took her to the hospital, they asked me what for. When I said cancer, they laughed. They’d never seen such a healthy old woman. Hallelujah!”

Maria had always wanted to bear witness, but hadn’t felt the inner urging to do so yet. As he searched his mind for the secret that would release his miracle, that would make him truly part of the group, happy shouts broke out, and motion in front caught his attention. Pastor Terry was moving toward the stage, accompanied by the young man who served as his interpreter at church functions. The Brazilian Pastor waved for Terry to come with excitement. “Our great American friend, Pastor Terry, is ready. We’ve been waiting for this.”

Pastor Terry didn’t hesitate and spoke out with a voice of surprising strength given his tranquil demeanor. “I was taken by the whale of degradation, alcohol, temptation, foolish pride…..to the point I lost my family.”

Pastor Terry’s eyes swept the audience, then focused on Maria. “I was swallowed up, by the whale of holy wrath, condemned to the darkness of night in the gullet of shame, where I did my penance.”

As he paused to catch his breath, the amens sounded, and the I hear you brothers.

“But the midnight miracle found me in the form of a woman so beautiful it made me cry, whose kindness has made me whole again. Maria, you saved me from certain doom, and I am at your feet.”

As the hallelujahs exploded through the hall, to the accompaniment of frantic clapping, Maria felt the blush on his skin, the heat of the tears on his cheeks. Yes, he could bear witness to what he had suspected but now knew for certain, that he was in love with Pastor Terry.

* * *

Maria headed for home, through streets that were full of life. It always amazed him how during the day, the Reduto looked like a place where a gas attack had killed everyone but for a few vagrants passed out on the sidewalk. But now, at two in the morning, cars ambled down its narrow passageways, predators out for a quickie with one of the transgendered denizens of Belém, and there were hundreds, more like thousands, of them.

Maria approached the apartment, hoping against hope he wouldn’t see signs of life there, that the iron-grilled window would be darkened within and everything quiet. But on turning the final street corner, he saw light in the window, and on walking up the stoop he heard the laughter, youthful boy laughter and the cackling of his mother.

After taking a moment to recompose himself, Maria opened the door to pungent crack fumes and averted gazes. His mother and a few crew members were crammed on a narrow sofa, while the others sat scattered on the concrete floor. It was warm with the closed windows, and dank with the smell of too many bodies. Background music off a CD filled-in for the lack of conversation.

“My dearest son, you’re home,” his mother said at last. “Bless my soul, we were so worried.”

Maria could tell by his mother’s smile, by the happy vibration of the place, that all had gone as planned, and it made him mad, if only at himself.

“Let’s hear it for Filet,” his mother shouted.

Filet. The word came like a slap in the face. It was the nickname she wasn’t supposed to use under any circumstance, the one Maria had earned stealing a crate of steak knives from the Hilton Hotel. A crack pipe came to his mother, and she took a hit. Upon exhaling, she said, “You give a new meaning to the word, sour-puss.”

Maria realized he was frowning from having heard the nickname, from how it brought the memories back like a story in the paper he’d read only yesterday, about how he and his friends, several of whom were in room right now, had taken down Señor Miguel, the coconut vendor who worked the Plaza of Brazil on the other side of the Doca. Señor Miguel used to toss Maria a coin when he walked by his stand.

“You know I don’t like that name,” Maria said, to both his mother and his old friends, sitting there quietly, waiting for a pipe. Were they remembering too, Maria wondered, remembering how they’d waited behind the big mango trees until the Plaza quieted down around mid-night, waited for Señor Miguel to collapse his vending stand and start pushing it through the empty streets? They attacked like killer bees, two knives apiece, and turned Senor Miguel into a human pin cushion.

“I know, son, but sometimes I just can’t help myself, thinking about the past.”

Maria said, “The past is the past for a good reason.”

The Horror clapped her hands and smiled. “Yes, yes, of course, lovely Maria. You now have a completely new life. Which means no past. But tell me something…..”

The Horror paused to stretch the moment wide, to draw every glance and every thought her way. The crew sat expectantly, the pipes in circulation.

“What?” Maria asked after he’d waited as long as he could. “What do you want to know?”

The music from the CD stopped, but no one got up to put something else on.

“Well,” she began, as if being coaxed into speaking about herself, as if Maria was probing a delicate matter. “Son, tell me the truth, just this once….”

Someone handed her a pipe, so she took a long hit, stretching the moment again. When she was ready, The Horror asked him with motherly concern, “Does he have a big dick?”

A couple of the crew members snickered, and Maria knew that he shouldn’t be shocked, because this was the kind of crap that came out of her mouth, always. But he was shocked. “Mother…”

“You’ve sacrificed your maidenhead to that man,” she interrupted. “As god is my witness. Hallelujah.”

Maria took a step to leave, but knew she wouldn’t let him go until she’d had her say. “It’s the least he can do, give it to you with a big one.”

“Mother…”

The Horror threw herself from the sofa and went to her knees. She gazed up beatifically, clasping her hands in prayer. “Dear Jesus, I beg you to hear my prayer, to deliver me from this vale of tears.”

Maria resisted an impulse to upbraid her for using the name of Jesus in vain. She continued, “Please Jesus, I’m so tired, so so tired, of all these little dicks.”

Laughter erupted and Maria said, “For god’s sake…”

“Please, please hear me lord, when I say…Give me a big one. Give me a juicy one….”

“Just stop it…”

The Horror contemplated her son for a moment then stood, spreading her arms to either side in wide Madonna arcs. “Give me my midnight miracle, a dick that doesn’t fade in the light of day. Hallelujah!”

With that, she sat back down on the sofa, and someone handed her a pipe.

Maria, too tired to respond, realized she was done. He nodded at his old friends and took his leave, The Horror shouting after him between sucks at the pipe. “You gotta hand it to those fags….”

Maria got to his room, but not quickly enough to escape her final say on the matter. “They sure can keep it up, but lordy, lordy, lordy how strange…the places they put it. Amen.”

Maria closed the door, knowing it wouldn’t do much to block the party sounds that cranked up almost the instant he left. Nor would it block his past, with the memories he couldn’t erase, of Señor Miguel bouncing between their knife thrusts like a ping-pong ball, knowing he was about to die. With Señor Miguel expired on the sidewalk, they rifled his pockets only to find spare change and a tiny book no bigger than a notepad, which was tossed to the gutter. As the police sirens sounded and the bad boys ran off, Maria grabbed the book, only to later discover it was a pocket-bible. Just inside the cover beneath Señor Miguel’s name was scrawled, Midnight Miracle Tabernacle, Umarizal.

* * *

Maria hopped from bed at 6:00AM, having spent the dregs of the night tossing and turning on his foam rubber mattress. The party went on for what seemed an eternity, but then the music faded and the die-hards straggled off. The property deed and money were to exchange hands later that morning, with Maria in attendance. But he couldn’t wait until then. He got up, dressed, and left, bracing himself for the fifteen block walk across town to the Zhogbi Hotel in the Comercio district, on the other side of what could now be called the “old” town, given the massive sprawl of a rapidly growing Belém.

Maria liked walking through the streets of Belém in the early morning, when he could imagine the Indians getting up with the sun and heading for the Bay of Guajará to bathe. But as he hurried along, Maria felt none of his atavistic sentiments, the sensation of a peaceful past that could be touched with a moment of imagination. He had to get to Terry.

Maria reached the Plaza of the Republic, and followed a sidewalk meandering though its tidy gardens, with its ornamental ponds, its pungent urine smells, and its passed-out drunks covered up by card-board as best they could. The hippies that slept in the grilled iron, European Baroque band-stand ware waking up, and a few of the women were walking quickly to the public toilets in the Theater of Peace, a big pink building with Ionian columns. Here, during the rubber boom of the 19th century, the world’s greatest symphonies had played, and society ladies promenaded with their parasols, anxious to know about the latest Parisian fashions. Maria loved to stroll the plaza, beneath its gigantic mango trees and troops of parakeets chirping more loudly than the sounds of the city, launching at first light to feeding frenzies on the Bay of Guajará. But not today. Maria had to get to Terry.

Across the Plaza and President Vargas Avenue, Maria passed into the Comercio, Belém’s counterpart to the down-low of the Reduto. This is where the city’s army of female prostitutes deployed in the evenings, and woe be to the naïve transgendered sex worker who accidently set foot here. But now the streets were empty, and gold rays of sunlight gilded the otherwise drab buildings. In a moment, Maria started his circumnavigation around the “Plaza of the Crater,” as the locals called the huge pit in front of the Zhogbi Hotel. The “Plaza of the Crater” had been bull-dozed and dynamited into existence some five years before, to make way for an underground parking lot. Since then, it had served as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and rats, and as a butt of jokes about local politicians. Once around the plaza, Maria headed straight for the hotel.

With a quick nod at the receptionist, Maria went for the cramped elevator and pressed the third floor button. After a slow ride up on the creaky contraption, he exited to the dimly lit corridor and went for room 317, where he knocked on the door. With no response, he knocked again, then again. It took awhile, but at last Maria heard padding on the floor, and the door opened. Terry nodded vaguely, turned, then went back to sit on the edge of his bed. He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. An empty bottle of aguardiente lay at his feet.

“Can I come in,” Maria asked. The air-conditioner groaned, saturating the room with mildewed air not much cooler than outside the building.

Terry said nothing, so Maria entered, taking care to step around the debris that lay scattered on the bare, linoleum floor, the ruse of the teenage gang to make it seem like they hadn’t known what they were looking for. Maria knew they’d probably torn up other rooms as well, to give what had happened to Terry the appearance of a blitz, the criminal equivalent of a “fishing expedition” meant to keep the police off their trail.

“What happened?” Maria asked, shocked at the haggard image of the reverend, dressed only in his undershorts. He’d never seen Terry in the flesh before, and wondered how a man could be so frail you could see the shadowy creases his ribs made.
Terry rocked back and forth on the bed, head in his hands.

“What happened?” Maria asked again, approaching now and sitting beside Terry. She put her arm around his shoulder. He was as tense as a drum and smelled of alcohol.

“Gone, gone, gone, gone…..” he said, timing his words to the rocking of his body.

“What’s gone?” Maria asked.

“Gone, gone, gone, gone…”

Terry continued rocking. But then he stopped, looked at Maria, and his face cracked into a wide smile as his eyes slipped deep into their sockets,
“Did you bring any booze?”

“What?”

“Did you bring any booze?”

But before Maria could say anything, the darkness possessed him again, and he put his head in his hands and resumed rocking. Maria whispered, “Is there anything I can do?”

Terry said nothing.

After what seemed like half an hour but might have only been five minutes, Maria went to the bathroom, soaked a hand towel in warm water, and returned. He knelt directly before Terry and lifted his face, ever so gently dabbing the towel at his temples and forehead, his lips, his slumped, naked shoulders. Done, Maria stood and manipulated Terry to his side, laying him down on the foam rubber mattress, lifting his legs to the bed and straightening his body out. Once he’d gotten him situated, Maria grabbed a sheet from the floor, covered him, and crawled in behind, making sure to avoid any revealing brushes of his lower anatomy, but OK with how his breasts gave cushion to Reverend Terry’s back.

They lay together in the dank room, as the air-conditioner groaned away, and as Maria stroked the Reverend’s hair, every once in awhile brushing his lip’s to Terry’s neck. Maria wrapped his arms around Terry from behind, felt the clammy skin, the boney frailty, and it broke his heart to see him so utterly devastated, the man she loved. Soon, their mutual warmth brought a comforting glow to the sheets, and Maria sighed with the pleasant feel of the Reverend against him.

The kisses came gently at first, he must have drifted off. They tickled, from somewhere in a dream, the body warm beside him, the man he’d always wanted. Maria woke to the heat of Terry’s lips, the urgency of his tongue and his boozy breath. He pushed away but Terry gripped him, kissing harder. “No, don’t.”

“I love you,” Terry said, in more of a moan than a voice.

“No, let go….”

Terry released him once he realized Maria was pushing away. He rolled to his back as Maria jumped from the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said in more of a moan than a voice, a hand on his head.

“That’s all right.” Maria straightened his cloths, rubbed his lips checking his lipstick.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Terry began to cry.

“It’s OK, don’t worry.”

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“So am I,” Maria said, wishing he could tell Terry why, but knowing he’d never be able to.

Terry curled up in a ball as the sobs broke, and as Maria lay down beside him again. This time, both fell into a deep and restful sleep. They woke together, happy for the fleeting instant before remembering there’d been a robbery, that the Midnight Miracle mission was not to be.

* * *

Maria put the last few mementos on top of his folded clothes and zipped his suitcase shut. Six weeks had passed since the robbery, since Pastor Terry had taken the first flight back to Georgia he could find. Maria hadn’t been able to answer his emails, although the ache in his heart grew heavier every day, for both guilt and longing. Six weeks. For some reason it had taken him that long to get his things in order. Leaving Belém for good wasn’t as easy as walking through the door and shutting it.

Maria scanned the naked walls of his room. In its dingy space, he could feel the throbbing absence of those he’d lived with in the Reduto, the abusive father lost to aguardiente, the half-sister taken by AIDS, the cousin cut down by the knives of a rival gang. Maria tried to conjure them, to recreate their voices, their laughter, their pain. There was nothing but a blank slate though, as if his memories had crumpled to dust. Yet, despite this emptiness, Maria felt an overwhelming nostalgia for those who’d passed in and out of his life, if only for brief episodes, even those who’d had little interest in him. Yes, Maria thought, it was time for him to disappear, to become like the memories he didn’t have.

The knock at the door brought Maria back from his reverie, and his mother entered. She looked about the room, and Maria saw the wistfulness in her eyes that came on rare occasions. To his surprise, it lingered. Of course, she’d been acting strangely these past few weeks, having stopped with the crack. “Your cab’s here.”

“OK.” Maria reached for his tiny suitcase and hefted it. But before he could craft his good-bye, his mother had questions.

“He really thought you were a woman?”

“Yes. He really thought I was a woman.”

“…..and he isn’t gay?”

She’d asked him this same question or some variant repeatedly for the past few weeks. Which was odd, because it wasn’t as if they’d ever paid much attention to “family” values.

“No. He isn’t gay. We’ve been over this, how many times?”

“I just don’t understand it.”

“What?”

“That you didn’t have sex.”

“Mother, I’ve told you. He took a chastity vow.”

The Horror shook her head, repeating “a chastity vow.”

“Yes. As in you don’t have sex?”

“I just don’t see how it’s possible, but if you say so.”

“Yes mother, it’s possible.”

The Horror contemplated her son, Maria, and as she did so, a thin smile worked into her lips. Maria prepared himself for the worst, so it relieved him when his mother said matter-of-factly, “Americans don’t like sex much, do they?”

“Not like Brazilians.”

When The Horror failed to continue, Maria fidgeted, wondering if this was it, time to say the word, good-bye, something he’d never had to say before. Good-bye to the dingy room, to the Reduto, to Belém, to the world as he had known it. But his mother wasn’t done.

“You’ll be wanting this.” She handed him a piece of paper with a name and phone number.

Maria took it, perplexed. “What is it?”

“The best plastic surgeon in Rio de Janeiro. He handles sex operations, all that freaky crap.”

It would take Maria years to save enough for that. Nevertheless, he was glad for the information and said, “Thanks.”

“You’ve got an appointment next week.”

“Next week?” Years of hard work and even then it might not be enough money for the operation, as expensive as they were. He eyed his mother suspiciously.

“I’ve already paid for everything. They’re expecting you.”

“What?” was all Maria could think to say.

“You heard me. Now go do it or I might have second thoughts.”

“But how? The money?” Maria was in shock.

“Whaddaya think? Gotta love that Zhogbi Hotel.”
For the first time in his life, Maria’s mother had utterly surprised him. “But your dreams?”

“Ah shucks, sugar-plum, dreams ain’t what they used to be. Don’t ever say your mamma didn’t let you cut your dick off.”

* * *

Pastor Terry stood in the hot Georgia sun, as the congregation slowly exited with its river of hand-shakes, wonderful sermons, and see-you-next-Sundays. He was glad to see the light in their eyes, hear the happy banter, which he took as evidence that he’d struck the right note in what he’d said to them, that his words of wisdom had settled with fatherly force. Of course, the story of the whale, the potential for salvation in the wake of sin, usually worked, particularly if you could add a few details of your own imperfect life, and show that all could be healed with the power of the lord’s love, one of the Bible’s most important truths. This he certainly knew from personal experience, having lost the church’s savings in a robbery the year before.

Pastor Terry had confessed what had happened to the congregation, and then received, to his everlasting joy, their forgiveness and blessing. Pastor Terry thought of her often, the beautiful woman from Brazil who’d come to him in his darkest hour, had saved him with her compassion, her willingness to accept his human weaknesses. Yes, he thought of Maria often, and after she’d walked down the aisle of the church, the last of his parishioners to leave, he took her hand, his mind already jumping ahead to what he’d say next Sunday. Life was wonderful, with the Bible’s truths to cultivate, and with the miracle of love to cherish.