Prayer sometimes means talking, like with the Lord’s Prayer or your Uncle Ben before Thanksgiving dinner. But sometimes it’s about keeping your mouth shut and listening, hoping that God will do the talking. That’s the kind of prayer I did the morning after Mary died.

I felt terrible. I felt wrong. I cried. I hadn’t cried once since all this business began. Didn’t cry over Carolyn walking out. Didn’t cry over my lost church. None of it. I felt strong, in the right. Now I felt in the wrong. I cried because I was ashamed.

God didn’t speak to me at first. Hours went by. Maybe God was waiting for me to get all the tears out. With the tears went my arrogance--my conviction I had all the moral high ground and everyone else was in the swamp. And when my self-righteousness had flowed down my cheeks, I heard God say, “you are forgiven my son; move on.” And so I did, chastised and knowing I was only God’s servant, not God.

I had called Carolyn from the accident site. Who was I going to call? I didn’t have a phone number for a taxi and when I asked the officer, he mumbled “I’m not the yellow pages.” He was not completely happy with what he saw--maybe suspicious, maybe just jittery from seeing death. I wanted Carolyn to call a cab for us but she said no, she would come herself.

All the way home John-John sat like a stone in Carolyn’s back seat, quiet, his lips turned down in a frown. I’d never seen him like this: the master of laughter and cheerful repartee silenced. None of us felt good about what had happened. When I stopped crying that next morning I wondered if John-John was feeling the same weight of grief. Did he need someone to talk to? When we dropped him off after the accident, he had whispered “good night pastor,” not “padre” but pastor. “We should talk,” I called to his back as he sloughed his way to his apartment door. He nodded I think, just barely, but I think I saw his head move.

Carolyn wanted to talk but not about the accident or Mary’s death. I told her it wasn’t a good time but she ignored me and asked if I’d seen her e-mail. I remembered it, subject line “I’ve been thinking,” but said I hadn’t, rather than admit I saw it but didn’t open it. “Well, I’ve been thinking,” she began but I stopped her with a promise I would call the next day. I did want to know what she was thinking.

“Are you doing alright?” Carolyn asked after answering her phone.

“I’m … fine,” I said.

“I called you this morning--not too early, but you didn’t answer.”

“I was in the midst of something,” I said.

“But you’re OK?”

“I don’t think you can be a part of someone dying and be ‘OK.’ It should affect you and this has taken a toll on me. I hope in the long run it’ll teach me something.”

“You shouldn’t say you were ‘a part of someone dying.’ That makes it sound like it was somehow your fault.”

“I’m not without blame.”

“You weren’t driving. She was driving.”

“Yea. I won‘t be drinking again soon.”

“Did you ever get a chance to read my e-mail?”

“The ‘I’ve been thinking’ one?”

“Yes.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, honey--“

“I’ll go look at it as soon as--“

“No, I‘m going to tell you right now what I‘ve been thinking.” Carolyn’s voice had a deliberately pleasant tone, out of sync with how I was feeling and different from what I’d mostly heard from her lately--the voice I think of as her mother’s voice. Still, I didn’t mind. It was actually good to hear at a time like this. “I hope you’ll consider this good news Dietrich. I want to come home.”

I never thought she wouldn’t “come home” at some point but still I hesitated before answering.

“Well honey,” she said, “you’re supposed to say ’I’m so glad’ or something like that. You do want me back don’t you?”

“Very much,” I said. And that was the truth; it’s just that I was so absorbed in last night’s catastrophe. I felt like somehow last night had been a tipping point. If God had not forgiven me and said “move on” maybe I would have needed to retreat in fear, call Charley and say “I’m sorry, I’ll do whatever you want to put things back how they were.” But God said “move on.” If Carolyn wanted to come back it would be to join me in moving forward. “I just hope you realize what you’re getting yourself into,” I told her. “It could be a rocky road ahead. Pretty soon, I’ll have to move out of the parsonage, to where --”

“Which is why you need me more than ever.”

Funny thing, the more you cry the easier it is to cry.

“You know I love you Dietrich.”

“I know you do Carolyn.”

All of us are flawed. That was last night’s lesson. You’d think a preacher would know that. Isn’t that the main message of the New Testament? Paul said all of us fall short of the glory of God. Which is why we need grace. It keeps us from spending all our time feeling guilty and being immobilized by uncertainty. But it shouldn’t lead to a swelled head or forgetting that mistakes are in our nature. Maybe I had become forgetful about myself and about John-John. I was depending too much on his facile way with obstacles. John-John, flawed. Me, flawed, Carolyn, Charley, Becky, all flawed. Maybe not Sagan. Sagan, at least so far, was a victim and a remarkable conqueror.

“When were you thinking of coming home?” I asked Carolyn.

“Soon. How soon can you be ready for us?”

“You know I had to tell Sandra to stop coming.” Sandra was our once-a-week cleaning lady.

“So you need to clean the house?”

“Nothing drastic.”

“Then how about tomorrow, after church.”

“Tomorrow is Sunday, isn’t it? I’ve been losing track of the days. Have you been in church since … you know?”

“This is my first time. Mom says they have a guest pastor coming in this week. A retired guy Charley found.”

“Has anyone asked about me?”

“Sure. Everywhere I go.”

“And what do you tell them?”

“That you’re on a mission for God.”

“Yea,” I said. “I hope that’s true. I want to believe it is.”

Carolyn was off to pack, me to clean the house. I was vacuuming when the doorbell rang. It was Jess, the newspaper editor. He had just come from checking the police reports and saw what had happened last night. Even though the highway patrol filed the report, a copy ended up with the Sheriff’s Department. I offered the editor a seat and some coffee or iced tea. He declined.

“How well do you know this fellow John Johnson who was with you last night?”

“Pretty well, my father knew him years ago.” That “my father knew him” was intended as a vague credential. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I was going over the report when the chief deputy came out. He asked if I was reading the ‘homicide’ report from last night. I said it looked more like an accidental death. He didn’t say anything for a second and then he mentioned Mr. Johnson being a convicted felon. Were you aware of that Dietrich?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure what for. Many years ago I’m told. Nothing violent is all that John-John … I mean Mr. Johnson told me about it. I didn’t think it was a big deal. Is it a big deal? I mean, I don‘t know how they can make this into a homicide. For one thing, the victim--Mary--was driving.”

“Did you see how it happened.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not proud to admit I was asleep in the back seat. We had been … maybe I shouldn’t say any more.”

“I’m here as a friend, Dietrich. Anything you say is off the record.”

“Alright then, we had all been drinking a little … too much. When we hit the tree I woke for a split second but hit my head and was knocked out. When I woke up, Mary was lying outside the car and John-John … well, he was coming out of the woods.”

“What was he doing in the woods?”

“Said he had to pee.”

“Did you tell the police you saw him in the woods?”

“No, I didn’t think a man taking a pee was worth putting in the report. Why do you ask?”