Carly.
“You lost him, too?” Her voice roared like the waves. “You lose everybody, Jonah! You are cursed!”
Her face turned dark, covered in blood and tears and?—
He shot up from sweat-soaked sheets with a soft cry. He was trembling, a black, hot pit of fire in his stomach, tears pouring down his cheeks and into his open mouth.
He gasped for air, the sheets tangled around his legs and his skin clammy with sweat. The monitor light glowed, green and silent.
Blinking into the near darkness, he peered at the bassinet where his baby son slept peaceful and safe, his little chest rising and falling with life. No waves, no voices, just…baby’s breath.
Letting out a groan of raw relief, Jonah flung the covers off and swung his feet to the floor. It was second nature now, this middle-of-the-night check-in. But tonight, it wasn’t just duty. It was panic.
He stood on shaky legs, trying to wipe away the terror that had gripped him. The words that Carly had shouted at him.
You lose everybody, Jonah! You’re cursed!
Of course he was. He was living under a dark shadow of disaster and so was anyone who had the misfortune of loving him. Mom. Carly. Who was next?
Now adjusted to the darkness, he gazed at Atlas, his heart breaking. Exhaling shakily, he reached down, gently brushing the baby’s round, fuzzy head. Not him. Please, God, not him.
“Sorry, bud,” he whispered. “Just a bad dream.”
And of course he was having nightmares, now that he knew Sally and Gary Danes would be knocking at the door in exactly two days, threatening to take his child away. They’d called earlier that evening and said they’d be here on Saturday morning, the day after tomorrow.
Except tomorrow was already today.
So, no, the dream wasn’t random. It was a stark reminder of…everything.
Was poor Atlas doomed at birth? Did this curse cross generations? That thought seemed awfully…biblical.
The word landed in his head as if it were an actual direction. Like a GPS voice saying, “Turn here. Go there.”
To…the Bible?
He switched on the light next to his bed, the one Aunt Vivien said was specially designed not to wake a baby.
His heart thumped like a warning bell in his chest, the words echoing.You lose everybody! You’re cursed!
His gaze drifted toward the dresser, to the Bible his dad had left for him right after he’d arrived with Atlas. It was untouched, still at the same random angle in the same spot Dad put it. Jonah hadn’t so much as cracked it. But it was there, full of…Mom.
Could he find that passage again? The one Dad read that had Mom’s handwriting? “Taste and see,” it said. With his initials.
Had she written anything else that could help him?
He pushed up and grabbed the book, opening the cover, which announced that this was A Journal Bible. Underneath that, someone had written a short note.
For my friend, Melissa Lawson—may you find Him on every page.
With Christ’s Unending Love,
Deborah Sutherland.
It was dated…four months before the day she died.
He vaguely recalled a producer at her TV station named Deborah who’d spoken at his mother’s funeral, but he didn’t remember a word she’d said. She must have been important to give Mom her first and only Bible.
He flipped the parchment-thin pages, opening to the one marked with a long blue ribbon, hoping it was the passage Dad had read.
