Ella grabs a stick and throws it into the water, watching the current steal it.
“Go away,” I murmur to Josh, closing my eyes again.
“Oh no,” he says, climbing into one of the bucket seats up front. “No more sleeping, or you’ll be up all night.”
And it occurs to me that I was sleeping, soundly, on a plastic bench seat, surrounded by noise. The time difference has me a bit upside down, but upside down never improved my sleep before. Josh and Ella—they aren’t wearing me out like most people do. Instead, I am utterly content when I’m with them.
For this brief moment, a chapter in the greater story, I feel as if I’m part of their little family.
“I’m used to staying up all night,” I say.
Josh stretches out on the front seat, extending his long legs and water sandals to the opposite side of the boat. “Mind if I join you?”
I push up to my elbows. “Are you giving me a choice?”
“Not really.” He pulls his ball cap over his eyes and sunglasses.
“If I don’t get to sleep, then neither do you.”
“I’m just resting my eyes.” He doesn’t rest them for long, though. I watch him open the storage compartment between the seats and check his phone.
“Nothing yet?”
“No. I keep hoping Sigmund will call with another update.”
“I didn’t mean to scare her.”
“I can only imagine she’s spent a lifetime being afraid.”
It’s a common bond between us, this fear.
“After the war,” he says, “about twelve thousand Nazis were detained near here at a place called Camp Orr. They created a group called the Spider to resurrect the Austrian Nazi Party and annex Austria back into Germany.”
I shiver at this thought. “Thank God they didn’t succeed.”
“Many people here thought the Nazis would take over their country again one day. After what they lived through, it must have been a terrifying thought.”
“The fear didn’t go away,” I say. “Perhaps it never went away for Annika.”
Josh glances toward Ella; she is quite content now building a fortress with stones and leaves on the riverbank. “‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.’”
I peek up over his shoulder to see if he’s reading the verse from his phone, but the phone’s no longer in his hand. “You’ve memorized it?”
“I clung to it for years.”
When I close my eyes again, it’s not to sleep. It’s a wall of sorts, blocking him out, and yet I see the picture of his wife in my mind, the photograph he had hanging in his office. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for him to watch her suffer and not to be able to take away her pain.
“How did you do that?” I ask, opening my eyes slowly.
He turns toward me now, propping his feet up on the bucket seat. “What?”
“How did you let Grace go?”
“She’ll never be completely gone, not from my heart at least, but she’s with her Father now, and I know...” His voice cracks, confidence melting in his love. “I know that He’s taking good care of her.”
God as a father is not the picture that I want to see. At least not as my father. But a father like Josh... I can see God in him. In men like Ethan and others at church who care well for their children.
“I’m sorry that your dad didn’t love you like he should have, Callie.”
