Chapter 1

The contractions began before dawn, five months into Winslow’s mission, on the anniversary of John Lennon’s death.

As the pain gripped me, I was convinced I’d die in that RV, laboring out Winslow’s child. My blood would seep into the mattress to become another indelible stain. The baby wasn’t due for another five weeks and, twenty-first century or not, the prospect of childbirth terrified me. Especially alone. If I’d had a doctor to question, she might have been able to calm my fears. But my old doctor and her well-educated advice was a good thousand miles east. Somehow Winslow’s webmd.com search didn’t have the same soothing effect, though time proved him right. It wasn’t labor.

After I’d finished hyperventilating and the contractions stopped, I decided it was a sign. Winslow was thrilled when I said I wanted to name the baby John. He thought I’d finally bent to his way and found religion, that I’d been struck by the Holy Spirit on that Tuesday morning like Paul on the path to Damascus. I didn’t tell him that my Holy Spirit was a mop-topped singer who preached a scripture of rock-n-roll, drugs, and sex. It was easier to keep my mouth shut with Winslow—on many things.

He beamed at me all morning while I washed and packed away the dishes from his solitary breakfast—my stomach had been too upset to allow me to choke down anything.

He called Brother Jonah from the driver’s seat as I bagged our dirty clothes. “Frankie and I have a name,” Winslow said, the phone on speaker as it always was when he and Brother Jonah spoke. I hated that. But, then, I seemed to hate so many things these days. It infested me, brewing right alongside the baby shaping in my uterus. Sometimes I worried that my hate would warp our child. It kept me up at night. Until I hated myself for my hate, a vicious cycle.

In the beginning, when we’d first begun traveling, this trip had been our own wild adventure, Winslow’s and mine. For two people who had cleaved so close to steady and safe, this was risk. Every time we stopped to tank up in those first few weeks, the excitement built in my blood stream as the gallons ticked higher and higher. I imagined what miles we would cover with that gas, what destination we would find when it ran out. The states we would cross, what Americana sight I’d behold for the first time. Yellowstone geysers, the Gateway Arch, snow-capped Rocky Mountains.

The sands of that thrill were gone now, sifted out of me and left like a trail from one coast to another. I couldn’t reclaim it. And I’d certainly tried.

Winslow’s and Brother Jonah’s voices bounced against the ceiling, around the tiny ugly brown kitchen table and even smaller bathroom. Their conversation closed in around me in the bedroom. For a moment, I laid down on the bed, wrinkling the cover, and let myself cry, missing home so much stronger now than ever before. I didn’t even bother to hide it. The only good thing about being this pregnant was no one was going to say anything if I acted moody. I sniffled and ran my sleeves across my face, desperately searching for positives to stop the tears.

The RV park we were at was just outside Austin and was lovely, as many of them had been: grassy picnic areas and a lake just waiting to be marveled over. Even with winter settling in, this far south the sky was blue, the clouds pure white, and the trees vibrant. But the window’s view was blocked so even that brightness was denied me. Winslow had plastered it with more bumper stickers yesterday.

“Repent, sinners.” Or some variation thereof.

“You heading out, now?” Brother Jonah asked from Winslow’s phone. He’d blown a vocal cord years ago and now spoke in this raspy voice, almost a stage whisper. I’d originally thought someone who couldn’t speak above a whisper would be soothing. He wasn’t. No matter how many times I tried to talk myself out of it, the only word to describe Brother Jonah, both his voice and demeanor, was creepy.

I was especially sensitive to it today. Last night, Winslow proposed extending his mission for another year. Or really, he told me that we weren’t returning home in two weeks like we’d planned. It had been Brother Jonah’s idea, of course. Winslow didn’t seem to have any ideas that didn’t start with that man.

“Yes,” Winslow said. “Just as soon as Frankie’s ready.” They confirmed the destination, discussed their whys and hows again. So much agreement shouldn’t take long, but their conversations always lingered, as if they were enchanted with the other’s voice and reluctant to conclude the call. About the time they started swapping prayers and Bible verses as their main form of communication, I interrupted them.

“I’m ready,” I said, slipping into the passenger seat. Or trying to slip anyway. The baby made that verb more aspiration than reality.

“Frankie,” Brother Jonah said, “I’ve been praying for you. Winslow told me about the labor pains this morning.”

“Yes, thank you.” I tried for my most polite tone. Three years in Customer Service for the cable company back in Savannah during college meant I could sound pleasant regardless of how I truly felt.

“The good Lord Jesus Christ will lead you and Winslow. When it’s time, He will provide. If your faith is strong enough, there is nothing to fear. ‘Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.’ Jeremiah 17:7.”

Winslow nodded. I put on my sunglasses and just rubbed my bump.

“Your prayers and your words mean so much to us,” Winslow said. “We don’t know where we’d be without your guidance.”

Where would we be without Brother Jonah? It was a scenario I’d begun to play through in my head much too often these last few months. Who would have predicted I’d be living in an ancient RV eight months pregnant a year ago when Winslow first met Brother Jonah? Certainly not me. Then, I was still a paralegal and Winslow a bank loan manager, two young professionals building a nest egg for a house and family. Now, I wasn’t sure exactly who I was except for Winslow’s wife, a hostage to his mission, a mission I feared would never end. And who he was now...

They traded Amens and signed off. As Winslow moved the lumbering RV onto the road, I asked the question I’d asked every morning. “Where are we going today?”

“Sweet Hope, Texas.”

We’d been in Texas for a week and a half now, rarely staying anywhere too long. It was our second time through. The first time, we’d gone to all the big cities, where Winslow could spend a few hours preaching in front of a library or a fountain. Now, it was the smaller towns he targeted. This time, Winslow’s preaching was more focused, his enemy more specific.

“They have a Christmas display. Supposed to be the largest one for thirty miles,” he said.

“How long are we staying at this one?” I shifted, trying to ease the pain in my back without dropping the baby on my bladder. If I was lucky, I’d be able to go the trip without needing the rest room. I hated that tiny bathroom and avoided it if I could.

“There’s no campsite nearby that’s approved by Brother Jonah. And there’s another Christmas display at another town not too far off. I figure we’ll move on by afternoon. Hit the next one and then arrive in the Houston area by night.”

“Winslow?”

He looked at me. His eyes were still blue, so clear and bright I could break my heart just staring into them, and his hair was still dark blonde. But his resemblance to the man I married three years ago was that shallow. His delicate features were obscured by the large beard he’d begun growing when this all started, his hair also brushing his shoulders and turning straggly. He used to bike and run, keeping his frame at a bird-like thinness, his muscles and bones set together in slender harmony under sun-soaked skin. But after so long in the RV, his stomach was turning pudgy and only his face retained any color from standing outside so much. Even how he moved had changed. He claimed to be less of the earth, more with heaven, but Winslow had become weighted in his walk. And these were only the physical changes. The invisible ones were even more dramatic.

“I’m tired,” I said.

He smiled and patted my hand. “It’ll be another hour. Take a nap.”

It wasn’t what I meant.