I really only want to know one thing. When she died all Those Who Knew More Than I said You killed her to teach me something. If that’s true, why? If You knew me at all You would know I’m intently in tune with subtlety. I’ll show You my fortune cookie collection to prove it. But I understood and remembered the dream I had had a week before it happened. Whiteness. And she was sleeping. And later You made her tell me we needed to get rid of the traffic barricade under her bed because she Had A Feeling her mom was going to find it soon.

Twice two makes four.

She and I were supposed to go to the symphony with her dad. But the boy she liked was going to see Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band on the campus seminary lawn with her sister. So obviously, we had to change plans. I pouted, I had a bad feeling. Was that the lesson? Listen to the Holy Ghost lest your best friend drops dead at your feet? I suppose I shouldn’t expect subtlety from One With The Power To Smite and get away with it.

I married that boy later. It didn’t last but was that your plan? He brought me to California. When You killed her, the mad cap chain of events that brought me here, unemployed and with nothing to do but play house wife and write, was kicked into to motion. But did You want me to be a writer? Because I won’t write children’s stories or formulaic sinning-followed-by repenting-stories that are not unlike the endless, mindless ticking of a very loud clock. Who doesn’t know that lesson by now? Did You kill her to lead me here?

Because what I’ve learned is that You couldn’t have known me then. You wouldn’t have dropped her dead at my feet to teach me a lesson if you had. You would have known that I respect those who respect Me. That shows of brute force don’t frighten or intimidate. That I won’t write twice two makes four. That I’ll liken the intricacies of the human psyche to the complex and mysterious studies of particle physics. That I’ll call it dark matter not gray matter and that the endings might not be prostrate head bent and “oh I’m not worth the ground under which your other victims rot” repentances.

What I learned was that I don’t care for lessons and that I’d like to cut my own path.