Page 120 of Weight of Guilt

Wren pressed her hand against her chest. “I’ve been praying all day.”

She wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but they slipped out.

Nash glanced at her, then back at the road.

“At the school. In the parking lot. At that gas station.” She rubbed the edge of the receipt between her fingers. “I don’t think I’ve prayed this much in years.”

He let that sit a moment. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.” She watched the headlights sweep around another curve. “I think after Christian disappeared, I got tired of asking God for things that He wouldn’t give me. He didn’t give me back my brother. My parents. My childhood.”

Nash didn’t interrupt.

“Then I got pregnant.” She swallowed. “My parents’ marriage fell apart. Dad left. Mom could barely get out of bed. Everything just kept happening, and somewhere in there I stopped expecting God to fix any of it. And if He wouldn’t fix things, then why believe in Him?”

The words sounded harsher once they were outside her head.

She stared down at the receipts. “I guess it wasn’t so much that I stopped believing. I just stopped talking and believing that God cared.”

Nash was quiet for a few seconds. “I get that.”

Wren looked at him.

His jaw tightened. “I’ve had a few conversations with God lately that were pretty one-sided.”

Something about the way he said it made her chest ache. “Did you get any answers?”

“Not the kind I wanted.”

Wren looked back at the road. “That’s encouraging.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “I do what I can.”

Despite herself, a tiny laugh escaped her. It disappeared almost as quickly.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to pray now.” She rubbed her thumb over the faded date. “I keep pleading with God to bring Mason home. That’s pretty much all I’ve got. I want to believe He’s listening, but I’m not sure.”

Nash nodded once. “That’s all God wants, right? For us to talk to Him. To believe Him and follow Him. To come to Him with our burdens.”

Ahead of them, the road crested a rise and stretched empty into the darkness.

No houses.

No lights.

Nothing.

“Something brought Roy out here every week,” she murmured. “Something besides Faye.”

“Yeah.”

“Which means there was something out here worth coming back for.”

Whatever it was, they hadn’t found it.

Not yet.

Wren came through Nora’s back door at 2:50. Nash had taken her to pick up her car before they both headed back.