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Then she slips her phone low in her lap and angles the screen away from Evelyn. Curiosity has me leaning the tiniest bit until I see what she’s doing.

My mouth falls open.

She sends Wayne a picture of her bare breasts with an invitation to meet her after the service. I don’t understand how she can be so brazen here, of all places, where God watches the closest.

She notices my expression and flashes me a wicked smile.

I look back to see Wayne’s reaction, but my eyes land on someone else.

Edwin.

He stands in the aisle, cutting through the congregation like a shadow dropped into sunlight. Drenched in black, round sunglasses hiding his eyes, his mouth curved into something sinister. He looks plain wrong here.

I could swear his canines look longer.

A gasp slips out of me before I can stop it.

Evelyn turns. “Are you alright?”

I force my eyes back to the altar. When I risk a quick glance behind me, the aisle is empty.

I manage a tight smile. “I’m fine.”

But my pulse says otherwise.

Was he really there?

Or have I thought about him so much that my mind has begun placing him in spaces where he doesn’t belong?

Frank steps up to the pulpit, clearing his throat as the organ quiets. His presence fills the whole room. People lean in before he even says the first word.

“Time,” he begins, holding the Bible as if it weighs more than gold. “It slips through our fingers so easily. Some of us sprint through life without pausing. Others stand still so long they forget how to move.”

Several heads nod gently around the sanctuary.

“We never know how much of it we’re given,” he says. “And still we behave as if our days are endless. As if the people we love will always be waiting in the next room.”

My heart hurts.

Asher.

I see his smile. His hands. The small freckle beneath his right eye. The last time I saw him alive.

Tears burn in my eyes, and I wipe at them before they can fall. Evelyn’s hand settles on my knee.

Admiration radiates from her when she looks at Frank. Mother never looked at my father like that. Not once. There’s something tender in the way Evelyn watches her husband, like she’s part of every breath he takes. And Frank stands taller each time his eyes find hers.

“Our time is a gift,” he continues. “But we forget that. We waste it. We rush it. We fight it when we can’t understand why it runs out when it does.”

I swallow hard.

That’s exactly what this feels like.

Asher’s time ended and mine continued. No matter how hard I try, I can’t understand any of it.

The congregation recites a prayer together around me, voices rising in unison, but the sound rings in my ears instead of comforting me. They bow their heads and lift their hands to reach for a God I’m angry with.

If He exists, why did He take Asher?