“He’ll wake up in about half an hour. He’ll be groggy, but you can talk to him for a few minutes.”
We thank the doctor, and Caroline, Lilly, and I embrace silently. Caroline and Lilly are crying, but I’m so relieved, I feel as if I could float on air. We walk back out to the crowded waiting room. Ray and Toni Miller, along with their son, Tommy, are standing just outside the door. When the group sees Caroline’s tears, I can sense they think the news is bad. Ray looks at me anxiously, and I smile.
Caroline walks straight to Ray, reaches up, wraps her arms around his thick neck, and squeezes him tightly.
“You saved his life,” I hear her say through muffled sobs. “You saved Jack’s life.”
PART 1
1
The moment Katie Dean began to believe she’d been abandoned by God was on a Sunday afternoon in August 1992.
It was late in the summertime in Michigan. Katie, along with her mother and brothers and sister, had returned home earlier from the First Methodist Church in Casco Township. At seventeen, Kirk was her oldest sibling; then Kiri, sixteen; then Katie, who was just two months shy of her thirteenth birthday. Kody was the baby of the family at ten. They were gathered around the dining room table, waiting for Mother to bring the platter of fried chicken in from the kitchen.
The fresh smell of Lake Michigan floated through the open dining room windows, mingling with the sweet odors of chicken and garlic mashed potatoes. After lunch, Katie and Kiri were planning to pack a small basket with a Thermos of ice water, suntan lotion, and magazines, and hike to the sand dunes above the lake, where they would spend the afternoon lying in the sun and giggling about the Nelson boys, who lived just up the road. It would be their last visit to the dunes this summer. School was starting back the next morning.
Richard Dean, Katie’s father, sat listlessly on the other side of the table, staring into a glass of whiskey. He was thin and pale, with a thatch of dark hair above his furrowed brow. He was upset, but that wasn’t unusual. It seemed he was always upset.