Wildflowers by Robin Jones Gunn

tomorrow was already at Camp Heather Brook. It would have been worse if the food had gotten burned up.”
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    “Remember last year, when you catered the May Day event, our oven didn’t work?” Anna said. “That was a disaster.”
    “This was a worse disaster,” Mallory said as they got into the car.
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    The girls continued to express their opinions as Genevieve started the car and drove down silent Main Street. At the corner she turned left and noticed that the sun was beginning to illuminate the morning. Low, thin clouds padded the sky like strips of cotton gauze covering a wound.
    Genevieve felt the throbbing of the wound in her heart at the loss of the café. Brad and the others had given lots of suggestions on how she could rebuild and how the café would be even better. None of them had paused long enough for Genevieve to mourn. Not that she blamed them. None of them had suffered the same degree of loss she had.
    Why is it that I had such a definite spiritual moment last night by the tub, and then a few hours later my business is ruined? Did this happen because I told God I want to be made
well? Why would He allow the only source of happiness in my life to be destroyed? He could have stopped this from happening. If God loves me, then—
    “Mom, you missed the street to our house,” Mallory chirped from the backseat.
    Genevieve turned the car around and felt shivers of shock racing up her spine. The whole world seemed to be spinning out of control.
    Why would God ask me if I want to be made well and then push me to the edge of a mental breakdown? Am I about to lose my mind?
    Adjusting the rearview mirror, she examined her expression in the pale morning light. Her face looked normal. Distraught, yes. But not destroyed, like she felt inside. She looked fine. Except for her eyes. They stared back at a jagged angle and looked as if they were rimmed with dark soot smudges.
    A frightening comparison flooded Genevieve’s raw mind.
The café is like my life. On the outside, from a distance, no one would know my marriage has any problems. But inside I’ve been smoldering for a painfully long time. Is that what God is trying to show me? Is my life about to fall into ruin?
    She pulled into the driveway and pushed the button for the automatic garage door. The girls let out a cheer. Steven’s sports car was parked inside the garage. He was home early.
    Genevieve pulled into the garage and turned off the engine. Steven apparently heard them pulling in because he opened the backdoor. Still in uniform, he had a concerned expression on his face.
    Genevieve could imagine how disturbed Steven must have felt when he came home to find the house empty.
    For the first time in years, Genevieve ran to her husband, fell into his arms and wept.
    For the next hour, Steven became the strongest rock Genevieve had ever leaned on. He comforted her and the girls and fixed them hot tea and toast while Genevieve talked on the phone to Leah and gave her all the details. Mallory and Anna went back to bed while Genevieve sat shivering on the living room couch.
    Steven brought her a blanket and started a fire in the fireplace. He listened as she went over all the details for the third time. At last she stopped shivering.
    “Can I bring you some more tea?” Steven asked.
    “No, my stomach is too upset.”
    “Do you want to take a nap, or would it help if I tried to call the insurance company?”
    “I don’t think they’ll be in the office before nine.”
    “Why don’t you try to sleep for the next half hour or so? I’ll wake you up at nine.”
    “Steven, I think I should tell you something.”
    He sat at the end of the couch, and she put her blanket-wrapped feet on his lap. Steven began to rub her feet.
    “Something happened to me last night.” Genevieve could feel her heart pounding. She rarely had talked to Steven about any of the events in her spiritual journey. In the past she assumed he wouldn’t