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mother at a time like this but glad she had a chance to step in. Taking care of me as a baby was the great blessing of her “second act,” which is what she calls her middle age. Not that her second act is over yet, she says. Her second act is really just getting started, come to think of it. When she stops talking, things downstairs are quiet. “You hungry?” she asks. I shake my head. “You feeling any better?” she asks.
    â€œA little,” I say, and I am, but I make a face like I’m not, because I know Daze will sit there with me until I feel better or fall asleep, whichever comes first.

Chapter 2
    I N THE MORNING, THERE’S a small, flat box at the foot of my bed near where Titus is curled up sleeping. Inside are four separate baggies. Two of them hold about a spoonful each of dirt and rocks, and the third holds a large splinter. The fourth looks empty. They’re all fastened at the top with rubber bands, and underneath them is an index card that says what they are in uneven typewriter type:
Holy Soil from Bethlehem Hill; Stone from the top of the Mount of Olives; Sliver from the Cross of Jesus; Water from the River Jordan
.
    I shake the sliver of wood out onto my palm. Jesus’ cross was so large and heavy that he could hardly carry it up the hill on his back to Golgotha—even if they hadn’t been beating him the whole time. Eventually, he gave out and someone else had to carry it the rest of the way. But no matter how big the cross was, it’s hard to believe that two thousand years of slicing it into souvenir splinters wouldn’t have already used up the wood. The rest, I don’t know. Probably it depends on how high the hill of Bethlehem is, or the Mount of Olives. I picture long lines of nonstop pilgrims carrying away handfuls of pebbles from a mountain for years and years, the mountain shrinking just a tiny bit all the time, until it disappears.
    My father knocks, then swings open the door. He’s still wearing the brown robe, and he still smells like he hasn’t bathed, and I’m wondering if Phoebe let him sleep in the bed with her. Or if, inhabited by the spirit of the Apostle Paul, he even wanted to.
    â€œAre these real?” I ask him.
    â€œEverything’s real.”
    â€œI mean, are they what it says they are?”
    â€œThe River Jordan is a possibility,” he says. “Also the Mount of Olives. Their value may be more symbolic, however.”
    I hold up the empty bag where the water should be.
    â€œArid conditions,” he says.
    I pretend to examine the Mount of Olives bag, with its rough gray and black gravel. My father seems calmer this morning, but he’s still blinking a lot.
    â€œI bought these from a beggar,” he says. “He was crouched against the city wall with a stack of these boxes and a sign that said HOLY RELICS . I gave him my shoes.” While he’s talking, my father’s gaze shifts from the white sheer curtain at my window to my bookcase. The walls of my room are pale yellow with white woodwork, and the furniture, which was Phoebe’s furniture when she was little, is also white. All the bright white things in the room show up in warped miniature on my father’s dark, glassy eyes. His cheekbones have become so sharp you could fit an egg in the hollow underneath each of them.
    â€œI missed you,” I say, before I can stop myself.
    My father gives me a stern look. “‘Reject all falsity.’ Ephesians four:twenty-five.”
    Then I have to think about what I really meant, because he hears something in my voice that indicates that what I said doesn’t exactly match what I feel. That’s the prophet in him. What I really feel is that I miss him right now, more than I did when he was gone, even though he’s right here in front of me and we’re joined together in the Lord, which is the most important way to be joined. More important than being family,