Free Hidden Places by Lynn Austin Page A

floor as he closed his eyes and savored the first bite.
    ‘‘Mmm...Mmm! I believe I must have died and gone to heaven!’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve never tasted anything this good here on earth!’’
    The kids did more hopping around than a flea circus as they waited for Aunt Batty to dish up their portions. I tasted mine and discovered that Gabe was right—it was the most delicious thing I’d eaten in a long, long time.
    ‘‘Do angels eat ice cream up in heaven, Mr. Harper?’’ Becky asked after she’d eaten a few bites.
    ‘‘My daddy’s up in heaven and he would really like this,’’ Jimmy added.
    What little I could see of Gabe’s pale, bearded cheeks flushed bright pink. ‘‘I...uh...Ididn’t mean it that way. I’m not really—’’
    ‘‘Of course they do,’’ Aunt Batty cut in. ‘‘The Bible says that heaven is paradise, and how in the world could any place be paradise without ice cream?’’
    ‘‘Or candy,’’ Jimmy said.
    ‘‘And kitty cats.’’ Becky bent to let Arabella lick ice cream off her fingers. ‘‘Heaven must have kitty cats.’’
    ‘‘F-fishing holes.’’
    Luke’s voice was so soft I wasn’t sure if I’d heard right or not. But then I remembered the lazy summer evenings when Sam had taken his sons fishing. Luke must be remembering them, too.
    ‘‘Yeah, our daddy liked to go fishing,’’ Jimmy said. ‘‘Will they let him go fishing up in heaven?’’
    ‘‘It’s paradise!’’ Aunt Batty exclaimed, her arms spread wide. And that seemed to answer all of their questions. ‘‘Who wants more ice cream?’’
    Between the six of us we finished off the entire batch. Gabe said he felt cured for certain, but I touched his brow and it still felt warmer than it should. Aunt Batty decided to top off the evening by reading us some ‘‘literature,’’ as she called it. Now, I’d read the poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow before, but I’d never noticed how much dying there was in all of them—the blacksmith’s wife in ‘‘The Village Blacksmith,’’ the sea captain’s little girl in ‘‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’’ When I’d listened to all I could stand, I chased the kids up to bed, then lit into Aunt Batty like an angry mama bear.
    ‘‘I don’t ever want you reading poems about sadness and dying to my kids again, you hear me? We’ve seen enough death!’’ My harsh words bounced right off her like hail off a tin roof.
    ‘‘Dying is simply part of living, Toots.’’ Her childlike smile never left her face as her knitting needles flew. ‘‘Everything in the whole world has to die sometime. That’s the way God made things.’’
    ‘‘Then I don’t think God cares about life very much.’’
    ‘‘Oh, that’s not true!’’ Her knitting fell to the floor as she stood and gripped my arm. Concern was written all over her face. ‘‘Life is very precious to God. That’s why He made it so fragile and so short.’’
    ‘‘That makes absolutely no sense.’’
    ‘‘Yes, it does. He made it fragile so we would treasure it, just like He does. You’re not nearly as careful with your cast-iron frying pans as you are with your good china, are you? God wanted life to be precious to us—so He made it as frail as fine china.’’
    I sat at the kitchen table that night after everyone else had gone to bed, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Aunt Batty’s words rankled me, like a sliver that was too deep to dig out. Why hadn’t I treasured my husband’s life while I had the chance? Why had I taken him for granted and used him like...like an old castiron frying pan? I didn’t have any answers, only regrets, so I finally decided to go up to bed. But when I stood up, the first thing I saw was Gabe Harper’s burlap bag and I remembered that I hadn’t finished reading that last story of his.
    I pulled out the notebook labeled Prodigal Son and found the place where I’d left off:
I said that Simon was my only brother, but that’s