Free Once Upon a Family by Margaret Daley

but He isn’t ready to reveal it to me yet.”
    “He might never reveal it.”
    For a fleeting moment surprise flickered into his expression, but it quickly left. “Why do you say that?”
    “How do you know what God really wants? It’s not like He shouts it for the whole world to hear.”
    “Sometimes I think he does. Occasionally I’m not listening, and He smacks me upside my head to get my attention.”
    Laura opened the first rabbit cage and scooped the food pellets into the bowl. “Have you ever prayed and not been answered?”
    “I’ve gotten an answer, but it just might not be the one I want to hear. God works in His time, not ours.”
    Frustration churned her stomach as she closed the rabbit cage. “What happens when He abandons you?”
    “He doesn’t.”
    She rounded on him, clutching the two bags against her chest. “How do you know that?” After the past year she felt abandoned.
    His intense gaze drilled into her. He splayed his hand over his heart. “I know in here. There was a time I didn’t listen to Him, and I nearly ended up in jail and on a path of self-destruction that could have led to prison. He took me by the shoulders and shook some sense into me.”
    “He did?” The mockery leaked through her words.
    “Well, not Him actually but his instrument, Paul Henderson.”
    “Your foster father?”
    “Yes, that man and his wife saved me and at the time I didn’t even know I wanted to be saved. He wouldn’t let me pull any of my usual tricks when I went to a new foster home.”
    She approached the next rabbit cage and put the food inside. “Like what?”
    “I would sneak out at night. Guess who was waiting for me each time I tried? But Paul never got angry at me. He would just talk to me. At first I wouldn’t say anything, but before long I began pouring out my feelings, my anger to him. That was the best therapy. Keeping all that anger inside eats away at a person.”
    “Why were you so angry?” She remembered her e-mails to Cara and the talks they used to have in St. Louis when they lived next door to each other. She missed that and wished she had someone closer to confide in, but it wasn’t easy for her to tell anyone her problems. If Cara hadn’t lived so close and been aware of what went on in her house, she would never had opened up to her in the first place.
    Peter moved to the large ferret cage under the awning on the patio. Digger inspected what he put into his bowl, trying to eat the food before Peter finished. “My father left my mom when I was born so I never knew him, but she was always wonderful with me. We didn’t have much. Some days I didn’t get enough to eat. My mom worked two jobs to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. I think it wore her out. She died when I was ten, and I went into the foster care system because I had no relatives the state could find to take me in.”
    “Did you move around a lot?”
    “Not at first, but as I got older and angrier, I started doing things to get me kicked out of a house. From twelve to fifteen I was in eight different homes.” He started to bend over to pour the dry food into one of the large dog bowls, stopped and straightened, looking into her eyes with all the pain from his past blazing in their depths. “There aren’t enough good foster homes around. Paul and Alice Henderson’s was my last chance.”
    “Have you ever thought about taking a child in?”
    Peter filled the metal container with a day’s worth of dog food for Bosco and Shaggy. “Yes. I’ve even thought about adoption.” He walked to the hose and picked it up.
    “What’s stopping you?”
    His eyes widened as though her question had taken him by surprise. “You know, nothing really. But…” His voice faded into the silence.
    Transfixed by the thoughtful look that took over Peter’s expression, she waited for him to finish what he was about to say. His silence lengthened. A bird chirped in a nearby tree. Bosco came bounding around the