Free Tidings of Great Boys by Shelley Adina

nodded, and then something caught Lissa’s eye in the orchard, and they headed off down the garden to investigate.
     I followed more slowly.
    Dad sat in his chair in the sun, murmuring to the chooks and stroking their creamy gold feathers.
    He hadn’t looked at me once.

    TRUST.
    Well, if you can’t trust your friends with what upsets you, who can you trust? As the girls wandered between the apple trees,
     I caught up to Carly.
    “Hey. Is everything all right? You looked upset at breakfast.”
    She leaned on a trunk and reached up to tug on one last, wrinkly holdout apple from its branch. “Do you ever get guilt attacks,
     Mac?”
    I took a second to regroup. “Sure.”
Daily
. “Why? Is someone guilting you?”
    “My mom.”
    Oh. Not good.
“I didn’t think you could be missing Brett so much, so soon. Do you want to talk about it?”
    She tried to smile, but tears glittered in her eyes. She used the heel of her hand to wipe them away. “She sent me a really
     nasty e-mail this morning. They postponed the wedding because of me, and she says she’s never going to forgive me.”
    “Ach, that’s terrible.” I pulled her close for a hug and felt her whole body heave as she tried not to cry. “Let it out, Carly.
     Just let it go.”
    As though distress were a signal, on the far side of the orchard Shani turned to look at us. She grabbed Gillian’s and Lissa’s
     arms and, as quick as the birds in the rose canes, surrounded Carly and me. Lissa fished a crumpled tissue out of her pocket,
     and Carly took it gratefully. I put them in the picture with a quick summary.
    “That’s so not fair,” Lissa said. “I can’t believe she’d lay that on you.”
    “That’s my mom,” Carly said on a sigh. “Why blame yourself when there are so many other people to blame?”
    “It’s not like her marriage depends on you,” Gillian agreed. “Why doesn’t she just go ahead with it?”
    “I don’t know. For some reason having my buy-in matters to her. All I want is for her to get on with her life so Papa can
     get on with his. I hate having to choose sides.”
    “This trip was supposed to take you out of the choice,” Shani put in. “If you’re here, you can’t be there. It doesn’t make
     sense that she’d cancel and then blame you for it.”
    “Since when did parents ever make any sense?” Gillian wanted to know.
    “Good point.” I had my own set of parents to prove that one. “But the thing is, you don’t have to take the blame. What she
     does is her own business.”
    “I’m a mean person to force her to cancel.”
    I couldn’t stand the misery in a face meant to dimple with happiness. “No, you’re not. You’re trying to be a neutral party.”
     I looked to the others for confirmation. “Right? She’s trying not to choose and it isn’t fair for her mom to make her.”
    “That’s right,” Lissa said. “She can throw gobs of guilt, but you don’t need to catch it. It does nobody any good and it just
     leaves you standing there with gunk all over you.”
    “Oh, thanks,” Shani said wryly. “I so want that image in my head all day.”
    Carly huffed something that might have been a laugh. “But what do I do?”
    “Don’t answer that e-mail,” I said. “It was probably just a bomb, anyway. Made to be dropped, not answered.”
    “We can pray,” Shani said softly, almost hesitantly, which is unusual for her. “Right here under this tree. Can’t we?”
    Gillian nodded. “You’re right. We can’t do anything about this situation. But God can do something about Carly’s feelings.
     And maybe her mom’s, too.”
    “That would be good,” Carly said. “I think that is what I really need, anyway.”
    So, right there in the orchard, standing in the frosty grass, they prayed for her, one after the other. I didn’t. For one
     thing, I had no idea what to say. And for another, there was such a big lump in my throat, I couldn’t have gotten a word past
     it.
    In the end, I did the