Free Like Sweet Potato Pie by Jennifer Rogers Spinola

little, nagging, uneasy feeling about why Kyoko had come without warning. Right after I got kicked by a skinhead and told her I’d started reading the Bible and the Harlem Globetrotters came to The Green Tree. Which they did. But Kyoko didn’t believe a word of it.
    She thinks I’m losing it, and she came to see if her assumptions from a few weeks ago are true. Maybe to get me help.
    I blinked up into the dark ceiling, feeling torn in two directions. As much as I regretted it, my life no longer converged with Kyoko’s in Japan’s cherry-blossom splendor, wending our way through subway crowds to the shiny granite steps of the AP office building. Up, up, and up to awards and glory and tomorrows.
    In Staunton, Virginia, I found no glory. Just hard, painful starting over. In small-town, rural nowhere—the last place on earth I’d expect. Just like Adam’s amputee brother Rick, a war hero, grunting against agony to learn to walk again.
    And then there was Adam. Who, yes, drove a pickup. And hauled mulch and pruned shrubs to help care for Rick. Giving up the life he wanted for something better.
    And somehow greater.
    My eyes flickered to Mom’s journal and Bible on a side table, their gentle lines comforting even in the dark.
    Some things, I guessed, went beyond explaining. Kyoko would have to see for herself.
    And when she finally figured things out, back in her cushy office chair in Tokyo, I wouldn’t be around to hear her bawl me out.

    Kyoko’s snores wheezed from Mom’s bedroom—a guest room now, while I claimed Mom’s extra bedroom as mine. I eased slippered feet into the kitchen, the sky shining a dull cloudy gray through the curtains. A chill sank through the house; cold rain had spattered during my early morning run through Crawford Manor’s empty neighborhood streets.
    Christie stretched, toddling across the shiny floor like a ball of smoke.
    I glanced nervously at Kyoko’s closed bedroom door then scribbled a note. An addendum to my detailed instructions to take Christie out two hundred times an hour, don’t let her eat the kitchen chairs, and so forth. I tucked it on the counter so she could find it after she’d had some tea—to minimize the impact and improve her mood first.
    She’s going to hate you, Shiloh!
    Or maybe jet lag will take over, and she’ll never figure it out.
    I hesitated then kissed Christie good-bye and left her in the laundry room with her rubber chew toy. Floor well-papered with newspapers, and everything bite-able out of reach.
    While Christie whined at the laundry-room door, I grabbed my purse and sunglasses. Slipped on bone-colored Jimmy Choo heels at the door, another beautiful remnant of the life I no longer had.
    And backed out of the driveway, Bible on the passenger’s seat.

Chapter 6
    T he church rose over the hills like a glimpse of sun, exactly as MapQuest predicted. I pulled into an empty parking space and turned off the car. Just sat there, wondering if I’d lost my marbles—like Kyoko already thought—by coming here. Mom had probably parked this same car, in this same parking space, and only a few irretrievable months separated us.
    The sun hid again, and bitter wind tossed scarlet and brown leaves across the rain-wet parking lot. I shut the door and pulled my delicate sweater tighter around my soft ivory dress, the wispy bow trailing from my waist. Never in a million years did I guess, when I bought this combo at a trendy boutique in Shinjuku, that I’d wear it to a
church.
    I accepted a bulletin at the door, the whiff of pungent coffee spreading warmth throughout an otherwise chilly foyer lined with photo-scattered bulletin boards. A man’s voice slipped through the sanctuary door—along with pale light from the stained-glass cross, dappling the carpet and wooden pew backs. Spilling nearly to my feet.
    I slipped into the sanctuary with a faint squeak of the door, streaking those expensive heels with luminous color as the sun dazzled for a moment in the