picked up the cooler and carried it through the screen door. 'Whew,' he said, as he loaded it in the open trunk of the car, 'you have enough food and drink in here for a dozen people.'
'I wish you were coming, sir,' said Hap. 'Most of the rest of the fathers will be there.'
'I know. I know,' answered Winters. 'But your mother's going. And I need to do some private rehearsing for tonight.' He gave his son a brief hug. 'Besides, Hap, we've talked about this before. Lately I haven't felt comfortable at organized church activities. I believe that religion is between God and the individual.'
'You haven't always felt that way,' Betty interjected from the other side of the car. 'In fact, you used to love church picnics. You'd play softball and swim and we would laugh all evening.' There was just a trace of bitterness in her voice. 'Come on, Hap.' she said after a momentary pause 'We don't want to be late. Thank your father for helping us pack.'
'Thanks, Dad.' Hap climbed into the car and Winters closed the door behind him. They waved to each other as the Pontiac backed out of the driveway into the street. As they drove away, Winters mused to himself, I must spend more time with him. He needs me now. If I don't it will soon be too late.
He turned around and walked back into the house. At the refrigerator he stopped and opened the door. He poured himself a glass of orange juice. While he was drinking it, he looked idly around the kitchen. Already Betty had cleaned up the breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher. The counters were scrubbed. The morning paper was neatly folded on the breakfast table. The kitchen was tidy, orderly. Like his wife. She abhorred messes of all kinds. Winters remembered one morning, back when Hap was still in diapers and they were living in Norfolk Virginia. The little boy had been exuberantly pounding the kitchen table and suddenly his arms had flailed out, knocking Betty's cup of coffee and the creamer onto the floor. They both broke and made quite a mess all over the kitchen. Betty had stopped her meal abruptly. By the time she had returned to her cold scrambled eggs, there was not the slightest indication anywhere, not on the floors, the lower cupboard, or even in the wastebasket (she packed all the broken pieces neatly in the basket liner and then removed the entire bag to the outside cans), that there had been an accident.
Just to the right of the refrigerator in the Winterses' kitchen, hanging on the wall, there was a small plaque with simple lettering. 'For God so loved the world,' it said, 'that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe in Him shall have everlasting life ... John 3:16.' Vernon Winters saw this kitchen plaque every day, but he had not actually read the words for months, maybe even years. On this particular Saturday morning he read them and was moved. He thought about Betty's God, a God very similar to the one he had worshipped in his childhood and adolescence in Indiana, a quiet, calm, wise old man who sat up in heaven somewhere, watching everything, knowing everything, waiting to receive and answer our prayers. It was such a simple, beautiful image. 'Our Father, Who art in Heaven,' he said, recalling the hundreds maybe thousands of times that he had prayed in church, 'Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven ...'
And what is Thy will for me, old man, Winters thought, a little taken aback by his own irreverence. For eight years You have let me drift. Ignored me. Tested me like Job. Or maybe punished me. He walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. He took another sip from his orange juice. But have I been forgiven? I don't yet know. Never once in all that time have You given me a definite sign. Despite my prayers and my tears. One time, he thought, right after Libya, I wondered if maybe ...
He remembered being half asleep on the beach, lying on his back with his eyes closed on a big comfortable towel. In the distance he could hear the surf and children's voices, occasionally he could even distinguish Hap's voice or Betty's. The summer sun was warm, relaxing. A light began to dart about on the inside