You Can Lead a Fact-Based Writer to Fiction, but You Can't Make Him Create

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio at Pexels.

I cannot write fiction.

I wish I could, but I can’t.

I’ve come to this conclusion as my wife embarks on her latest annual fiction-writing challenge. She loves making up stories. She’s a self-published author of lots of engaging book series. There’s some mystery stuff, some paranormal stuff, even some sci-fi stuff, but the one thread that runs through all of them is romance. Now, romance isn’t exactly my genre of choice, but she writes such rich and multilayered characters and engaging plot lines that I find myself waiting to discover what comes next at the end of each chapter. That’s the definition of writing a page-turner, I suppose. It’s a special gift that she possesses, and in a lot of ways I’m envious of it.

And I’m envious of it because I wish I possessed the ability to put together an engaging story with engaging characters. She makes it seem effortless. And every year she urges me to take part in her writing challenges with her.

This year, I decided I was finally going to get my book on spirituality out of my system. It wouldn’t be a work of fiction, but I decided maybe that was OK, because I can write good nonfiction. At least I think I can. I have a decent vocabulary and can build a persuasive argument. Heck, I work with words for a living. I was trained in practical writing. That’s what I’m good at. And that’s why I started my career as a reporter for a couple of Midwestern newspapers that you’ve probably never heard of. I was good at getting the facts out up top and explaining things clearly. There wasn’t really room for me to color the articles with my own artistic flourishes, which was OK because newspaper articles weren’t the place for that and, well, I just wasn’t very good at it anyway.

That’s not to say I haven’t tried writing fiction. I have. I’ve put a couple of bad examples up on this blog. And that’s why I decided that if I was going to take part in the writing challenge, the best thing for me to do was to stick to nonfiction.

So I bounced a lot of ideas around in my head, which is actually something I enjoy doing. I’m an innately curious person and almost always have thoughts of some sort rattling around in my cranium. And because I prefer to thoughtfully chew on ideas and figure out how to piece those ideas together in a logically coherent and consistent way, fitting disparate thoughts together like the pieces of a puzzle, I like to think that I often have a unique point of view to share with the world. Maybe that’s just conceit talking, but I fancy the idea that the reason I don’t fit into most people’s categories out in the real world is that digging in and examining the things that other people take for granted means that, almost by default, I end up never following the crowd. Anyway, I’d feel like a phony if I did.  

I say that because my problem with writing fiction isn’t that my head is empty of any ideas. Far from it. My brain truly never stops churning through thoughts and ideas. To the world, I’m a quiet man of few words, but in my skull it’s Grand Central Station, 24/7.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to take the thoughts and make them say what I want them to say. I fuss over getting everything right, even with my blog posts, and sometimes it leads to paralysis. I’ll publish a post, reread it, and think of 16 different things that I feel compelled to add. And I hit republish over and over until I’m finally satisfied. I can’t imagine what I’d be like writing a book. So after numerous failed false starts with this idea, I got impatient with myself and decided to put the project aside.

It’s not that I can’t organize the thoughts I want to get out. That part is easy for me. Again, it’s just making sure I say absolutely everything I want to say, in exactly the way I want to say it, and getting agitated when I think of something I missed. I don’t know that I’d ever be satisfied with a finished product.

There’s also the practical matter of the research I’d have to put in to cite my sources. That felt daunting, to the point of being overwhelming. I know a lot of time and effort goes into good storytelling, and the same is true for good nonfiction. And I found myself wanting to touch on so many points in my book-to-be that I think I’d find myself buried under source material trying to find references for my book’s footnotes. I don’t have the time to do that. I have a job to do, a house to help keep up as my wife recovers from her cancer treatments, a kid and pets that need attention, and a body that’s not doing so hot these days. It’s just hard to focus on something that doesn’t feel vital to the needs and demands of everyday life, I guess. It’s a luxury that I suppose I’m not allowing myself to have right now, or at least to prioritize enough to give it the time it needs to actually be good and not feel slapdash and undercooked.

Plus, I think I’m at a place in my life where I no longer feel the need to be heard. I used to take my time crafting and polishing 10,000-word posts on this blog because, as I said, I felt I had a unique point of view and I wanted to share it. I wanted to try to reach someone, anyone, and make some kind of a difference in the world. Now? Well, I think I’ve just gotten used to the fact that no one listens to me and probably never will, and there’s little I can do or say to have an impact on the world in any event. And I’m actually OK with that, where I think I used to be a lot more neurotic about wanting, even needing, to bend the world to my will. But that’s what everyone else does, and what does it really do but lead to needless conflict? There’s very little that any of us has any real control over in this life. You can come to terms with that, or you can burn yourself out with anxiety over things that you can’t do anything about.

As for my spiritual point of view, I still think it would be fun to share, and I would hope that it would cast a fresh perspective on things for people who struggle to feel a connection to established religious traditions. If I could reach even one person, I’d feel that I’d accomplished something and that the time spent putting the book together would have been worth it. So maybe someday I’ll still write that book. Maybe it will be in retirement. Who knows.

So with that idea set aside, I turned my attention to trying, one more time, to pull together enough ideas to write a story. I didn’t force myself to come up with an idea: As serendipity would have it, I just happened to have an idea rolling around in my head. Had I forced myself to come up with an idea from scratch, nothing would have ever happened. But I did have some rough ideas to work with, and I thought about how I’d craft them into a story that somebody would want to read. And I just got nowhere. I even monkeyed around with an AI engine — not to have it write for me, but just to try to generate some basic ideas that I could then expand on. Still, nothing.

I think the root of my problem is that I just don’t know how to characterize. Everything I write sounds like a book report or a Wikipedia article. I’m like the Joe Friday of writing: I gather and present just the facts. And there’s a place for that. But fiction is not necessarily that place.

What I mean is this: How do you make fictional characters sound human? How do you make them sound not wooden and mechanical, going through the motions, like a puppet that you’re moving from Point A to Point B with your words? And then, how much description do you need? And what is good description versus bad description? I have no idea, but for other writers it seems effortless to figure this out. People laugh at writers who turn out bad prose. But how do I know if mine is good or bad? What standard do you use? How do you find an engaging way to say your character walked to the kitchen for a light breakfast before walking out in the courtyard to plant flowers? I’m supposed to tell you how the sun illuminated the beautiful colors in the garden, and how the warm air felt good against our protagonist’s skin, and how the smells of spring intoxicated her, and what all this meant for her in that moment. But I can’t do that without just saying the literal thing that she walked to the kitchen, had breakfast, went outside, and planted flowers. A, B, C, D. Just the facts. I don’t know how to take those things and transform them into engaging prose that sings, that sticks with you because of how vivid and memorable the descriptions were. That’s my problem.

There seems to be an unwritten (heh) understanding among writers of what actually constitutes good writing. But it’s a very subjective thing, which stands to reason since art is inherently subjective. And it’s something that I guess you either get or you don’t. In that sense, maybe it’s more that good story writing is ultimately an intuitive thing. You can put paints and a blank canvas in front of a thousand people, but only one or two, if you’re lucky, are going to create anything that exceeds a Kindergarten level of aptitude. You either see the beauty in your head and can use your hands as a conduit to put those ideas out into the world for others to see, or you don’t. Creativity is just something you can’t force, and I’m not even sure you can successfully teach it to any great degree.

I’m like this with music as well. I understand music theory. I know what time and key signatures are. I know what notes go where on the staff. I know how to place my hands to make chords on guitars and keyboards. I even understand the logic of the circle of fifths. But I can’t actually do anything creative with that knowledge. For me it’s just all head knowledge. I can’t translate it into something expressive and beautiful. And I think that to expect that anyone can do it with just a little bit of practice and determination is to ask for something that ends up making a lot of people feel like a failure, as if they’re just not smart enough to figure it out.  

Likewise, I know the ins and outs of English grammar and mechanics. I was that weird kid who enjoyed diagramming sentences and figuring out the relationships between words in a sentence. I make my living as a copy editor because I understand how language works. But in the same way that I can’t sit down at a piano and write an original song full of depth and beauty, I can’t sit down at my laptop and craft you a story. For whatever reason, I just can’t.

But it’s OK. There’s no point getting mad or frustrated about it. If the artistic skill isn’t there, it simply isn’t there. That’s just the way it is.

And so I’ll leave it to my wife to write the fun books with the interesting characters. Head over to dreamwriter.earth if you want a sample of her good works. For me, for better or worse, I’m afraid you’re stuck reading dreary blog posts.   

Habemus Papam!

Well.

The first American pope.

The first Augustinian pope.

The first pope whose native language is English since Adrian IV almost 700 years ago. 

Who saw any of this coming?

One thing’s for sure: The election of Robert Prevost illustrates exactly why media predictions aren’t worth a hill of beans. Very few were talking about him as a papabile. All eyes were on the leading “conservative” and “progressive” candidates, as if Catholic doctrine should fit neatly into the modern left-right paradigm. It seems no one in the secular media bothered to wonder who the most Catholic candidate might be – the one most likely to uphold orthodox Catholic teaching. Cardinal Prevost may or may not be that person – time will tell – but to be elected on only the fourth ballot, in a conclave that everyone thought would go on for days or weeks, suggests that his fellow cardinals saw something in him that allowed them to trust that the church would be in good hands with him as its shepherd, for potentially as much as the next two decades. Prevost is just 69 years old, whereas Pope Francis was 76 and Pope Benedict XVI 78 when they were elected. 

Anyway, the saying holds true: Whoever enters the conclave as the pope exits the conclave as a cardinal. 

We don’t know why Prevost was the cardinals’ choice, and we may never know. My conspiratorial mind wants me to think that this was a direct rebuff of Trumpism: Where will American Catholics’ allegiances lie when Catholic doctrine conflicts with their president’s polemics? But that’s speculation on my part and nothing more. 

Second: You can tell a lot about a pope from the name he chooses. Prevost’s choice of Leo XIV is very likely a nod to Pope Leo XIII, who was the architect of Rerum Novarum, one of the founding documents of Catholic social teaching. Central to Catholic social teaching is the inherent dignity of the human being, coupled with calls to build solidarity and systems of subsidiarity that attempt to solve problems and raise people up at the most local level possible – with their families, friends, and communities. In a sense, Catholic social teaching is a reminder that “pro-life” means all life – all those on the margins. Widows, orphans, refugees, the poor, the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the forgotten. Too often has the church, especially the American church, made itself appear to have only one specific meaning for “pro-life.” My sense is that Leo XIV will challenge that perception and encourage faithful Catholics to expand their meaning of the term and extend their compassion to all those in need. 

In the same spirit, it should be noted that Rerum Novarum is also highly critical of both socialism and unrestrained capitalism, both of which lead to centralized ownership in the hands of a privileged few. Again, this is something not likely to sit well with some Catholics who have put worldly things before spiritual things and who have made an idol of their politics. People are going to be challenged, and hopefully those challenges will open hearts and bear good fruit. 

In short, I’m hopeful that Leo XIV will be a champion of both human rights and human dignity.

Will he be a Francis clone, bringing more controversy and confusion to the church? It could well be that the reason he was elected so quickly was that Francis packed the College of Cardinals with his own appointees to maximize the chances that his successor would be like him, and all the Francis sympathizers simply pushed him through. But my gut tells me that’s not what happened. From what little I’ve learned about him, Prevost appears to have a reputation for being balanced, temperate, kind, and a listener to all people and perspectives. And that could well be why he was chosen to be pope. 

There’s no doubt that the church needed someone balanced and willing to listen after the past dozen years of chaos, not another Francis with an agenda to ram through. We didn’t need a “conservative” pope or a “liberal” pope, and all the talk in that direction missed the point of what it is to be a good and effective leader of an institution. The only thing the secular media seemed to care about was the new pope’s position on abortion and homosexuality, not whether he’d be a good leader. After all, it should be no surprise that the pope’s position on these and other matters is going to be the unchangeable Catholic position, although the mixed signals, ambiguity, and outright confusion Francis sowed for so long perhaps makes it understandable that the press would be misled about the church and the immovability of its core articles of faith. When a legislator in Washington state proposed a bill to make priests break their seal of confession – a bill that is sadly now law, incidentally – and critics told her that to do so would violate church doctrine, her glib response was that the church should just change its doctrine. Well, it doesn’t work that way, and that’s clearly something the secular world just isn’t able to grasp. But, again, Francis unequivocally didn’t help in this regard, making church teaching appear malleable to the outside world. He did the church no favors, and the damage he did will take quite a bit of time to undo.  

The thing is, being a pope isn’t about winning points or owning the opposition – and this is something that even the trads and Trumper Catholics lost sight of. It’s about being the vicar of Christ on Earth and defending the church and its teachings. Francis, by all accounts a deeply political person and a fearful dictator when the cameras were off, a petty and spiteful and thin-skinned little man who was quick to silence and excommunicate his critics while turning a blind eye to near occasions of heresy and schism, a man who handed over the faithful underground church in China to the Communist government, a man who reviled traditional Catholics, a man who foisted Fiducia Supplicans on us, a man who allowed Nancy Pelosi to receive communion at a Vatican Mass when her own archbishop refused to commune for her support of abortion, failed on almost every count in terms of being a good leader.

Just the fact that Prevost appeared in traditional papal garments when he addressed the crowd, when Francis didn’t at his election, is a likely signal that he’s not going to thumb his nose at tradition the way Francis so often did with his false humility. It may also be a positive sign that he’ll reverse the draconian restrictions Francis placed on the Traditional Latin Mass. No, I don't expect Prevost to be a hardline traditionalist, but I sense that he’ll at least listen to reason and be charitable enough to understand that some Catholics just prefer the old Mass, and that they should be allowed to celebrate it.

Now, could Prevost have come out in traditional papal garb to try to present himself as a reasonable moderate when he’s not, thus making traditionalists look extreme and unreasonable when they push back? Of course that’s a possibility. Being an American, Prevost is certainly very aware of how out of touch American leftism has become, and that if the left wants to win any more elections, it has to make itself look more centrist even if it isn’t, by adopting more mainstream talking points and downplaying its more radical stances before the public. In this sense, Prevost could well be ahead of the curve in terms of contemporary political trends, serving as a precursor for how leftists will try to regain power: “Hey, look, we’re occupying the reasonable middle here. It’s those crazy dangerous far-right extremists who’ve lost the plot.” After 12 years of Francis’ wild unpredictability, it would make sense for those who think like him to want to recast themselves so that they too don’t come off as loose cannons. 

But all this is a worst-case scenario, and at least for now I remain hopeful that we aren’t being set up with a Trojan horse.

In any event, Catholic social teaching is one of the things that keeps me Catholic, and the fact that Cardinal Prevost chose a papal name with the probable intent of likening himself to the wonderful Leo XIII, the modern architect of Catholic social teaching, makes me very hopeful – more than I’ve been a long time as a Catholic. 

I’ve felt like I’ve been in a dream ever since Protodeacon Mamberti came out to announce the identity of the new pope. When I heard “Prevost,” I turned to my daughter and asked, “Did he say Prevost? He’s an American! There's no way!” And yet there it was: An American cardinal as our new pope. The thing no one thought would ever happen. It was always said that there would never be an American pope: Since the United States held so much political power in the world, it was always thought unwise to give it so much significant spritual power over the world as well. Thus, there would’t be an American pope until the U.S. found itself in decline as a world power. Perhaps Prevost’s election is a sign that we’ve arrived at that time, for good or bad. 

One thing’s for sure: Prevost was probably the only American bishop who could have ever had a realistic shot at becoming pope, given his high-level Vatican position as head of the Dicastery for Bishops since 2023. Cupich and Burke are both far too sectarian and polarizing – which, incidentally, is why cardinals like Zuppi, Tagle, and Sarah never had a realistic chance either. Among the American cardinals, Dolan, McElroy, O’Malley, Tobin, and Wuerl may have had a shot. But of the U.S. contingent, I’m encouraged that we got the one best suited for the job.    

The image I can’t get out of my mind from today was how humbled Cardinal Prevost seemed when he came out to address the Catholic faithful. He looked almost overwhelmed, perhaps on the verge of tears. It must indeed be overwhelming to one day be living your life as a cardinal most people don’t know about, and then to suddenly get thrust into the role of spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, all of whom will have their eyes on you, looking up to you for guidance and inspiration, for the rest of your life. His expression and reaction, to me, spoke volumes about where his heart is. He looks like a kind and gracious man, and I sincerely hope that he is. 

I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll see good things come out of this papacy. It certainly can’t be any worse than what we’ve endured over the past dozen years.

A Papacy Reaches Its End

I've made no secret of my dislike of Pope Francis. His papacy had the potential to be a great one, but that potential was quickly squandered by consistently poor leadership choices. 

I'm a cradle Catholic. I was away from the church for many years, and Francis was pope when I came back and settled in for good. I was initially a fan of his pastoral approach to the papacy, focusing less on doctrine and more on mercy, meeting imperfect people, often on the fringes, where they were. Unfortunately, over the years this approach resulted in a papacy that said and did things that often seemed at odds with essential Catholic teaching, causing no small amount of consternation and confusion for the faithful. When Francis would say something off the cuff that sounded out of bounds from a Catholic point of view, others in the Vatican would have to scramble to explain what the pope really meant to say. Lack of clarity is not a good quality for a leader of any organization, and in this area the Francis papacy regularly fell short. 

Then came his repeated attacks on the traditional Latin Mass. He placed significant restrictions on saying the old Mass, claiming that the "rigidity" of its attendees needed to be reined in. For a pope who spoke so much of mercy and reconcilation, he consistently offered a distressingly heavy hand toward the 1% (at most) of Catholics who prefer the old Mass to the new one. There were persistent rumors over the years that Francis had a dictatorial disposition behind the scenes that gave the lie to his friendly public-facing persona, and the old Mass was the one topic that perhaps caused the mask to slip and gave us a peek into what he was really like. Francis was of the generation that came charging out of Vatican II ready to rip out the communion rails and modernize the church, so his disdain for the old ways is somewhat to be expected -- but it certainly didn't endear him to a lot of Catholics. 

Glowing tributes are predictably pouring in. The world liked Francis because he projected an aura of openness and kindness and inclusiveness that came at the expense of adherence to church teaching. Our culture is hostile to Catholic values, so if the culture loved him, it was because the culture perceived him as abandoning the "old" ways and getting with the times. Francis notably did nothing during his papacy to clear up any disconnect between church teaching and public perception to the contrary, and in fact he usually added to the confusion. More often than not, he seemed to hate his own church. 

Francis stacked the College of Cardinals over the years with men who presumably embrace views similar to his own, so I'd say there's unfortunately a least a decent chance we'll get someone doctrinally similar to him as the 267th pope. We can only hope for something better. 

In any event, while I hope that he rests in peace, I will certainly not miss him.

Misadventures in Fiction: Skyway

Here's another example of bad fiction that came from one of our family writing challenges. I felt the need to publish it somewhere, after the work
I put into it. The challenge was to write about magical qualities in a painting.

And yes, I'm pretty sure there aren't actually any houses or apartments overlooking the Chicago Skyway. It's fiction. Deal with it.

Skyway

Chapter One

Sara sat up in bed with a start. Her heart was racing. She looked around in the dark, momentarily panicked, until her conscious mind whirred into gear and placed her in her bedroom.

She blew out a long breath, running her fingers through her long black wavy hair, and squinted at the clock next to her bed. Sure enough, it was two o’clock on the nose. Every day for two weeks, the piercing sound of that horn outside her apartment window had jolted her awake. In her mind, it rang out like an alarm, signifying some imminent danger. But when she came to, her ears would just catch the end of the real noise echoing from somewhere down on the ground.

Sara reached for her glasses and walked to the window by her bed. Where was that noise coming from? All she could see from her vantage point from the top floor of her apartment building were dots of light piercing through the darkness down below. There was simply no way to know who was blowing that horn, or why. Was it coming from the train tracks? From one of the container ships down at the docks? Maybe some disgruntled semi driver got cut off on the Skyway? It was anyone’s guess.

She’d asked all her neighbors who lived on the same floor if they’d heard the sound every night. No one else had. They must have been really sound sleepers to not hear that nightly blast that was shattering her restful slumber.

With a resigned sigh, Sara clicked the desk lamp on and sat down at her computer desk. She didn’t turn on her monitor but instead reached for her favorite devotional that she’d set down in the morning before rushing off to work. Reading a few verses of her beloved Bhagavad Gita always calmed her mind on nights like this so she could get back to sleep. The comfort came as much from Krishna’s wise words to Arjuna in the story as it did from the book itself. The book had belonged to her great-grandmother, who’d come from the old country long ago with her husband in search of a better life in America. The book ended up in Sara’s possession because nobody else wanted it when Great-Grandma died. To Sara, it was a connection to her family and her roots. And over the years, it came to mean even more.

Even though her grandparents and parents had both married other Indian-Americans, Sara saw that with each generation there was more and more “American” and less and less “Indian” in her family. It made her sad sometimes to read the Gita, because she knew that no one else cared about this piece of their family’s heritage. It was something not just spiritual but cultural. The old ways had once bound her family together. And while she still had a loving family, something had always gnawed at her. Growing up, Sara felt there was something like a hollow spot in her life, something that needed to be filled. Some people called that feeling a God-shaped hole in the human heart. For Sara, Krishna filled that inner yearning.

At a deeper level, so did Vishnu, the great creator as well as the fearsome destroyer. Krishna was Vishnu’s eighth avatar. He incarnates to restore order and goodness whenever the world is running out of virtue and overrun with evil. Sara sometimes wondered where Krishna was now, and when he was going to come back to fix this world filled with so much turmoil.

After reading a few pages, Sara felt relaxed enough to try to go back to sleep. She set down her book and paused for a moment to reflect on the little stone statue that sat next to the lamp. Sara got her name from her great-grandmother, who said she sensed that the new baby in the family would grow up to express herself through art. And so she became Saraswati Patel, named for the goddess of knowledge, education, poetry, and music. She’d picked up the Saraswati statue on a family trip to the old country when she was young. It, too, was a reminder of what her family had lost over the generations. Just the fact that she felt compelled to go by Sara and not Saraswati, because so many people stumbled over the deity’s name, was a constant reminder.

Besides, who was she to boast about a likeness to a goddess of the arts? Sure, she painted in her spare time, but by day she was just a kid a few years out of college, grinding away by day in graphic design for a company she felt little attachment to. And she was sure her superiors felt the same way about her. She was a worker drone getting the job done to pay the bills, nothing more. Her true passion was in painting, but so far she’d made enough from her art to maybe buy groceries for a week. Her great-grandma might have been right that she’d be graced with a gift for art, but if she relied on her paintings for her income, she would be a starving artist in more ways than one.

 

 

Chapter 2

The bitter March wind whipped against Sara’s face as she stepped off the bus. She put up her hood and hugged her coat as she briskly made the five-block walk to her apartment building.

Despite the cold winters, Chicago was a nice place to live and work, if you could afford it. But there was a reason Sara lived in the industrial part of the city and commuted downtown to work. Here she could afford to live, even if living consisted of a tiny four-room apartment in a neighborhood where you’d better hope you didn’t forget to lock your doors before bed. Living near the Skyway also gave her easy access to South Bend. Her family lived just on the other side of Lake Michigan, about an hour and a half away, and she drove out to visit them most weekends. She liked getting away from the hustle-bustle of the big city when she could. And it was always nice to go back to Notre Dame’s campus and take a peaceful walk along the lake. In some ways, it seemed like a lifetime ago that she was walking across the stage to receive her BFA from the dean.

Sara still kept in touch with her college friends, but as the years passed, it seemed they talked less and less as careers and families took priority for most. They were growing apart as graduation faded into the rearview mirror for all of them.

She wondered why they all seemed to adjust to this corporate 9-to-5 life so easily while she felt so restless. Surely there was more to life than working a job you didn’t love, just so you could exist, buy a few frivolities to distract you from the emptiness of it all, and then grow old, get sick, and die. What was the point of it all?

She shook her head and chuckled to herself. Krishna would have an answer, she told herself. He always did. In fact, she knew exactly what he’d tell her. He’d say she has a duty to society, to carry out the role assigned to her, to help others, to make wise decisions, and to basically lead a good and righteous life. Her brothers laughed at her when she got lost in her thoughts like this. They told her she needed to relax and enjoy life. But how could she, when she wasn’t living the life she wanted? Was being a corporate drone her destiny, her karma? She sure hoped not. She still dreamed of making a living with her art.

Needing some inspiration, Sara went right to her stack of paintings piled up in the corner of the dining room. The pile was getting bigger by the day, and they were starting to take over the room. She didn’t wish she had more space for them as much as she hoped she could actually sell them to appreciative buyers who might spread the word about her art. Then, maybe one day, she could give up her crummy day job and devote her life to her true passion.

She smiled as she flipped through the canvases, each one taking her back to a moment in her life when the artistic muses, or maybe Saraswati herself, came to visit her. Most of the time, she felt as if she was just a conduit for the art, as if some unseen force worked through her to choose the colors and create the vibrant brushstrokes that brought the blank white boards to life. Most of the pictures she painted were places she’d seen with her own eyes. South Bend, Notre Dame, downtown Chicago, sunrise at the lake, even a few scenes from the places her family had visited in the old country.

But her favorite by far was the scene she painted of the view from her bedroom window. Down there were the shipyards, the train tracks, the big metal suspension bridge that began the climb up the Skyway. It was gritty and industrial, but it was home. It was her view on the world. And that was why it hung on the wall in a place of pride. That one was too personal to sell. Besides, who’d want to look at that landscape? It might be familiar and comforting, but it’s not exactly an awe-inspiring view.

Sara went to the kitchen to heat up a frozen dinner. She wasn’t much of a cook, and she always wished she’d been given even a fraction of the gift for creating delicious meals that her mom used to make. Half the reason she went home on the weekends was just to get a good homecooked meal.

Grabbing a fork, she carried her dinner to her bedroom. She sat down at the desk and pulled up the day’s news on her computer. She hated TV and didn’t even own one, and she found social media to be a distraction, a place to get pulled into pointless arguments. It sapped her soul. If she needed entertainment, she’d pull up a cricket match with her online Willow subscription. Checking in on Virat Kohli’s latest exploits on the pitch could come later. For now, it was time to eat bad food and catch up on the world.

She had a routine she followed: News from India, news from the United States, news from Chicago, the arts, and sports. Something caught her eye when she got to the local news: a report that the police had thwarted an attempt to firebomb City Hall. With her curiosity leading her to follow a rabbit trail of links, she found that the group responsible had been on the FBI’s watchlist for trying to commit acts of economic terrorism around the country. They called themselves the Economic Liberation Front. ELF. Their goal was to target important infrastructure and economic hubs in an attempt to bring the capitalist system to its knees.

Sara couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy as she learned more about them. They believed the system was rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, leaving everyone else to scrape by on slave wages for their benefit. She couldn’t condone the terrorism, but she felt their anger and frustration at the unfairness of the system that she shared with them.

With her dinner finished, she scrolled over to Willow and settled in with a cricket match for the evening. Kohli, as usual, was the star of the show.

 

 

Chapter 3

Sara gasped as the blare from outside startled her awake. Once she was fully awake, she snatched her glasses from the side table and marched over to the window. Who was making that horrible noise, and why did no one else hear it? She knew that looking angrily out the window wasn’t going to give her any answers to what exactly was waking her up every night at 2 a.m., but her exasperation didn’t have any outlet. What was she going to do, call the police to report that a part of the city where cargo ships, trains, and 18-wheelers converge just happens to be noisy? That would be the least surprising news in the world. The cops would tell her to stop wasting their time.

She sat down at her desk and grabbed the Gita. But she was too agitated to read. Krishna, for once, was failing to put her at ease. She turned off the light and went to lie down, but she only ended up staring at the ceiling. She was wide awake.

Maybe painting would relax her. She got up, made a cup of tea, and dug out a fresh canvas to place on the easel. What would inspire her today? As usual, the answer came to her almost without thinking. As the sun was rising, she was putting the finishing touches on a portrait of Notre Dame’s Golden Dome, gleaming in the sun of an early autumn day. It was a scene from her own memory, etched into her mind from her first day on campus as a freshman. It was a day full of exhilaration and possibility, and a soothing warmth filled her being as she thought back to that day.

Sara put down her paints and brushes and stretched. She felt sleep starting to call her. Good thing it was Saturday – she didn’t have to worry about going to work exhausted. With a yawn, she got up and felt her bed calling her.

But as she was walking out of the room, something caught her eye. She backtracked into the living room and squinted at the painting on the wall. Something looked different, or maybe just felt different, about it, as if she was looking at it for the first time. But she was tired, and she decided to shrug it off and go to bed and try to sleep. Her sleep-deprived mind was probably playing tricks on her.

 

 

Chapter 4

Sara grunted as she looked at her bedside clock: 10 a.m. Well, at least she’d gotten a few hours of sleep. She reluctantly pulled back the covers and shuffled to the bathroom for a shower. Normally, she’d be at her parents’ house in South Bend by now, but they were gone for the weekend. She didn’t have any plans for the day.

She got dressed in her bedroom and smiled as she looked out at the sunny day. Yesterday was cold and blustery, typical for Chicago, but today was turning out to hold some promise. Maybe spring was finally coming. That thought made her happy enough that she decided to go out for a bike ride. There wasn’t much to see in her neighborhood, and it wasn’t the safest part of the city. But something told her to put her cares aside and go out for some fresh air and a recharge after a rough night. So she grabbed her bike, which was also parked along the dining room wall along with her paintings, and trudged down the stairs and into the sunlight.

It was much warmer than yesterday, and Sara let out a contented sigh as she started pedaling and the warm breeze welcomed her. It was a quiet ride, one that let her thoughts gently percolate as she pondered where life might take her one day.

In the short term, it was leading her down a narrow bike path off the streets. From the bumpiness and the overgrowth, she figured that not many people came down here. And why would they? This path led down to a dirt shore with a view of the shipyard. If you want to see picturesque views of the water in Chicago, you head out to Navy Pier, not to a bedraggled little bike path that empties out under the suspension bridge on the Skyway.

Sure enough, there wasn’t much to see under there. Just a lot of graffiti and some trash blowing around. When Sara thought it best to head back, she caught sight of what looked like a clump of fabric. Inching closer, she found that the fabric was a dirty blanket, and under the dirty blanket was a man who was as dirty as the blanket himself. 

Sara instinctively flinched when she realized there was a man lying there. She hesitated, wondering if she should leave for her own safety. But something told her to stay. To say something. Sara had never thought of herself as a particularly brave person, but she always listened to her intuition when it nagged her. And right now it was nagging her.

“Hello?” she said in a hesitant voice. The man was lying there with his eyes closed. Was he even alive?

She took a step forward. “Sir?”

The man grunted, and his wrinkled eyes blinked open.

“What do you want?” he asked in a raspy voice. Sara flinched as he pulled off the blanket and got to his feet.

“Nothing. Nothing. I’m sorry. I live in the apartment building over there” – she pointed to where she lived – “and I was just out riding my bike and I saw you here.”

“No one comes down here unless they want to cause me trouble.” He brushed off his threadbare shirt and pants, as if instinctively trying to make himself look presentable. Sara relaxed, sensing no threat from him. This was just an old man whom life had passed by. His broken teeth and scraggly beard told his life story more than any words could have at that moment. His blanket and the satchel he used for a pillow were probably all that he owned. And his outfit suggested a past life of manual labor: It looked like a work uniform, blue from head to toe. Maybe he was a mechanic, or a warehouse worker. Or maybe he’d worked on the very docks that his makeshift home overlooked.

The man narrowed his eyes at Sara. “You a social worker?”

She shook her head and managed a smile. “No. No, nothing like that. I honestly just came down here to see what was here.”

“Well,” he said, “you’ve seen what’s here. You can go now.”

It was obvious the man didn’t want to talk. But Sara felt bad just leaving him there in such a state.

“Can I at least bring you some food, or a cup of coffee? Maybe a fresh change of clothes?”

“I told you. You can go now.”

Sara thought she saw in his eyes a look of vulnerability. But he was refusing to let her see any cracks on his hardened exterior. He no doubt had his reasons not to trust other people.

“OK. I’m sorry, sir. You have a good day.”

He crossed his arms defiantly as she walked to her bike. As she rode away, she glanced back to see the man pulling a nearly empty glass bottle out of his satchel. She sighed and understood all too much about his life’s story.

Shaken by the encounter, Sara went home and called her older brother for advice. She felt drawn to help this man but powerless to do anything. Clearly, he’d had negative encounters with social workers and who knows who else. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard a life without a home would be. As she expected, her brother told her to leave him alone. He could be mentally ill. Dangerous. If you give him money, he’ll spend it on drugs and booze. Some people just can’t be helped, he said. Sometimes you have to let nature take its course.

Sara didn’t want him to be right. Surely she was led to the man for a reason. Surely there was some significance in having their paths cross. Karma dictated as much.

 

 

Chapter 5

The dreaded 2 o’clock horn blared Sara out of her sleep. By now this had become an annoying nightly routine. She’d get up, read from the Gita, and if that didn’t work, go out and paint something. But on this night, instead of jumping out of bed, she sat up, crossed her legs, and bowed her head.

“Lord Krishna,” she said, “please tell me. What is this noise that I hear and nobody else does? What is it that I’m supposed to know? I need your guidance.”

She sat in silence for a moment, hoping to find some clarity. When nothing came, she went out to the kitchen to heat up a glass of milk. She brought it back to her desk as she decided to catch up on the day’s news.

“Chicago police involved in shootout with domestic terrorist group,” read the headline at the top of the page.

She clicked in. ELF, the self-described Elves, had been planning to firebomb a bank on the south side, just a few miles from Sara’s apartment.

“Guys, I totally get it,” she said to herself between sips of milk, “but you can’t do this. Innocent people will get hurt.”

She shut down her computer and walked her empty glass to the kitchen. On her way back to bed, she stopped in her tracks: The same thing that had caught her attention yesterday was there again, on the painting of her bedroom window view. She hadn’t imagined it. She walked over for a closer look, and the instant it hit her, a shiver rattled through her body. There was a man on her painting. A man she hadn’t put there. And everything about him was blue, even his skin.

Sara knew: There was only one whose blue skin signified his transcendence, his infinite nature that exceeds the sky and the sea.

She fell to her knees, as much as from the weakness of shock as from the wave of humility and reverence that flooded her body. 

“Lord Krishna,” she said with her eyes closed, “I’m listening.”

 

 

Chapter 6

Sara tossed and turned all night. It was Monday morning, and she had to call in sick. There was no way she could function at work today. Not only did she feel like a zombie, but she couldn’t get her painting out of her mind. Once she went to bed, she wanted to go back and look at it again, just to see if she’d been imagining things. But she was too nervous. Was Krishna really calling out to her to do something? Or was she losing her marbles?

She couldn’t put it off any longer. She put on her glasses and forced herself out to the living room. She cautiously peered over at the painting from the other side of the room and slowly moved closer. Her heart raced: The blue man was still there.

What did this mean? What was she supposed to do? She went to the kitchen for some toast and tea. Bringing them back to the dining room table, she stared a hole through the painting and racked her brain.

Then she noticed something. The blue man was standing at the end of the Skyway’s suspension bridge that began the climb of the elevated expressway. That was the same place where she met the homeless man.

She gasped when she remembered that the man was wearing a blue uniform.

“Lord Krishna,” Sara said in a shaky voice, “are you disguising yourself as that man?”

And if so, what did that mean? What did she need to do?

She pondered for a moment, then sprang up from her chair to get dressed.

 

 

Chapter 7

Sara was sweating and shaking as she walked down to the dirt landing under the bridge. How exactly was a human supposed to address a deity?

“Excuse me, sir?”

Sara saw the familiar clump of dirty fabric that was his blanket. She waited for him to move. When he didn’t, she came closer, until she was practically leaning over him.

“Sir?”

Sara squealed as the man stirred from sleep with a loud grunt. He rubbed his eyes as he sat up. He blinked.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

Sara swallowed hard. “Hello, sir. Do you remember me? I came down here a few days ago.”

He looked her up and down quizzically. “You look different.”

If she really was having a face-to-face encounter with a deity, Sara decided she ought to dress appropriate to the occasion. She’d put on her best blouse with a pleated skirt, and she’d draped herself in a long colorful sari. She adorned herself in the most elegant jewelry she owned – long earrings, a bold necklace, and bangles on her wrists – and her hair was pulled up in an elegant bun. In one hand she held a paper cup, in the other a paper bag.

“I, uh… brought you something to eat, sir.” She extended her arms out to him, not knowing what else to say. How do you make an offering under these conditions? Was she doing it right? She’d made food offerings to the gods when she went to visit temples. That was straightforward. This felt very different.

The man eyed her suspiciously for a moment, and then finally reached for the items in her hands. He sat on the ground, put the cup down, and opened the bag.

“It’s just some coffee and a bagel sandwich from the deli down the street,” Sara said, pointing in the direction of the store. “It’s not much, but I’m a terrible cook, and I wouldn’t want to bring you something I tried to make.”

The man reached into the bag and pulled out the still steaming sandwich. With a puzzled look, he sniffed it. Looking up at her, he took a cautious bite.

Sara watched, wringing her hands.

“Have a seat,” he said, taking a bigger bite and making a satisfied noise. It looked like he was enjoying his first hot meal in a long time. That put Sara at ease, and she sat down cross-legged in front of him, waiting for him to say or do something so she’d know what to do next.

“So who are you?” he asked between bites.

She smiled. “My name is Sarasw – I mean, Sara. As I told you, I live in the apartments nearby. And something told me I should come back and… offer you something.”

He swallowed the last bite of his sandwich and tossed the crumpled paper wrapper aside. “You aren’t one of those crazy religious nuts, are you?”

Sara laughed, sure that he was thinking of the aggressive street preachers who’d told her over the years that she was going to hell for the crime of being a Hindu. “No, sir. I’m not here to convert you, or do anything else to interfere. I only wish to serve and help you.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. What would Krishna want her to say? She thought for a moment and cleared her throat. “Because I believe I am called in my devotion to do so, sir.”

He picked up his cup of coffee. “You don’t have to call me sir. Just call me George.”

She nodded as he took a sip. That was a very ordinary name for Lord Krishna to pick for this human incarnation.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, George?”

He shook his head. “You’ve already done more for me than anyone has in a long time.”

That warmed her heart. But she felt she should offer to do more. Maybe her hospitality was being tested.

“Do you need a place to stay? I don’t have much, but I can maybe—”

“No, no, no,” he said, waving her off. “This is my house. I’m used to it. I want to be here.”

“But… there are shelters that could maybe help—”

“No,” he said emphatically. “I don’t want to live by their rules. My life isn’t easy, but at least I’m free.”

She nodded, not quite understanding why he’d turn down assistance and shelter. But then she had heard stories of homeless people who were a lot like him, choosing to live on the streets and fend for themselves. Usually it was because they knew they’d get kicked out of a shelter for drinking or using drugs. Everyone knew substance abuse was a big problem among the homeless population.

“Do you have family? Friends?”

He finished his coffee and shook his head. “Wife kicked me out for drinking. No one else would take me in. The ones who did offer help always wanted something from me.”

What a sad existence, Sara thought. If he actually was human, of course. She still wasn’t quite sure who she was talking to. At first she was certain he was Krishna in the flesh, putting her faith and devotion to the test. But what if she was just talking to a real person who’s had a tragic life? Maybe Krishna sent her here to bring the man some comfort.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized it didn’t matter. Whether she was in the presence of Krishna or just showing kindness to a mortal man, she was still doing what in her heart felt like the right thing. Maybe the painting would offer some kind of clue when she went back home, now that she’d done what she felt she’d been called to do.

“Well, if I can ever do anything for you…” She stopped in mid-sentence, realizing he wasn’t just going to come knock on her door or ring her on the phone. She’d have to come to him. And she decided she would, whether he was Krishna or just George down on his luck. “May I come back to see you?”

He shrugged. “Sure. Not like I have a lot on my calendar.”

She laughed at his comment. That, in turn, caused his scraggly face to crack into a weary smile.

“You’re a very beautiful woman, Sara,” he said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

Sara felt as if she should have heard alarm bells going off in her head after that comment, from a man she barely knew, in a secluded place where no one would hear a cry for help. But she didn’t. She only saw sincerity in his face. She felt perfectly at ease.  

“That’s very kind of you, sir,” she said, lowering her gaze.

“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked with a sweeping gesture of his hand. “You didn’t look like this the other day.”

She raised her eyes to meet his and thought of how best to answer. “It’s something my culture does out of reverence,” she said finally.

“Reverence for what?”

What should she say? Did Krishna want her to acknowledge his presence?

“For when we see God in another person.”

He furrowed his brow. “You sure you aren’t one of those religious nuts?”

Sara laughed heartily. “I love my God with all my heart, but I can assure you I’m not crazy.” After seeing a little Krishna appear spontaneously on her painting, she felt she was assuring herself as much as him of her sanity.  

“Well, Sara, you can come back for a visit whenever you want.” He got himself up off the ground, and she took the gesture as a signal that it was time for her to go.

“I’m going to take you up on that offer,” she said, dusting herself off after rising to her feet. “You take care of yourself down here.”

He nodded. “I’ll do my best.” Then he extended his hand. Sara looked down to his hand, then up to his eyes. Again, she saw nothing but sincerity, and maybe a glint of gratitude.

She took his hand and shook it, realizing how hard it must be for him to offer his trust to someone after the life he’s lived. She gave him a warm smile and walked away, back to the comfort of her apartment. She had a feeling she’d never take what she had for granted ever again.

When she walked in, she glanced over at her painting. Krishna was still there, in the same place, in the same position. She’d half-expected him to have done something in acknowledgment of her act of charity.

“I hope I did the right thing, Lord Krishna,” she said, looking intently at the figure that had imposed itself on her painting.

 

 

Chapter 8

“But can’t you stop the drinking, George?”

Sara sat beneath the bridge with the homeless man, watching him eat his now-daily breakfast. This had become part of her morning routine. Feeling she was called to come back to George to check in on him and his well-being, she committed to heading down to the deli, ordering a coffee and a hot sandwich, and bringing it to him every morning. They’d make small talk for about half an hour. Even though George wasn’t very forthcoming about his life, it was obvious he appreciated the company. Then she’d excuse herself to go off to work for the day.   

The horn still sounded every night at 2 a.m., and Sara could never get back to sleep. She had no answers for what was happening. She’d just resigned herself to a life of sleep deprivation and strange happenings on her painting, assuming she must be working out her karma from a past life. And she came to assume that part of working out that karma must be to help this poor man who had no one to help him, no one else to care about him. Sara didn’t know if he was Krishna in disguise or not, but she didn’t care. He came into her life as someone in need, and that was enough. It cost her very little to show him a bit of human kindness.

Also, the little Krishna on her painting had never moved, and the only thing she could take from that is that she had more work to do, and that he was going to stay parked there, like a supernatural version of the little stick-figure guy on Google Maps, until her work was done.

The first day Sara came back to visit George, she was in her work clothes. Business casual. Slacks, flats, blouse, blazer. She wore her long hair back in a ponytail. That had prompted George to ask where her pretty outfit had gone from the other day.

“Oh, this is what I wear when I go to work,” she explained. “Once I leave here, I have to a catch a bus downtown.”

“Sounds like you have an important job,” George said.

Sara shrugged. “I work as a graphic designer.”   

“I don’t know what that means,” he said, “but it sounds impressive.”

Sara gently laughed. “It just means I work with images. Pictures.” She paused. “I also paint pictures in my spare time.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asked, seeming genuinely intrigued. “Of what?”

“Mostly landscapes. Places I’ve visited. Places that mean something important to me.” She looked around and smiled. “I sort of painted this place. I mean, I painted the bridge as it looks from my bedroom window.”

“I’ll bet that’s a really nice painting,” he said. “Maybe you could paint a picture of my house someday.”

Her eyes widened. “You would let me do that for you?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Oh, George, I would be honored. Maybe one day when I have time, I’ll come down here with a canvas and my paints. Would that be all right?”

He hesitated for a moment. Sara read his expression of one that said he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure he should.

“What is it, George?”

“I hate to ask,” he said, looking away and averting her eyes. “But do you think you could come back wearing that pretty outfit you had on?”

Sara blinked, looked down at her work attire, then back at George.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “You look very pretty. But when you came down here all dressed up in that fancy outfit…”

Sara tilted her head as his words trailed off. “What is it, George?”

“Well,” he said, looking at the ground, “don’t take this the wrong way, but you looked like a goddess.”

This was another one of those moments where Sara felt she should feel unsafe. She’d been in situations before when men had come on to her a little too strong, like all women have. People liked to comment on her tall, slender figure, her jet black hair, her deep brown eyes, and her rich brown skin. Sometimes she felt like American men were objectifying her for looking exotic and foreign. She knew some East Asian women who were treated like that. Whenever she received comments on her appearance, she’d always had a fairly good sense if someone was genuinely trying to give her a compliment versus reducing her to a stereotype or an exotic sex object.

From George, though, she felt nothing but sincere admiration. Something just told her that this man would never do anything to hurt her.    

“Thank you, George,” he said. “That’s very flattering of you to say.”

He managed to raise his head enough to hazard a look at her. “It’s the truth. When you came down here looking so beautiful, with food for me and all the kindness you showed me… well, it was like a goddess came down to save me.”

“Oh, George, I’m not here to save you. I’m just Sara. No one special.”

George shook his head. “No. You are special. Very special. Don’t you forget that.”

Sara wasn’t sure what to think about that, but she took the comment to heart. From every morning on, she came back dressed in her traditional Indian clothing, and the happy look on his face told her that it made a difference in his life. It was a small kindness she could offer him. It only meant that she had to go home after her morning visit to change into her work clothes, which meant coming down under the bridge a little earlier so she wouldn’t miss her bus.

But it wasn’t like she was sleeping anyway. When she got home for the night, she managed to get some food down and usually passed out from exhaustion around 10 or 11, before being awakened by that terrible horn a few short hours later.

Days turned to weeks, and Sara felt she’d established a friendship of sorts with George. She looked forward to their morning meetings, knowing that she was making a positive difference, however small, in his life. One beautiful Sunday morning, she brought her art supplies with her and sat down to give him his gift of a painting. She smiled as George did his best to slick back his hair and smooth out the wrinkles in his blue uniform. He sat on his blanket, leaned against his satchel, and managed a smile as Sara went to work. When she finished and showed him the painting, she could see his eyes welling up with tears.

George looked at the painting, then back to Sara. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” he said, his voice quivering. “When you’re homeless, you’re invisible to most people. The worst ones treat you like an animal. I’ve been insulted, yelled at, spit on, had trash thrown at me, even had people steal what little I owned. But none of that ever hurt as much as being ignored. Watching people hurry by and look away when they see you…” He sniffled and wiped away a tear.

Sara felt the sting of tears in her own eyes. It cost so little to take a few moments out of her day to show this man a little bit of kindness. Why did people have to be so mean, so cruel? It was something she’d always struggled to understand about humanity. Everyone seemed so self-absorbed, so short of time, so focused on making money. Her own brothers were like that. But what was the point of even being alive if you forget what it means to be genuinely human? To make authentic connections with people that touched their souls? To make a difference, no matter how small?

Overtaken by emotion, Sara reached out and pulled George into a hug. She let the tears fall against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her in return.

“I promise that I’ll always see you,” she said to him.

After that day, George began to let his defenses down a little bit, as he started giving Sara brief little peeks into his past life that over time added up to a rough sketch of a broken man. He had been a blue-collar worker, it turned out. He had a good job with an HVAC company, pension and all, but things were strained at home and he turned to alcohol to numb the pain and push through. He’d seen his own dad struggle with the bottle, and he swore he’d never go down that road. And then he did. And things unraveled quickly. He kept messing up on the job and missing a lot of work. He got fired. His wife, who was already fed up with him, told him to get off the couch, stop feeling sorry for himself, and get out and look for a new job. He said he tried. He’d pick up odd jobs, but he couldn’t reliably hold down any of them. Even worse, he was drinking his paychecks away. And when his wife finally tossed him out on his ear, he knew he had no one to blame but himself for how his life turned out.

She also learned a little bit about his prize possession, that tattered old blanket that had been the first thing she’d seen when she came up upon him the day they met.

“I grabbed this off my chair when Ellen was pushing me out the door,” he said, rubbing it thoughtfully with his rough hand. “It’s the only connection I have to my old life. Fortunately, nobody’s tried to steal this from me.” Now Sara understood why he was so protective of it.

Sara had seen his humanity. She felt she was making a positive difference in his life. It was in her nature to want to fix him and make him better. She’d always been like that, even when her brothers would mock her for what they called her bleeding heart. They did the same when she told them about her daily meetings with George. “Stop wasting your time on a bum,” they said. “You can’t help him. And you might get hurt in the process. You need to be more careful.”

Sara insisted that she knew George’s heart and said she felt as if Lord Krishna himself had sent her down under that bridge to get involved in that man’s life. Again, they mocked her for holding on to the superstitions of the old world. She didn’t dare tell them about the little Krishna who’d taken up residence on her painting. They’d think she’d completely lost her mind.

Their mockery only made Sara more determined to try to help George – not just bringing him breakfast every morning, but trying to help him get his life back on track. One Saturday morning, when she came down to sit with him, she noticed that he’d taken the painting she’d made for him and propped it up against one of the bridge pillars with an empty bottle of whiskey on each side. She felt compelled to say something.

“George,” she asked, jutting her chin toward the painting, “Where do you get those bottles? I see a lot of them down here.”

Goerge looked back at the empty bottles, then dropped his gaze as he turned back to her. “I find them laying around.”

“I don’t think that’s true, George.”

He didn’t answer.

“I don’t know where you get them, or how, but I know you’re struggling with this problem, and I’m asking if you can try to stop.”

After a long silence, he looked up at her, with a look that she thought wavered between anger and despair. “That’s none of your business, Sara.”

“But I feel like it is my business. I want to help you get better. I can take you somewhere to get help if you’ll let me.”

George drew in a deep breath as he clenched his fists and looked away. “I don’t want help.”

“I think you do,” she said, trying to remain calm even as she could see George’s building agitation. She reached out to touch his hand. “You’ve always been happy to accept my help, George. So why not now? Maybe someday you wouldn’t have to live like this anymore.”

George withdrew his hand. “What’s wrong with the way I live?” he snapped.

Sara tensed up at the sight of his unexpected outburst. “I… I just want to see you get better.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He quickly sprang to his feet and looked her in the eyes. “You need to leave now.”

Sara’s heart sank. “George, I’m sorry. I care about you. That’s all.”

He pointed to the path that led away from the bridge. “Leave.”

Without another word, Sara got to her feet and did as he asked. On her walk back to her apartment, she chanced a glance behind her, only to see George still standing there with his arms defiantly crossed, as if warning her not to try coming back. She shuffled on, wiping away a tear that had escaped from her eye. And when she got back to her apartment, she plopped down in a chair at her dining room table. There in front her was the painting. Krishna still stood there, unmoved. Suddenly, the tears came in a flood.

“Have I failed you, Lord Krishna?” she choked out. She didn’t expect an answer, but she was at a loss for what to do next. 

 

Chapter 9

Sara thought a lot about George as time went on. You can’t just walk into someone’s life the way she did and turn the feelings off. Part of her wanted to go down there under the bridge to see how he was doing, but she was afraid he’d run her off, and that would just make her heart break all over again.

She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, following her latest rude awakening. What was the point of all this? Why be startled awake by a blaring horn every night if she had no idea what significance it had? Why did Krishna decide to park himself on her painting if he didn’t show her some kind of concrete action she was supposed to take? She thought Krishna was pointing her to George, but George didn’t want her help. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take until she started cracking up. Maybe she needed to put in a call to a shrink.

With a deep sigh, she got out of bed and walked over to the desk. She plopped herself down and decided to catch up on the latest news, well aware that no more sleep would be coming that night. When she clicked into the local news, what she read made her heart jump into her throat.

“Michigan Street bridge destroyed in act of terrorism.”

“Oh, my dear God,” Sara said as she clicked into the story. The Elves had struck again, just a few hours earlier, under cover of darkness. The main bridge leading into the Magnificent Mile, the main center of commerce in downtown Chicago, had been wired with explosives. The leader of the Elves had left a handwritten manifesto at the explosion site, threatening more violence in the days to come. Dozens were dead and injured.

In a panic, she turned on her phone, knowing her parents in South Bend would have been frantically trying to reach her. She always turned her phone off at night, and now she wished she hadn’t, just knowing how worried her mom and dad would be. Sure enough, her phone spit out a deluge of worried texts and voicemails. Even though it was the middle of the night, she knew she had to call them back to let them know she was OK.

Except she wasn’t really OK. She was scared, just like the rest of the city probably was. When would this end? Who else would get killed?

 

Chapter 10

Sara was in the shower getting ready for work when her phone rang again. This is exactly why she normally turned off all but the most essential notifications during the day and shut the thing off at night. But with everything going on in Chicago, she decided it would be best to keep all lines of communication open.

Sara hurriedly shut off the water and wrapped herself in a towel as she ran to the kitchen table. She grimaced when she saw “Mom” on the display.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Sara, are you all right?”

“Yes, of course. We just talked about this four hours ago.”

Her mother sighed that exasperated sigh that Sara had come to know all too well over the years. “Sara, why don’t you own a television? There were more bombings.”

“What? Where?”

“Downtown. Sara, I think you should come home for a while. I’m scared for you.”

Sara knew there was nothing that economic terrorists would want to target in her gritty neighborhood, but she was as gentle as could be with her mother, who she knew only had her best interests at heart.

“I’ll come home like always this weekend, Mom,” she said. “I need to get online and see what’s going on before I leave for work. I promise I’ll be safe, OK?”

“OK, dear. I love you.”

Sara hit the “end call” button and moved with purpose to the desk in her bedroom. She clicked in to local news and gasped. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, hubs of economic activity, had been attacked. Suitcase bombs. Dozens dead and injured. As she was reading, a breaking news item came in that the police had stopped a similar attack on the Chicago Federal Reserve building. Bomb squads were on the scene. The city was in a panic. Rumors were swirling that the John Hancock Building and the old Sears Tower were the next targets, but nothing could be confirmed.

Sara’s phone rang again. It was her boss, calling to tell her to stay home until further notice.

She felt she was in a haze as she got dressed. There was so much fear and uncertainty in the air. What should she do? What should anyone do? What would happen next? Should she go home and get away from the craziness like her mom said? Sara ended up sitting back down at her desk, glued to the news that was coming in fast and furious. By 9 a.m. the mayor had ordered a lockdown of the city. There were rumors of martial law. By the afternoon, the National Guard was rolling into town. Sara could only sit helplessly at her computer, wondering where this would all lead and when it would end.

 

Chapter 11

The next day was Saturday, and Sara got ready to head out to South Bend. She packed a few clothes this time, just in case she couldn’t come back into the city for a while. There were now checkpoints coming in and out of Chicago on the major highways, and if things got worse, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get back to her apartment.

She dropped her duffel bag on the floor next to the dining room table and went to the kitchen to pour a bowl of cereal. Bleary-eyed and anxious, she sat down and shoved the spoonfuls into her mouth, just wanting to get on the road.

As she was finishing, something caught her eye. It was her painting again. She leaned forward and squinted through her glasses. Krishna was still there, in the same place he’d parked himself weeks before. But now there was something else.

When it hit her, she screamed and stumbled backwards. She tripped over her chair and landed with a thud on the floor. From where she was, she could still see it. Next to Krishna, also at the foot of the bridge, was now another figure. A taller figure, with matted hair and a third eye, holding a trident aloft. His expression was fierce.

Shiva. The destroyer.

With everything happening in the city, this had to be a warning. A warning of something ominous to come. But what? She wished that if the gods were trying to talk to her, they’d be more direct about what exactly it was they wanted. And why were they showing up at the foot of the Skyway bridge? Why not downtown, where all the attacks were taking place?

That’s when it hit her. The Skyway bridge. A bridge, that thousands of commercial trucks and rigs traveled every day to bring goods into and out of Chicago.

Sara got off the floor and grabbed her phone. The call went to voicemail.

“Mom, I might be a little late getting there. I need to go check on something before I go. I love you.”

She hurried to the bedroom and opened her closet door. She pulled out her best blouse and skirt, then went to put on her best jewelry and tied her hair up in a bun. She scurried to her front door and had her hand on the handle before looking down and realizing she was missing her sari. She darted back to the bedroom and wrapped herself up in it before finally heading out.

She knew this was the only way George would listen to her, and even then she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t been back to see him since the day he told her to leave. But this could be a matter of life and death. She at least had to try.

 

 

Chapter 12

Sara hurried down the trail that led to the underside of the bridge.

“George?” she called out when she got to the bottom. “George, are you here?”

In the distance, she saw the painting she’d made for him, still propped up against one of the bridge pillars. She saw his satchel, sitting unattended. But his blanket was gone. That seemed bad. He made a point of saying how important that blanket was to him.

A moment later, George came out from behind another concrete pillar, his blanket draped over his shoulders. He was zipping up his fly, apparently having just relieved himself. Sara breathed a sigh of relief to see him. He really didn’t go anywhere without his blanket, did he?

“George!” Sara waved at him, unsure if she should come any closer. He looked over at her, and she saw him take a hesitant step toward her before folding his arms and walking in the opposite direction. He took his blanket and spread it on the ground to sit down, his back turned to her.

Sara felt a flash of anger surge through her. But her compassion for this man’s well-being kept her from stomping back to her apartment and leaving him to his fate. She took a calming breath and walked slowly over to him, and she took the liberty of sitting down cross-legged on the corner of his blanket next to him.

“How are you, George? I’ve missed you.”

George sat silently, looking straight ahead of him.

“George, I am sincerely sorry if you thought I was trying to interfere too much in your life. I only did it because I cared about you. But maybe it wasn’t my place to say something. I hope you can forgive me.”

George was silent for a long moment before slowly turning to face her. “Sara, I’ve disappointed every person in my life who’s wanted to help me get on the wagon. I didn’t have the heart to disappoint you too.”

Sara had to choke back tears when she saw the pain in his eyes. She had a feeling that nothing she could say would be received well.

“George, I came back to tell you something. I think you might be in danger staying here.”

George furrowed his brow. “Sara, I was in danger every day when I stayed downtown. There was always someone looking to rob me, beat me up, knife me.” He looked around thoughtfully at the underside of the bridge. “No one comes here. No one bothers me. This is my safe space.”

She hesitated, wondering what she could say, or how she should say it, to get him to understand.

“George, have you heard about the bombings downtown?”

“Bombings?”

Sara nodded. “Terrorists blew up the Michigan Street bridge.”

George’s eyes widened.

“They also attacked the Mercantile Exchange and the Board of Trade. The whole city is on lockdown. They’re saying the Sears Tower or the John Hancock Building could be next.”

George shook his head. “That’s terrible. But what does that have to do with me?”

“I think they might be targeting this bridge next.”

George didn’t say anything. He just chewed on his lip, as if looking for the right words. After a long silence, he looked at her and said, simply, “Nope.”

Sara narrowed her eyes. “Nope what?”

“Nope, I’m not leaving.”

“What do you mean you’re not leaving?”

“Sara, I’ve had people like you lie to me for years. They try to lure me out, either by scaring me or promising me something. They just want to stick me in a shelter or get me into rehab. I’m not doing it.”

Sara huffed, trying to restrain her frustration. “George, I’m not a liar. You just said two minutes ago you didn’t want to disappoint me. Well, you should know that I’d be really disappointed if you died because you wouldn’t let me get you to safety.” 

Goerge looked away and shook his head. “I’ve heard it all before, Sara. You can stop.”

Sara balled her fists. “George, why do you refuse to let me help you? Why won’t you even help yourself? You’re a human being. You matter.”

“Go away, Sara,” George said coolly.

“So that’s it? You’re just going to throw your life away so easily?”

“My life has been over for a long time.”

That comment instantly cooled her anger. This poor man had given up the will to live. He’d resigned himself to his demons long ago. She needed to give up this fight. She’d done all she could.

Silently, Sara got to her feet and stood behind George. Taking a deep breath, she placed her hands on his shoulders.

“I love you, George.” The words came out with a hitch in her throat. She genuinely did love this man. She loved his humanity. She loved his heart. And her own heart ached to see that he ultimately refused to let himself be loved.

Wiping away the tears, she strode back to her apartment.

 

 

Chapter 13

“So there’s nothing you can do?”

Sara was on the phone with Chicago police, and she was quickly getting the impression that not even they were going to help.

“Lady, we’re one more bomb threat short of having martial law declared over the whole city,” said the frazzled officer on the other end of the line. “All our resources are tied up here. And all the legitimate threats involve targets downtown.”

Sara sighed. “Can’t you at least send someone out to, I don’t know, scope out the area or something? Just to make sure?”

“Lady, we have guys down at the shipyard who are always watching out for threats. Will it make you feel better if I call my buddies down there and tell them to be on alert?”

“Yes, if that’s the best I’m going to get. But I still don’t understand why you can’t send an officer down here, or somebody from the bomb squad. It’s not going to take that much time out of your day to come down here and make sure the bridge is secure. I mean, wouldn’t you rather know?”

Sara heard the officer let out a long, exasperated sigh. “All right. First just tell me where you heard about this so-called threat against the Skyway bridge. If there’s anything to it, I can send someone down there. But I don’t have the manpower to track down every imagined threat from people wanting attention.”

Now she was getting annoyed. Not only did the officer not seem to care, but she couldn’t tell him where the warning came from without getting locked up in a padded room. She looked at Shiva standing stone-faced on her painting next to Krishna and scowled at him.

“You know what? Never mind.” Beyond frustrated, she pulled the phone away from her face, pressed the “end call” button, and slammed it down on the table. She plopped down in a chair and frowned at Shiva.

“So you have the power to show up in my painting, but you won’t do anything to help? Thanks for nothing.”

Sara had already left another voicemail for her mom, saying she wouldn’t be home this weekend and assuring her that everything was fine. Something just came up. And the “something” was trying to get the police to come down to Skyway, and to try to get George to safety. She knew she shouldn’t even care about his fate, but she couldn’t help herself. She just didn’t know what to do. After heating up a TV dinner and eating it absently at the table, she went to her bedroom to pray. If Krishna was going to ever offer her any guidance at all, now was the time she needed it.

She wasn’t more than 10 minutes into her prayer before she went to lie down. Almost instantly, she passed out from exhaustion.

 

 

Chapter 14

The 2 a.m. horn once again roused Sara from sleep. At this point, she just treated it like a really loud alarm clock. She’d be happy if she could change the time it went off, or at least hit a snooze button. Since she couldn’t, she just made the best of it. This was a part of her existence now, apparently a permanent one.

Sara grabbed her glasses and made her usual walk over to the computer desk. Might as well see what’s happening downtown. Hopefully nothing else had exploded.

It turned out nothing had, but the news articles were getting more and more distressing, as people in Chicago were going from panic to hysteria. People were throwing around blame, attacking each other, acting out of fear and paranoia. Shaking her head, Sara turned off her monitor and stepped away. Everyone else could get sucked into this irrational drama, but she refused to be a part of it.

She went to the kitchen to heat up a cup of tea, then sat down at her usual spot at the table to sip it. The tea tended to calm her down, even if it didn’t help her get back to sleep. She sighed as she looked up absently at her painting. That stupid painting that had caused her so much grief. She had half a mind to take it outside, light it on fire, and be done with it once and for all.

But that all changed when she squinted to take a closer look. Had something changed again? She thought it had. And if so, what this time?

When she saw it, she scooted her chair back in a panic and ran to the bedroom as her teacup shattered against the floor. Slipping in to the first pair of shoes she could find, she ran out the door in her pajamas and flew down the stairs. She didn’t know how much time she had.

In the painting, the Skyway bridge was gone.

 

 

Chapter 15

“George!”

Sara was scanning the underside of the bridge with the light of her phone.

“George, where are you?”

She couldn’t see anything in the dark. Next thing she knew, she was falling off her feet. She landed hard with a thud, face down into the dirt.

That hurt bad. As she stumbled to her knees, she could see that her glasses were sitting crooked on her face. As she went to wipe her face off, she could feel something wet coming from her cheek and her nose. She was bleeding, but she couldn’t tell how much in the dark.

Sara looked behind her to see what had tripped her up. She pointed her flashlight at it: It was George’s blanket. She’d just tripped over his sleeping body. Looking closer, she wondered why it looked like the blanket had spiderwebs covering it. Then she realized it was her glasses. The lenses had shattered in the fall.

Somehow George hadn’t woken up when she tripped over him. She leaned down over him to shake him awake.

“George, it’s Sara. Wake up, please.”

George grunted as his eyes fluttered open. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a groggy voice. He wasn’t just tired – his breath reeked of alcohol.

“George, it’s very important that you talk to me right now. Did you see anybody down here tonight sneaking around?”

George struggled to keep his eyes open. “I passed out.”

Sara frowned at him. Knowing she had no time to lose, she got up and shone her light toward the pillars and the underside of the bridge. It was hard to see anything through her broken glasses, and the rocks and uneven ground kept making her stumble. Were there wires? Explosives? She needed to know. As she was walking toward one of the pillars, she stumbled over a rock jutting out of the ground and fell down hard again. She cried out as pain seared from her ankle. She tried getting to her feet, but it was no use: Her ankle wouldn’t bear her weight. Struggling to her knees, she managed to shine her light up against the pillar, and through her spiderwebbed vision she could make out what looked to be a string of wires that hadn’t been there before. She panicked.

“George, you need to get out of here right now!” She shone her light back toward where he was still lying. He wasn’t moving. She dragged herself over to him and dialed 911 on her phone.

“I’m under the east end of the Skyway bridge, and it looks like it’s wired to blow up.”

“Your name and location, please?” came the dispatcher’s voice.

“My name is Sara Patel, and I told you I’m under the Skyway bridge. Please send someone. I’m injured and I’m trying to rescue someone else.”

“One moment, please.” The line went silent for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the dispatcher came back.

“Ma’am, I do want you to be aware that the shipyard called in suspicious activity from your location, and officers are en route. Please stay where you are until help arrives. Do you need medical attention?”

“Yes. I think my ankle is broken.”

The dispatcher said something, but it was drowned out by the sound of approaching cars and sirens. In a  flash, the area was teeming with police officers shining flashlights. One of the officers blinded her with a beam to her face.

“Don’t move!” the officer barked. “We have the area surrounded. Show me your hands.”

Sara ambled to her knees so she could raise her hands in clear view of the police. “I’m not the one you want!” she yelled. “I came down here to help get a man to safety.”

Down near the water, she heard a commotion and saw flashlights bobbing toward some unseen target. The lights spread out. Then they retreated as a voice came blaring over a loudspeaker to clear the area.

“What’s going on?” Sara called out.

“We’ve located the bomber,” the faceless officer said. “He’s about 50 yards behind you. I need you to come toward me, very slowly and very carefully.”

“I can’t!”

Sara looked behind her, wondering if she could spot the bomber. But it was simply too dark. The police had all moved out from under the bridge. She overheard something about a handheld detonator and negotiations. Tension hung thick in the air. Sara didn’t know what was going to happen next. But apparently, from what she could make out among the nervous discussions among the officers, the mastermind behind the Elves had been here earlier in the night, wiring up the bridge for detonation. Someone at the shipyard had called in suspicious activity. Apparently, the officer she’d spoken to earlier actually did talk to someone at the shipyard to put them on alert.

“Who is the person with you?” she heard the officer ask.

“His name is George. He lives under this bridge. I’m trying to get him up.” Sara pushed at him. “George, you need to get up, now. Please.”

George’s eyes fluttered open again. He looked up at her, then around at all the flashlights piercing through the dark. Confusion and panic danced in his eyes.

“Sara, what’s going on?”

“Someone is trying to blow up the bridge. You need to go. Please get up!”

Panic filled George’s face. “They’re going to take me to jail. I’m not leaving.”

“George, what is wrong with you? They’re here to help you!”

“I don’t want anyone’s help!”

Sara looked from George to the officer. “Can you please come get him?” she yelled.

“Ma’am, he’s just a bum. Leave him. He doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, he does!” she screamed. “He’s my friend. I’m not leaving until you pull him out of here.”

Silence on the other end. Then the officer spoke.

“Ma’am, we can only spare one man. It’s too dangerous. I’m sending him in right now.”

Sara tossed George’s blanket aside and punched feverishly at the arm closest to her. “Get up, you stubborn man!”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she saw the silhouette of a man in armor reaching out for her. She swatted his arm away.

“Get him up first!” she demanded. The armored man hesitated but pulled George to his feet. When he did, George tried to push the man off.

“I’m not going!” he yelled. “This is my house!”

But in his weakened state, he was easily overpowered, and the armored man managed to put George into a fireman’s carry and haul him to safety. In a flash, the same man returned to scoop Sara up in his arms and set her down next to George. She looked around in confusion as she heard someone saying something about the bridge going straight down if it blew. She took that to mean they were a safe distance away if the worst were to happen.

Is this what Krishna had sent her to do, then? To save this stubborn old man before it was too late? So that he might be able to pick up the pieces of a broken life and start over? She could only ever wonder.

An officer was on a bullhorn. Sara couldn’t make out what he was saying. She only knew he was talking to the bomber. It was impossible to tell if the negotiations were working or not, but the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

George was lying next to her. He rubbed his eyes as if to get a clearer look at her.

“Why did you save me?” he asked.

Sara winced at the pain in her ankle as she shifted to get a better look at him.

“Because you’re worth saving,” she said, a tear streaming down her cheek from the pain. “And because I love you.”    

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Sara watched anxiously as it looked like he was going to fall back to sleep. Then she jumped as his eyes flashed back open.

“Sara!”

“What? What is it?”

“My blanket! I don’t have my blanket!”

Oh, no. She’d yanked the blanket off him to get him up, and in the commotion, it had been left under the bridge.

George needed his blanket. That was his only connection to his old life. The only possession that was dear to him.

She scurried away from him without a thought, dragging herself to where she remembered his blanket was.

“Ma’am, do not go back in there!” she heard the officer saying behind her. George was also saying something in a panicked voice, but she couldn’t make it out.

Trying to hurry, she pulled herself to her feet. Instantly, she screamed as she buckled from the pain of her unnaturally twisted ankle. Yet she forced herself forward, hopping on one foot and holding her phone in her hand to light up George’s blanket. She spotted it and stretched for it, but she stretched too far and slammed into the ground.

There were voices swirling all around her. Panicked voices. The officer behind her was yelling something. The one on the bullhorn sounded frantic. And the rest of the team was shouting orders back and forth. She had no idea what was happening, but something was imminent. She was sure of it.

Sara’s heart was racing. Gritting her teeth, she got to her knees and clutched the blanket. Before she turned to crawl away with it, a horrifically loud noise drowned out all the surrounding commotion. She clutched her hands over her ears. Looking to her right, she saw a huge container ship suddenly lighting up at the docks. The operator was blowing his horn in the direction of the bomber. She could vaguely make out a small handful of men shouting on the ship with guns pointed.

That sound. It was the horn that had haunted her dreams and startled her awake every night.

Everything happened in a confused flash. The officer on the bullhorn seemed to be ordering the men on the ship to stand down. The officer behind her, the one who’d pulled her to safety, was shouting something indecipherable. The rest of the officers were scrambling around and yelling.

In the light from the ship, Sara saw for the first time the man, the mastermind, standing in waist-deep water, partially hidden behind a concrete pillar. She could see the device in his hand.

She heard voices yelling – maybe at her, maybe at someone else – to get out and clear away. Gunshots fired out. Everything was chaos. Sara tried with all her strength to get to her feet, but again her ankle collapsed under her and she fell to the ground. Still clutching George’s blanket, she lifted her head up from the ground just in time to see a blinding flash of orange light. Then a loud crack.

Then, for Sara, everything was silence and darkness.

 

  

Epilogue

Nisha Patel sat in stunned silence in Sara’s empty apartment. She returned, as she had so many times in these dark days, to the news report she’d bookmarked from that terrible morning, hoping to make some sense of it all.

Officials are hopeful that the wave of violence in Chicago has finally come to an end, now that the ringleader of the Elves has been killed. The mayor said in his speech this morning that the city will rebuild. But peace, if it is here, has come at a very high price. At least 200 people have been killed and thousands injured in the terrorist attacks. But the victim who may end up being the last one offers Chicagoans an inspiring story of selfless courage. Saraswati Patel, 25, was at the scene of last night’s blast in Skyway, and officials say she gave her life saving a homeless man she had befriended.

The man, 55-year-old George Douglas, is a Chicago native. Douglas spoke to reporters from his hospital room at Northwestern Memorial, where he’s being held for observation. He called Patel his good Samaritan.

“I truly believe she was an angel who was sent down from heaven to save me. She was so beautiful. I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. But I’m going to try to get my life sorted out in her honor.”

The ringleader was shot and killed as he detonated the bombs. The city is hopeful that the threat is over, but lockdowns will remain in place until further notice.

Reporting from Skyway, this is Stacy Smith for WGN News.     

Sara’s dad, Ashwin, sat at his daughter’s dining room table, trying to come to terms with all that had happened. When the call came that Sara’s body had been pulled from the rubble, he and Nisha had the grim job of coming to Chicago to identify her. He sat in stunned silence as he gazed at the portrait on the wall. He noticed that it matched exactly the view from her bedroom window. What he found inexplicable is that the Skyway bridge was missing in her portrait. Did Sara not complete the picture? And if not, why did she hang it up? There’s no way she could have known what was going to happen. Ashwin chalked it up to a spooky coincidence, even as he wished there could have been something in that painting that could give him some kind of clue as to what happened. Some kind of closure. But there was simply nothing there.

Ashwin stood and walked into Sara’s bedroom. On the computer desk he recognized the worn old hardcover book handed down from his own grandmother. He picked it up and absentmindedly leafed through it, half-looking out the window that had provided the inspiration for that portrait in the dining room. With a sigh, Ashwin tossed the Bhagavad Gita on the bed, smiling wistfully to himself at the thought that those silly superstitions from the old country had somehow managed to bring Sara some kind of comfort. On his way out, he picked up the Saraswati statue on the desk and tucked it under his arm. Keeping a memento of his daughter’s namesake would be a fitting way to maintain a connection to her.

He came out to the dining room and placed the statue in one of the boxes that held the items her parents intended to keep.

A knock came at the door. Ashwin opened it to let in the Goodwill crew.

“We’re all set here,” he said. “The rest can be donated.”

He turned to his wife. “I guess we should get these boxes down to the car.”

Nisha nodded. Wiping a tear from her eye, she stood to grab one of the boxes on the floor while Ashwin collected the rest.

Ashwin paused at the doorway and looked around the quiet apartment one last time.

“Bye-bye, Sara,” he said. Turning, he and Nisha walked down the stairs, loaded up their car, and made the quiet drive home to South Bend, where they would await Sara’s body for the funeral.