Devon crossed out two words in his notebook: answered prayer.
He had written them beside the warehouse rent in April. The church had needed somewhere to keep its food donations. A local shop had offered a dry building for almost nothing. Devon had balanced the figures three times, then written the words in the margin.
In June the building burned. No one was inside. No one was hurt. Seven hundred bags of flour were lost, along with beans, tins, shelves, and the cheap dry room.
Now it was July, and the train window showed Devon his own face laid over dark fields. Across the small sleeping berth, Gus knelt beside the lower bunk.
“Does that help?” Devon asked.
Gus looked up. “Sometimes.”
“With what?”
“Devon. I’m in the middle.”
“Sorry.”
Gus lowered his head again. The train rocked through a bend. Devon held his pen above the crossed-out words.
“But how can you tell?” he asked.
Gus stood. His knee made a dry click.
“I can’t do this tonight.”
“You can’t think about it?”
“I can’t answer questions while I’m praying.”
Devon shut the notebook. “All right.”
Gus knew that tone. They had been friends since school. At thirty, Devon still said all right in a way that meant nothing was right at all.
“Ten minutes,” Gus said. “Quiet. Then we can get tea.”
Devon climbed into the top bunk. He lay with his shoes on and counted the small knocks beneath the floor. At the ninth minute he got down, put on his jacket, and waited by the door.
Gus finished at the tenth.
The dining car was almost empty. Their cups slid a little each time the carriage swayed. Gus caught his by the handle. Devon wedged his against the sugar bowl.
“I’m not asking for a sermon,” Devon said.
“Good. I haven’t got one.”
“I want to know why we called it a gift. The warehouse.”
Gus stirred his tea.
“It was useful. Cheap. We needed it.”
“We thanked God for it.”
“I did.”
“And then it burned.”
“Yes.”
Devon waited. There should have been another sentence. A plan beyond their sight, a better place to come, something that made the loss fit. He hated those answers, but Gus’s plain yes felt like being left alone with the wreckage.
“You don’t think it was secretly good?” Devon asked.
“No. People needed that food.”
“Then what were you doing just now?”
Gus stopped stirring. “Asking for courage.”
“For the interview?”
“For telling them why I left the last job.”
They were traveling to the same city for different reasons. Devon would meet the church’s food supplier. Gus had an interview at a furniture workshop. He had been without steady work for eleven months.
“You don’t have to tell them everything,” Devon said.
“I know.”
Gus pulled a creased application from his pocket. The line about his last job said: Left to seek other opportunities.
“That sounds fine,” Devon told him.
“It sounds as though I had somewhere to go.”
“You were looking.”
“After I left.”
Devon knew the old workshop. The owner shouted, held back wages over tiny faults, and once tipped a tray of finished handles into a bin because he disliked their color. Gus had walked out on a Thursday. On Friday he had called Devon and asked whether walking out had been brave or stupid.
Devon had said both. It had seemed a good answer then.
“If I explain it badly,” Gus said, “they’ll think I’ll leave whenever someone corrects me.”
“So prayer helps you explain it?”
“I hope it helps me not lie because I’m scared.”
“And if you don’t get the job?”
Gus pressed the application flat against the table.
“Then I don’t get it.”
Devon looked at his friend. Gus’s shirt collar was worn shiny at the fold. He had ironed it anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Devon said. “I keep making you defend tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow hasn’t hired me yet.”
Devon gave a short laugh. Gus did too, then pushed the paper across.
“Help me with this. You like an accurate sentence.”
They tried three. The first sounded like a complaint. The second hid the reason under careful words. In the third, Gus said he had left after repeated disputes over pay and working conditions. He said he wanted a workshop where mistakes could be discussed without shouting.
“Would you say that aloud?” Devon asked.
Gus read it aloud, slowly. Then he crossed out a word he would never use in speech.
“Yes.”
“Can you show the pay records if they ask?”
“I’ve brought them.”
They finished their tea. No light came through the windows yet.
Back in the berth, Gus put the application in his case. Devon opened his notebook to the replacement-food figures. He needed a new rent deposit and a smaller first order. The supplier would want money, not an account of his doubts.
Gus sat on the lower bunk.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“I have been.”
“You’ve been asking me to explain it. I can’t. Tell me what it’s been like.”
Devon kept his finger on a column of figures.
“I feel foolish.”
Gus waited.
“For being so sure. I stood up at the meeting and said we’d been given what we needed. Everyone clapped.”
“We did need it.”
“I thought that meant it would last.”
The train passed a lit platform. For a moment the berth was bright enough to show every scratch on the door. Then it was dark again.
“And I’m tired,” Devon said. “Every time I count the new donations, I think about counting the old ones. I don’t want to start over.”
“Will you?”
“I’ve got a meeting at ten.”
Gus nodded. He did not call that faith. Devon was grateful that he left the word alone.
“I don’t know if I can pray,” Devon said.
“You can sit here.”
So Devon sat. After a while Gus lay down, and the train carried them both toward morning.
At the station, Gus hurried off to wash and change before his interview. Devon wished him luck. Gus said he would take it, along with anything else useful.
Devon had two hours before his meeting. He found a bench on the platform and opened the notebook. The crossed-out words were still there. He left them crossed out.
He checked the deposit again. If the supplier agreed to split the first bill, they could buy enough flour for the week. It would not replace all they had lost. It would feed people now.
Devon bowed his head. His first attempt at prayer came out as a question about the fire. He let it stay a question.
Then he said, quietly, “Help me go to this meeting. Help me say what we can pay.”
A porter asked him to move his bag so a cart could pass. Devon moved it, finished checking the figures, and went to find the supplier.
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