Mrs. Stevens sank down heavily on the couch.
"You'll have to give Robin time," Anna said. "I'll bring him back to apologize."
"That isn't necessary," Mr. Stevens said. "He—we all—have a lot to process yet."
"But it is necessary. Our parents taught him better than to be disrespectful. If you'll excuse me for a moment. Mandie? Would you help me go after him? I know where he'll be, at the church across the street."
"Of course, I'll go with you." After Mandie hurried to Anna's side, Anna rested her hand lightly on Mandie's elbow and stepped a little behind her, so that Mandie could guide her out the door.
Once they were out in the hotel hall, Anna said, "Our parents are buried in that graveyard across from here. I'm sure that's where he's gone."
Mandie nodded, then realized Anna couldn't see that. "All right. We're at the stairs now."
"Thank you." Anna descended them with ease one step behind Mandie.
"What did Robin mean, about if you had money, you wouldn't be blind?"
"After the accident, the doctor who treated us said he thought my case should be looked at by a specialist. He believed a surgeon might be able to restore my sight at least partially, but that was two years ago now." Anna shrugged and gave a little shake of her head. "I try not to think about it."
"Only one step left," Mandie said.
Anna smiled as she reached the ground floor. "You make a good guide."
From experience Mandie knew offering financial help could be hard for people to accept, but she felt the pull in her heart to try. God, please give me the right words. "Anna, if an operation might restore your sight, I would like to help you. I have—"
"You and Mr. Woodard have done so much as it is, I couldn't take your money too."
"But if an operation helped, don't you owe it to you and Robin to try? Money is only a tool I've been given—and you could pay me back little by little if it made you feel better." Mandie opened the hotel's front door, and they both walked out into the sunshine.
"I'll think about it," Anna whispered, then pointed with her free hand across the street. "Do you see him?"
Mandie scanned the church's graveyard. A lone little figure was hunched beside an elm tree. "I think so."
After they crossed the street and entered the graveyard, encompassed with wrought iron fencing, they drew up beside Robin kneeling beside his parents' headstone.
Robin dashed his hand across his face and glared at Anna, ignoring her outstretched hand. "They don't deserve our forgiveness! Don't you remember all they've done?"
The sound of his voice must have guided her to him, for she clasped his shoulder and knelt down beside him. "Do you remember what Mother used to say to Father about his parents? She always wanted him to mend things between them if he could, but he was too hurt then."
Mandie started to walk away to give them privacy, but Robin shook his head at her. "Don't. You understand. You lost your father too."
"I did." Mandie felt a familiar squeeze of pain in her heart. "And I had to forgive people that had hurt me and my father. I didn't pretend the hurt never existed, but I had to choose to let go of the anger."
Robin sucked in a shaky breath. "I want Father and Mother back!"
"We'll see them again," Anna said, "in a far better place where there will be no mix of sorrow to spoil it. They're happy right now, and they'd want us to be too. Of course we'll always miss them here, but the more tightly we cling to the past, we lose that much hope for tomorrow. Things can't go back to what they were, but that doesn't mean the present and future can't be bright too, in a different way. God has wonderful plans for us, if we'll just be brave enough to step out in them."
"I'm brave," Robin whispered.
"I know you are." Anna hugged him tight to her side and smiled so serenely Mandie felt comforted too. These two would be all right, whatever happened.