A Very Special Delivery

together, circling the empty swimming pool, crunching over brown leaves that no one had bothered to rake the previous fall.
    “Have you thought about Easter?” he asked.
    “I’ve thought about it.” He’d tried for weeks to get her to attend Chapel with him.
    “You should come. We’re doing a sunrise pageant. I’m Pontius Pilate.”
    “Type-casting?” She grinned. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    “It was either Pilate or Judas, the betrayer. I thought I’d look better in a governor’s robe than in a hangman’s noose.”
    They both chuckled.
    “Come on,” he said. “You don’t want to miss my acting debut, do you? Say you’ll be there.”
    She wanted to. “I don’t know if I’m that brave.”
    “Sure you are. You just don’t want to upset your sister.”
    “That’s true. Ruining her Easter would be pretty selfish of me.”
    “Ruining yours is pretty selfish of her.”
    She hadn’t thought of it that way.
    He paused to retuck a blanket around Laney’s kicking legs. Crouched on his haunches in front of the stroller, he glanced up and smiled. Molly’s stomach lifted as if she had dived off the high board. “Will you at least think about it?”
    How could she refuse? She wanted to make him happy, to spend time with him. She also longed to be with her church family again. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
    His smile widened. “I feel a victory coming on.”
    She pointed the jonquil at him. “Don’t be so sure of yourself, buster.”
    “Hey, I convinced you to fly in a plane with me.”
    “No danger of running into my sister up there,” she joked. Ethan’s skilled piloting had made the flight fun and safe. She’d seen her beloved Winding Stair Mountain from a whole new perspective. She’d also witnessed Ethan’s love of flying and wondered how he’d ever left it.
    “Think you’ll ever go back to that line of work?”
    He hitched one shoulder. “I don’t know. Right now, Laney needs a parent more than I need to fly. Don’t you, sugar?”
    He smacked a kiss on Laney’s chin. She rewarded him with a bubbling laugh.
    His remark reminded Molly that Laney had another parent, a parent Ethan never mentioned. Since the first time she’d asked about the woman who had given birth to Ethan’s daughter and had been rebuffed, Molly had avoided the subject.
    “What about Laney’s mother? Why didn’t she help out so you could go on flying?”
    For the space of several seconds Ethan didn’t answer. He stared up into the sky he loved with an expression of immense sadness. When he looked at her again, his blue eyes had gone as distant as the wispy clouds.
    “Laney’s mother is dead.”
    “Oh, Ethan. How tragic.” Stunned and filled with remorse for broaching the sensitive subject, Molly reached to touch him. “What happened?”
    He stepped away, rounding to the back of the stroller.
    “Does it matter? She’s dead. And Laney only has me.”
    He started off toward the back door of the apartment, pushing the stroller ahead of him.
    “Ethan, wait.” Though he paused, he didn’t turn around. Molly hurried to catch up. When she reached his side, she said, “I didn’t mean to pry. Forgive me?”
    He softened then and looped an arm around her neck. “Nothing to forgive. Twila is a bad subject. That’s all.”
    A bad subject and one he didn’t care to pursue. A subject so painful that he wouldn’t share it with her, though she’d shared her deepest hurt with him.
    The idea depressed her. She had a sinking feeling that she might be falling for a man who still loved a dead woman named Twila.
    * * *
    Ethan loved church dismissal, that time immediately following worship service when folks milled around the foyer visiting, too full of love and peace to leave.
    This Sunday was no different. As he made his way toward the nursery to get Laney, he stopped over and over again to shake hands, to exchange pleasantries, and to share ideas for the upcoming Easter pageant.
    He was sorry Molly still refused to come to church with him but he was sure she was weakening on the issue. She was already attending a small home Bible study with him. Any Sunday now, he expected her to jump in his truck, all dressed up and pretty as a sunrise.
    Like a family, he thought. Molly and Laney and him, together. The more the idea took root, the better he liked it.
    By the time he fetched Laney from the nursery and made his way back to the foyer, the crowd had begun to thin. A few stragglers chatted in