Years have gone by since the death of Noah his special needs son, and Wiley Cantrell realizes it’s time to move on. He and his husband Jackson try to adopt little Tony Gorzola, a deaf boy with HIV who is emotionally traumatized.<br><br>Difficulties quickly set in. Tony is a sweet boy but very damaged by abuse and neglect. And Tony’s mother, in prison, is unwilling to relinquish her parental rights. No sooner do they get the go ahead to foster Tony when another child they had considered becomes available -- the daughter Jackson always wanted.<br><br>With two children on their hands, life is complicated -- wonderfully so. But just as things begin to settle down, Tony, his immune system compromised, falls ill with pneumonia ... and Wiley and Jackson find their little family faced with crisis once again.

Go Tell It on the Mountains

Mama knelt on one of the pews up front. Amelia joined her. Amelia’s family had not gone to church, did not “pray,” were not familiar with all the religious mumbo-jumbo I’d grown up with. I had thought about taking the children to mass, had decided against it. I could not explain to myself exactly why. It wasn’t just my experience of sexual abuse at the hands of Father Michael when I was in grade school, although that surely colored my perceptions. There was something beyond that, something deeper. Something I couldn’t get at. Some loss of faith, loss of the ability to believe.


After saying prayers with Mama, Amelia came to the back and sat next to me.


“Memaw says you don’t pray anymore,” she whispered.


“God and I don’t get along these days.”


“You can tell me. I’m not a baby.”


“Has he been going on and on about the Dalai Lama again?”


Chapter 102