Page 1 of There I Find Hope

Chapter 1

The scent of rotting flowers made Sunday Landry want to puke.

The flowers weren’t really rotting, but the smell made her sick nonetheless. For the rest of her life, she would hate the smell of flowers because she would associate it with the funeral of her son.

She wiped her cheek and listened to the lady in front of her as she spoke about growing up in Strawberry Sands and how she had not talked to Sunday since she was a child and how sad she was that Blake had drowned.

Sunday listened. Truly she did. Or at least she tried to. But she didn’t really hear anything. It felt like a hundred people screamed inside of her head, arguing, fighting, although she didn’t know over what, all she knew was that she could hardly stand it, and she wanted to get away.

Except, one could hardly run out of the funeral of one’s son.

Plus, she hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea that her son didn’t need her anymore. There was the idea in her head that she needed to stay, to take care of him, that he needed her. Responsible mothers didn’t just walk out on their kid without taking him with her or making sure he was cared for.

But her son lay stiff and cold in the casket, and it was all her fault.

Why had she decided to go on a walk on the beach?

Why had she stood admiring the horses and allowed her gaze to track off her son for even one second?

It wasn’t like she had spent three hours not paying any attention to her son at all.

Blake had known better. He’d grown up around Lake Michigan. He knew he couldn’t just run into the water without a life vest and without his mother’s permission.

But he’d been chasing a ball. A huge, rogue wave had knocked him down. Sunday had turned around in time to see that.

She called to him immediately, started running right away, but her feet sank into the sand and it felt like she ran in slow motion. That was what her nightmare had been every night since. Running in slow motion.

She kept running and running and couldn’t go any faster. Couldn’t reach the water in time. And when she did get there, she couldn’t find him.

The waves had been high, the riptide strong, and while she knew she would have jumped in the lake to save him, she couldn’t see him.

She had her phone out of her pocket dialing 911 as she ran and was mostly incoherent as she spoke on the phone.

They sent people anyway, divers, men with boats, someone even showed up with a dog. An ambulance had sat on the beach, its lights flashing, like there was some hope that they would fish her son out of the water and he would still be alive and they would rush him off to the hospital and he would survive.

Even as she prayed for that to happen, she knew it was impossible. Although God was a God of miracles, wasn’t He?

Apparently she didn’t qualify for miracles.

She hardly ever asked for anything. She asked for one little thing—the life of her son—and God did not grant her wish. Her desire. Her one longing.

She didn’t even ask for her marriage to be reconciled. She hadn’t asked for it to be saved. She hadn’t even asked God why her husband had cheated, after he’d spent the years they’d been married neglecting her and spending time on his hobbies and online rather than with her.

She just asked for the life of her son.

And God said no.

She supposed she felt the way a child usually felt when they wanted something with all their heart and their parent turned them down.

She felt a little angry, a little put out. Annoyed. Heartbroken. Was there something worse than being heartbroken? If there was, Sunday was that thing that was worse. The very worst thing that anyone could become was what she was right now.

How did one survive, let alone get over, the death of their child?

Why had she walked on the beach that day? Why had she taken her eyes off her kid? Why hadn’t she made him hold her hand?

She knew why. She lived here. She’d grown up here. Lake Michigan was something she respected, yes, but not a scary thing. And she thought she’d trained her son to obey. To listen. To respect the lake just as she did.

“You know this is just one of those fluke things that happen. Something you couldn’t have stopped. Something you couldn’t have changed. It’s just God’s will.”

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