“Who’s young Marcus Bradley?” I asked, pointing at the first name on the list.

“His mother works nights at the hospital,” Wade said, checking his ledger.

“He wants to study electrical engineering at Purdue next fall.”

I put my mug down beside the paper and ran my thumb along the typed heading.

“Margaret would’ve loved that boy’s transcript,” I said.

Wade smiled gently, stacking the green index cards in tidy rows.

“She knew exactly what she was doing when she gave you that sealed brown envelope, Pastor.”

“She gave me forty-five years of quiet grace, and today we start over,” I said.