The morning of the last day of 1989, Mom and Dad hauled us all in to help with the Sunday paper. After we had assembled and bagged the papers, Mom and Dad went off to deliver them. When they came back, we had work ahead of us, because Denny Driver's young girlfriend had broken into the building where we'd stored his stuff and had stolen some of it. We were left bored in the office building. We read through the comics, I read the food section, the Ann Landers column, and everything else that looked interesting. The newspaper was our main link to the outside world; however a lot of what I read referred to things that were common knowledge for most people but which I had not heard of before. For example, celebrities, movies, books, things that would be covered in high school or college, history...there were huge gaps in my knowledge base and as a consequence, what I read in the paper did not always make as much sense as it should have. As usual, I had brought a seed catalog with me to read. This was the new Gurney's catalog, and I went through it circling things that interested me. Reliance peaches that could make it in our climate! Hopi blue flour corn! Apples: Cortland, Winesap, Sweet Sixteen.... Even this fascinating activity grew old after awhile. I laid the catalog on dad's desk and we played twenty questions for a while, and then drew silly pictures on the whiteboard.

We heard the door shut downstairs and sat down in our chairs as though we'd been sitting down all along. We listened to them approach; one of the voices wasn't familiar, it sounded like it might be a man. Suddenly the door opened and Mom and Dad walked in with a strange man. Mom introduced us all to one another. This was Daniel. I scrutinized him carefully when he wasn't looking my way. He did not look anything like what I'd expected, and I sort of wondered what Mom had been thinking. For one thing, he was a lot older than me, 18 years older, which put him at 35. And his hair was really short; I was used to hanging out with bearded and hippie type people. I considered the fact that he was also divorced. Maybe it would be better if we were just friends. He didn't say much. He just walked over to the wall and sat down against it on the floor! We offered him one of the many chairs but he politely declined. I began to think he was kind of unusual. He was dressed in hickory striped coveralls and moved as though he had been in the military (the Navy, it turned out). He did not look at us or say anything.

Then Dad began calling business contacts and newspaper customers and we all grew even more bored. Dad could gab for hours and be perfectly contented, telling stories and jokes and parables to perfect strangers, like telemarketers, for example, that he would never meet again. Daniel jumped up to his feet and started wandering around the room. Seeing the seed catalog on the desk, he picked it up and began flipping through it. Then he spoke up and wanted to know whose catalog this was, who had been circling the blue corn? It turned out that blue corn was one of his obsessions, and soon he was sitting beside me and we were talking a hundred miles an hour about everything from the blue corn to peaches to sheep , goats, and draft horses. Once he opened up his mouth, he was a really interesting, engaging guy! And he had sparkling blue eyes that made smile wrinkles all over his face when he smiled. He spoke to me as if the things I had to say were actually worthy of attention rather than ridicule. My knees began trembling. I tried to hold them still, but even when they were knocking together violently, he pretended he didn't notice, as though all was well. He had a very reassuring presence. I think I was probably nervous because I had never spoken to any man except for Matt Christson, and then only very, very briefly and casually. I was unused to being around men, had never been on a date, and this was all happening very quickly.

Dad hung up the phone at last, and we spent the rest of the day moving the furniture and boxes of stuff. Daniel was a good worker, very businesslike and efficient. That evening Dad took him back to his home on Wrenco Loop and our entire family slept in the office, because our work wasn't done. In the morning, Dad did the route alone (Monday papers are small) and did Wrenco Loop last, picking up Daniel on the way. We had nothing to eat that morning except for cheap sugary doughnuts and coffee, but I didn't care, because I liked Daniel already. All my life, I'd felt like a left foot in a family of right feet; always out of place, never good enough the way I was. It was such an incredible relief to meet another person I could relate to. It was as though I'd been waiting for him all my life, had always known him and always would.

Mom and Dad had some sort of business stuff that they didn't want Daniel to be included in and Dad had work for him to do at our house, so they had him drive Raphah and I home in the red truck. We could tell him how to get there. Daniel was fun to talk to and had all sorts of interesting things to say. The three of us chattered happily all the way home. Once we got home, we started a fire so that the house could get warm, and then showed him around our place. He gave Fox a big hug, looked at the goats, the pets, Precious and her puppies. It was clear that he loved animals, although he was non-commital about taking a puppy when they were old enough.

Mom, Dad, and the girls came home about half an hour after we did, and then we had to work. We brought our wooden sled into use as usual while we did the firewood. Daniel was curious about the sled, wanted to know we'd made it. He'd been thinking about getting a sled for his draft horse, Casper, to pull. Daniel was a good worker, very efficient and businesslike with a good work ethic, but this didn't keep him from smiling, joking around, and even singing as he worked. This was such a pleasant change from my sullen brother and domineering, bullying stepfather; working with Daniel was actually fun! At the day's end, we came inside for dinner. While we were out working, Mom, Sarah, and Rachel had been busy making lentil soup and biscuits.

After dinner, Daniel wanted to see me spin wool. He had sheep and was wondering if he could make his own spinning wheel, but first he needed to know how one worked. We had already talked about my idea of adapting an old bicycle, and unlike my family, he didn't laugh at me for it or call me an idiot. He thought it was a good idea. So I brought the spinning wheel into the kitchen/common area and started spinning some yarn. Some of the people were still at the table to my left. Daniel sat to my right, focusing intently on the wheel's action and moving parts. Suddenly I felt a very sharp pain in my bottom! I might have yelped a little, because it startled Daniel. I looked around in the direction of the pain's origin. Only Dad was there, looking quite innocent and relaxed with a toothpick in his mouth. His eyes twinkled with mischeif, daring me to make a scene. I knew that was what he wanted, so I stubbornly turned back to the wheel as if nothing had happened, determined not to give him any satisfaction at all. I went back to the spinning, and soon he poked me again; this time I acted as though I hadn't felt a thing. Dad chuckled, but I just ignored him. Daniel looked a little worried when I glanced at him, but I kept spinning and talking with him even as Eliyah continued to poke me from time to time. Well, the last poke really hurt. I didn't jump, but was certain that it had broken the skin, even through the double layer of blue jeans. It hurt too much to ignore and he was just going to keep poking me as long as he could get away with it, so I stopped spinning and wound the end of the yarn around the peg on the wheel so it wouldn't unravel. Daniel was looking very concerned by now, as though he wondered what would come next. Dad chuckled maliciously as I approached him; not even bothering to look innocent this time, the toothpick was still in his hand. Fast as a snake, I grabbed that hand, put all my weight and strength into wrestling for that damned toothpick. When I got it, I broke it into tiny, short little pieces and threw them at the woodstove. I hadn't said a word and neither had Dad or Daniel, but Dad chuckled again and got up and plodded off to bed, apparently having achieved his goal of humiliating me. Daniel looked relieved.

My victory was cut short by Rachel's proud announcement that I was an artist! I blushed all the way down to my toes, very embarrassed, but she had already gone to fetch all my sketch pads to show him. Usually when people look at a sketchbook, the page through it quickly, but not Daniel. He looked at each drawing for a long time, making insightful comments. At one point he said sadly that he wished I had taken more time on the hooves. I had only scrawled them in very roughly.He would notice something like that, working with horses day in and day out. Later on I went back though them and redrew all the hooves with more care. He liked my work though, he seemed to really understand it. By the time he was through, I was so certain that he was in fact the man Yahweh had chosen for me that I went and got the drawing of the mother bear fishing and gave it to me. He accepted it with a quiet gratitude as though he knew the significance of this piece of paper. Dennis took him home that night, but I was happy. I knew that I had finally found the right one.