Summer was still in full swing when Dennis got off the phone with a smile on his face. Our prayers had been answered: not only were his daughters and their husbands were moving to Idaho, Kary was also coming back. Mike and I were ecstatic about Kary's return. Michelle's husband, Sam, would also be fun.

They were there within a few days. Renee's husband Joe seemed less than enthused, but he and Dennis were civil to one another for a change. Renee was bubbly and effusive as usual. Michelle had brought her dog, Mattie, a Doberman with long, uncut ears and tail. She was in the early stages of pregnancy with her first child. Sam lifted everything and waited on her hand and foot. Kary and Sam engaged in playful adult guy behavior and goofed off a little. The problem now was, where would we put them all? Kary gladly accepted the stairwell and pegged up a blanket over the area, laying a slender mattress down to sleep on. This left 3 married couples, 4 kids and 4 bedrooms to put them in. I volunteered to give my room up, and Renee and Joe moved right in. Gia had been in a large room upstairs that wasn't intended as a bedroom, but functioned well as one. It had a balcony complete with sliding glass door. She gave this up for Sam and Michelle. I moved in with Mike, and Lisa and Gia moved in together. Mike and I played with marbles and read his boy's life magazines and pored through Cabela's catalogs drooling over the survival gear. We didn't mind the changes too much. It was clear that Yahweh wanted Dennis' daughters to move to Idaho, and after all that praying and Dennis' pleading with them every night or two, it had finally come to pass.

Once we were all moved in, Mike, Sam, Kary and I spent a lot of time outdoors in the woods. We explored new areas. They went fishing, which I wasn't a real fan of. It's always bothered me to have to impale the worm on a fishhook. We looked for grouse and antlers. The dogs came with us. Outside, running around like that, everything seemed great, but trouble was already beginning to surface. Almost every night, we heard Michelle hissing at Sam, "No! You'll hurt the baby!" Sam was possessed of a truly saintly disposition. Joe rarely spent time with the family. If he wasn't in the bedroom, he and Renee were out walking alone together. Renee was a flirt. She flopped down seductively into the already deprived Sam's lap as though he were a comfortable armchair. Michelle resented her voluptuous sister's friendliness with her mate. Renee teased Kary, too. It was in her nature. Kary chewed Copenhagen before he got out of bed, a habit that Denis razzed him for. Michelle criticized the way we kept out animals and seemed to think Mattie was a human. She wanted to bring her dog indoors, but Denis' rules against this were strict. She wailed and whined that Mattie always slept in their bed and wouldn't be happy if she had to stay outside with the other dogs. Dennis said she'd get worms from Mattie sleeping in the bed, Michelle screeched back at him...conflict was everywhere.

One of the problems that arose during Renee and Michelle's visit was the lack of diversity in our diet. We had no butter. They wailed that they couldn't eat their oatmeal without butter. I thought they were lucky we had milk that wasn't reconstitued from powder. We ate hot cereal, soup, potatoes or pasta at almost every meal. The soup was usually lentil soup, or if we were lucky, hamburger vegetable soup. The men, always served first, usually took large helpings of the best of whatever was there. If it was a casserole with cheese melted on the top, they'd scoop off most of the cheese, leaving the rest of it, cheeseless, for the women and children. Our food was plain. We ate whatever we had, and we didn't have much.

There were bills that had to be paid and no way to pay them. Mom told each child to pray for Yahweh to show us the answer she was praying about, and then one by one, she took us into the garage and asked us to show her His answer. I had no idea what she was asking for. I felt sheepish and confused, so I seized upon the first thing that caught my eye: a pair of old sneakers.

"Those!" I said.
"Those dirty tennis shoes?" Mom looked puzzled.
"Um, yeah, I think that's what he said..."

I was beginning to feel cornered...it wasn't fair of her not to tell us the question. She sighed and ushered me back into the house. Dennis was standing at the door.

"What did He say?" Dennis asked?
"Well, I don't think it's the dirty tennis shoes," Mom replied.

They were trying to discover something of value that could be pawned or sold. I felt so stupid. I was a false prophet now...I hadn't heard right.

Kary, Sam, Mike and I spent a lot of time out of the house and in the woods. It was the only way to stay sane. Mike and I prayed for Yahweh to let us find and kill a grouse so that we could bring it home proudly to help feed the family. I found one, but I'd forgotten the slingshot at home. I resorted to picking up small stones and trying to knock it out of the tree. The first few times, it flapped its wings but kept clutching the branch. Finally it flew off and left me dejected. We'd read of all those miracles in the Bible; fish and bread to feed five thousand, vessels that never ran out of food or oil, sacrifice rams magically appearing at the last minute, manna from heaven, quail flying right into the hands of the Israelites...why wouldn't Yahweh give us just one grouse? Mom and Dennis said we were a family of prophets, and yet this grouse that had been almost within the reaches of my hand, and which stayed on the branch even as I threw rocks at it, flew away? Why? It really was frustrating, because I believed with my whole heart, I had faith that Yahweh could provide anything at all for us. Faith was supposed to move mountains...why weren't things working out for us, when we all believed so hard?

Back at the house one morning, Michelle was harping about our homeschooling, why we weren't doing any lessons. It's true that our education was distinctly unstructured, but I at least did make an effort to do some work independently. She said that all we did was to play and run around. Then she turned on me. She decided for sone reason that I shouldn't be allowed to go walking, that I had to stay home. I thought this was baloney, but Mom said I had to obey Michelle. Michelle taunted and carped at and ridiculed me. She forced me to stand in the corner, which would have been fine if I had been allowed to stand there in my own solitude. Then I could just stand there and zone out on ideas fantasies, thoughts, or if worse came to worse, search out the wood grain for swirls and knotholes and patterns that reminded me of animals or faces. This was not to be. She hadn't physically confined me to the house so that I could escape from her mentally. She badgered and harassed me for hours while Mom stood by, complicit as usual, even though Michelle had reduced me to a sobbing curled up ball on the floor. Dennis walked in the door around sundown, took in the situation, and called his daughter off me. I fled to the safety of the bedroom, wondering why in the heck we had ever prayed for her to come up here.

Renee, Joe, Sam and Michelle left to return to California soon after that. Dennis warned that Yahweh would curse them for going back to Egypt, but they left anyway. I wasn't sorry. Kary stayed a little longer, but he was leaving us too, going back to the Marines. He worked through lots of paperwork with what seemed like really nosy questions and before long, he was gone too.