Coach Murphy’s car crept down country roads with no streetlights. I peered out the passenger side window at bare fields and tree limbs that looked like skeletons. There was hardly any traffic and no sign of Sam or Penelope.

“I blame myself for this,” Coach said.

“Why?”

Coach stared out the windshield into the darkness. “Because I didn’t keep a professional distance between myself and Sam. I thought she needed somebody who understood.”

I remembered Sam saying she had asked Coach a hard question and Coach had told her the truth. “Sam told me when she first met you, she knew you were like her.”

“That’s what is bothering me,” Coach said. “I felt really desperate a few times when I was Sam’s age. Like nobody would ever understand me. You don’t think she’d try to hurt herself, do you, Allie?”

“You mean on purpose?”

“Yes, on purpose.”

Her question made tears well up in my eyes. “I think she ran away.” I couldn’t stand to think of the alternative.

“Then we’ll just have to keep looking until we find her.”

The longer we drove without spotting Sam, the more anxious I became. All of the winding roads started to look the same.

“Don’t cry, Allie.”

I brushed away tears with my coat sleeve. “It’s like the night Eric died. He didn’t come home. Dad drove around looking for him. Mom started calling hospitals. Finally, a policeman showed up at our door.”

“Bad memories give me the same feelings as these bare tree limbs,” Coach said. “Lonely. Would you mind if I prayed for Sam?”

Coach talked to God as if he were her best friend. “We need some help here. I don’t know where else to look. Sam is a special person. Of course you already know that, but we’re asking you to watch over her.”

A warm feeling wrapped its way around my heart. “Coach, I like Sam. I mean … I really like her.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I first suspected the night Franny and I had dinner at your house. When you said Sam was the most interesting person you’d ever met, your cheeks were the same color as Franny’s summer roses.”

“Mom cried when I told her.”

“Moms do that. Give her time. She’ll come around.”

“What about Sam’s mom?”

Coach shook her head. “Sam’s mom believes in the teaching at One True Way. She thinks Sam’s feelings are sinful. I was raised in a home like that. It took me years to get past it.”

I was grateful my church had a gentler way of interpreting the Bible than Sam’s. My mom was struggling, but at least she wouldn’t threaten me with hell.

Coach turned the car around in a gravel driveway and headed back toward town. The narrow road grew wider and turned into Main Street. Coach made a right onto Apple Avenue. “I’m gonna swing by my house and use the telephone. Maybe somebody’s heard from Sam.”

I was out of ideas and started to silently pray.

The driveway dipped and the car’s headlights flashed against Coach’s front porch. “Look!” I screamed. “Look!”

It was Sam.