“Do you believe in God?”

Her question caught me off guard. I didn’t answer right away.

I looked down at her. She was leaning against the brick wall, all in black. A black little frock, black tights. A conscious model of the slow transition from innocence to adolescence. She was swinging a little black purse, one that only had a couple sticks of gum and a tube of lipstick in it.

Tucked in the crook of her young ivory elbow was the little black Bible her pastor had given her only months before. It had her name embellished in curly silver letters on the cover.

Elizabeth Grace.

I turned my gaze back to the ground, kicked at a dead patch of grass with the scuffed toe of my shoe. Also black.

I thought about it.

Why was everything dying?
“No. I don’t know. No, I don’t.”

After my answer, she looked up at me, her indigo eyes rimmed with red. It seemed that she might cry, but I wasn’t sure she had any tears left to leak.

Nonetheless, she was stunned.

“How?”

Her question was tinged with accusation, yet heavy with wonder.

I didn’t know if I could dig that deep. I didn’t know if I was capable of thinking to such depths, if I would be able to supply a satisfying answer. What kind of person tells a child whose mother just died there’s no such thing as God?

But I didn’t say there was no such thing. I simply said I didn’t believe.

I shrugged, trying to remain casual, impassive. “I just don’t think he exists, that’s all.”

I was stupid to think she would be appeased with such a lacking response.

I closed my eyes and massaged my temples before letting myself sink to the ground. Funerals always gave me headaches.

I took a breath and tried to decide how to compile my answer into words, her sad eyes trained on me.

“I used to… I used to believe in God.”

I took her silence as a cue to continue.

“I used to think that there was so much beauty in the world that there must be a God. I didn’t look and see tragedy or disparity or ugliness. I saw wonder. I saw splendor. I saw babies and puppies and books and trees and I thought, if all of these good things exist, then there must be a God.”

She stood above me a moment; calm, thinking. Then she followed me down to the grass, the butt of her frock crumpling up beneath her. We both stared straight forward, through the trees, at the mourners, crowds of black. Hugging, crying, cramming into vehicles, little orange flags flickering in the wind.

Then, in a childlike, choked whisper: “You don’t see the beauty anymore?”

I grabbed her small frame and held her blonde head to my chest. I felt her quiver, breaking down in my young arms.

“No, no, Elizabeth. Of course I see the beauty. I see beauty everywhere!”

She pulled away and looked at me, her hair in messy strands, stuck to her wet cheeks.

“Then why don’t you believe?”

I pulled her back into my embrace before she had the chance to see me cry, as well.

“Because,” I said, “God doesn’t make babies or puppies or books. Nature does. People do.”

She sniffed. “People don’t make puppies.”

I laughed a little, the first time I’d laughed in days. She laughed a little, too.

“No, people don’t make puppies. But people can do good. We might be the source of a lot of disparity and ugliness, but we can’t see the beauty without the ugly background. And God doesn’t do ugly.”

Her blonde head nodded in my arms, her quivering lulled.

She whispered, “I guess.”

I saw her fingers trace her name, the silver letters on her Bible.

“Grandma will be looking for us,” I said. At first she didn’t respond, but then she sniffled and nodded. We sat up. I tucked her scrambled blonde strands behind her ears and stroked her cheeks.

“You go ahead. I left my purse in the kitchen.” She nodded, and we headed our separate ways.

I squeezed through the crowd, past crying relatives, and grabbed my black clutch from a chair. I stopped in the restroom, checked my makeup, fixed my hair.

I ran into a cousin as he was heading out and caught up to talk to him. We walked through the double doors together, out into the driveway. As we headed to join the procession, I looked back on our spot at the wall.

Her little black Bible sat in the grass, silver letters confessing her name.