formality when the doctor gravely informed him that she was gone. He didn't cry.
It didn't happen. He and Mary knew the Five Keys to a Happy Family Life, and
this wasn't one of them.
Now it was all over, he thought. She's gone for good. At the funeral that
morning, he was sad when they lowered her into the earth, more out of self-pity
than anything else, for she had died quickly, with the assurance that her Savior was
waiting with open arms. But he was now left to carry on alone. How could he
now give pleasant, tidy sermons on the "Five Keys to a Happy Family Life," or
"The All-Encompassing Goodness of God?" They would know his pain; they
would see through his paper-thin mask and realize that he didn't believe it himself.
"Maybe that's wrong with the church today," he thought. "Most of the preachers
don't even believe what they're saying, so why should the people?"