So she never prayed for patience. Not once.

And yet for some reason she still seemed to get dished out more than her share of adversity.

It seemed to follow her around, in fact, like a lovesick pup. A pup with the sleepy-eyed gaze of her husband, Ed, the persistent whine of her children's teenage angst and the maddening bite of her sisters" habitual bickering. To top it off, that puppy traveled with a pack, constantly nipping at her heels.

President of the contentious Council of Christian Women—contentious not being part of the official title, though she often thought it should be. Nip.

Unpaid, unnoticed, as-needed, fill-in employee at her husband's pharmacy. Nip.

First person everyone in town called to report about the often exasperating actions of her father, Solomon Shelnutt. Nip.

And ever-present gnawing that made it all the more difficult for her to shake it all off—the seemingly silly, self-indulgent empty ache of being a mommy to teens and no longer having any little babies to mother.

Adversity, in her case, loved company. For Sadie, more often than not, the biggest helping of it—adversity, not company—came in the form of her seventy-one-year-old father's never-ending pursuit of what he called "authentic individualism." That was Daddyspeak for "Nobody tells Moonie Shelnutt what to do."

he'd said those very words to her this morning, so she should have had an inkling that this was the day trouble would go out of its way to find her. Find her? It had already phoned her three times! Wel