A child's lie about spilling bubbles reveals deeper family issues

Stained glass transmuted morning sunshine into fireworks of rose, butter, and myrrh. Candles swayed to secret music, smoke rising in helical columns to the roof. Somewhere nearby, a girl sang scales. Joey stopped next to an empty pew and closed his eyes. He was at the still center of the world. He understood why people call this the house of God. He laughed, and choirs of angels laughed with him. “Joey, what are you up to back there?” The pastor was standing at the rail.

It was more of a winter than a winter ought to be. A cold shroud of snow and ice fell from a dark gray blanket of hidden sky and seeped deep into the marrow of men in foxholes. It seemed to most that hell had finally frozen over, especially when a German ghost army slithered in through the Ardennes Forest, their 88s raining down fire and brimstone. The clackety-clack of Tiger and Panther tanks and massive, fast-moving attacks from Panzer and SS units caught the Americans by s