The old farmer sized it all
up, measured it
against his rough - hewn view of providence, and decided it was better to be in church praising God than running around the cow pasture shooting buckshot into the
night sky
But he had felt that
night, while his wife kept the children over by the road — he had rushed them from the house when he saw that the barn was on fire — as he watched the enormous flames flying into the nighttime
sky, then heard the terrible screaming sounds of the cows as they died, he had felt many things, but it was just as the roof of his house crashed in, fell into the house itself, right into their bedrooms and the living room below with all the photos of the children and his parents, as he saw this happen he had felt — undeniably — what he could only think was the presence of God, and he understood why angels had always been portrayed as having wings, because there had been a sensation of that — of a rushing sound, or not even a sound, and then it was as though God, who had no face, but was God, pressed
up against him and conveyed to him without words — so briefly, so fleetingly — some message that Tommy understood to be: It's all right, Tommy.