“Okay.”

But he kept his foot on the gas, driving fast into the star field of snow that somehow kept his mind balanced on the brink of terror rather than letting it topple into the abyss.

“I'll call the bank when we change planes in L.A.,” Levon said. “Talk to Bill Macchio, get a loan started against the house in case we need cash.”

He saw tears dropping from Barb's face into her lap, heard the click of her fingernails tapping on her BlackBerry, sending text messages to everyone in the family, to her friends, to her job. To Kim.

Barb called Kim's cell phone again as Levon parked the car, held up the phone so Levon could hear the mechanical voice saying, “The mailbox belonging to – Kim McDaniels - is full. No messages can be left at this time.”

The Mcdanielses hopscotched by air from Grand Rapids to Chicago and from there to their wait-listed flight to Los Angeles, which connected just in time to their flight to Honolulu. Once in Honolulu, they ran through the airport, tickets and IDs in their hands, making Island Air's turbo prop plane. They were the last people on, settling into their bulkhead seats before the doors to the puddle jumper closed with a startling bang.

They were now only forty minutes from Maui.

Only forty minutes from Kim.

Since leaving Grand Rapids, Barbara and Levon had slept in snatches. So much time had elapsed since the phone call that it was starting to feel unreal.

They now spun the idea that after Kim had given them hell for coming there, they'd be laughing about all of this, showing off a snapshot of Kim with that “oh, please” look on her face and standing between her parents, all of them wearing leis, typical happy tourists in Hawaii.

And then they'd swing back to their fear.

Where was Kim? Why couldn't they reach her? Why was there no return call from her on their home phone or Levon's cell?

As the airplane sailed above the clouds, Barb said, “I've been thinking about the bike.”

Levon nodded, took her hand.

What they called “the bike” had started with another terrible phone call, seven years ago, this time from the police. Kim had been fourteen. She'd been riding her bike after school, wearing a muffler around her neck. The end of the scarf, whipping back behind her, got wrapped around the rear wheel, choking Kim, pulling her off the bike and hurling her onto the roadside.

A woman driving along saw the bike in the road, pulled up, and found Kim lying up against a tree, unconscious. That woman, Anne Clohessy, had called 911, and when the ambulance came, the EMTs couldn't get Kim to come back to consciousness.

Her brain had been deprived of oxygen, the doctors said. She was in a coma. The hospital's posturing told Barb that it might be irreversible.

By the time Levon had been reached at the office, Kim had been medevaced to a trauma unit in Chicago. He and Barb had driven three hours, got to the hospital, and found their daughter in intensive care, groggy but awake, a terrible bruise around her neck, as blue as the scarf that nearly killed her.

But she was alive. She wasn't back to a hundred percent yet, but she'd be fine.

“It was weird inside my head,” Kimmy had said then. “It was like dreaming, only much more real. I heard Father Marty talking to me like he was sitting on the end of the bed.”

“What did he say, sweetheart?” Barb had asked.

“He said, 'I'm glad you were baptized, Kim.' ”

Now Levon took off his glasses, dried his eyes with the back of his hand. Barb passed him a tissue, saying, “I know, sweetie, I know.”

This is how they wanted to find Kim now. Fine. Levon gave Barb a crooked smile, both of them thinking how the story in the Chicago Trib had called her “Miracle Girl,” and sometimes they still called her that.

Miracle Girl who got onto the varsity basketball team as a freshman. Miracle Girl who was accepted into Columbia premed. Miracle Girl who'd been picked for the Sporting Life swimsuit shoot, the odds a million to one against her.

Levon thought, What kind of miracle was that?

Barb twisted a tissue into a knot, and she said to Levon, “I should never have made such a fuss about that modeling agency.”

“She wanted to do it, Barb. It's no one's fault. She's always been her own person.”

Barb took Kimmy's picture from her purse, a five-by-seven headshot of eighteen-year-old Kim, taken for that agency in Chicago. Levon looked at the picture of Kim wearing a low-cut black sweater, her blond hair falling below her shoulders, the kind of radiant beauty that gave men ideas.

“No modeling after this,” Levon said now.

“She's twenty-one, Levon.”

“She's going to be a doctor. Barb, there's no good reason for her to be modeling anymore. This is the end of it. I'll make her understand.”

The flight attendant announced that the plane would be landing momentarily.

Barb raised the shade and Levon looked out at the clouds flowing under the window, the peaks of them looking like they'd been hit with pink spotlights.

As the tiny houses and roads of Maui came into view, Levon turned to his wife, his best pal, his sweetheart.

“How're you doin', hon? Okay?”

“Never better,” Barb chirped, attempting a joke. “And you?”

Levon smiled, brought Barb close, and pressed his cheek to hers, smelled the stuff she put in her hair. What Barb smelled like. He kissed her, squeezed her hand.

“Hang on,” Levon said, as the airplane began its steep, sickening descent. And he sent out a thought to Kim. We're coming for you, honey. Mom and Dad are coming.

The Mcdanielses stepped from the plane's exit door to a wobbly staircase and from there down to the tarmac, the heat suffocating after the chilled air on the plane.

Levon looked around at the volcanic landscape, an astounding difference from Michigan in the black of night, with the snow falling down the back of his shirt collar as he'd hugged his sons good-bye.

He took off his jacket, patted the inside pocket to make sure that their return plane tickets were safe – including the ticket he'd bought for Kim.

The terminal was full of people, the waiting room in the same open-air section as the baggage claim. He and Barb turned cards over to an official in blue, swearing they were not bringing in any fruit, and then they looked for taxi signs.

Levon was walking fast, feeling a heightened need to get to the hotel and not watching his feet when he sidestepped a luggage trolley and just about stumbled over a young girl with yellow braids. She was clutching a fuzzy toy, standing in the middle of everything, just taking it all in. The child looked so self-assured that she reminded Levon again of Kim, and a wave of panic rose in him, making him feel dizzy and sick to his stomach.

Levon swept blindly forward, asking himself if Kim had used up her quota of miracles. Was her borrowed time up? Had the whole family made a tremendous mistake buying into a headline written by a reporter in Chicago, giving all of them a belief that Kim was so miraculous that nothing could ever hurt her?

Levon silently begged God again to please let Kim be safe at the hotel, make her be glad to see her parents, have her say, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you worry.

With his arm around Barb, the two headed out of the terminal, but before they reached the taxi rank, they saw a man approaching – a driver holding up a sign with their name.

The driver was taller than Levon. He had dark hair streaked with gray, a mustache, and he wore a chauffeur's cap and livery jacket and alligator cowboy boots with three-inch heels.

He said, “Mr. and Mrs. McDaniels? I'm Marco. The hotel hired me to be your driver. Do you have claim tickets for your luggage?”