“Birthday,” she said at last, and I could barely hear her.

“What?”

“Birthday.” She looked up. “Today is my birthday.”

I sat still, temporarily at a loss for words.

“Today is your birthday?”

“I… think… so,” she said, looking down at her hands. “April second. Not sure what year…” Again, looking up: “Not sure. But April second. Seems like that’s it.”

The ghost of a smile faded. “Anyway, don’t matter, does it? Not even sure how old I am. Don’t matter…”

“How do you feel, Maddy?” I sensed the little bird, tensing for flight.

“Don’t make me feel nothin’,” she said. And the brief spark in her eyes died. “I don’t feel a thing.”

And I knew she was right.

Counselors are supposed to remain emotionally unattached from clients. But Maddy nonetheless played around the edges of my mind a lot during the next week. It wasn’t just my fear of losing her, losing what little connection we had made. Maddy’s slow but sure flight towards death brought things up from within me that I thought had been buried. There emanated from her a kind of haunted and cold wind that brought with it a heart memory, a soul-deep remembering of a time when I, too, found myself barely balanced between seduction and salvation. A knowing: We are all the same, broken. And though some of us might look better or act better on the outside, we are each of us capable — in the blink of an eye, the beat of a heart — of falling.

We need. From the beginning to the end, in need of our Christ. In need of someone to reach out and touch us in our ugly leprosy… and be Jesus to us.

I knew she might run away at any time. I prayed to God for help. I asked that Jesus might use me, to embody His embrace.

Then one night, lying in bed, right out of nowhere, He answered.

The whole thing came in one flash, complete.

The next morning I got up, went into the kitchen, and found the little box my wife kept in a drawer. I took it with me to the office.

At the beginning of our session together, I asked Maddy to wait a moment, and I left the room. She was sitting on the couch, very much alone, when I came in carrying the cupcake. A cupcake, on a saucer. A small pink candle stuck in the white icing, my hand cupped near to keep it from going out. I sat it on the table in front of her.

“Happy birthday, Maddy,” I said.

She looked at the flame. I could see it, just for a moment, reflected in her brown, broken eyes. She looked at me. “What?”

“Happy birthday. A little late.”

“What?” she said again, a whisper, staring back down at the cupcake. Her mouth began to tremble. “I’ve… I’ve never had…”

And the door cracked — and then flew open.

“…anything…”

Her tears began slowly, as if they’d forgotten how to flow. Then, like rain, hard and cleansing rain, violent and beautiful.

And laughter and wailing mixed together, choking on words that wouldn’t come, mixing like raindrops on their way to earth, on their way home.

“I’ve never… had… anything…”

Maddy held out her arms.

Then, finally, she let Jesus hold her.