When they got to Sister Highsmith's apartment building, Step and Lee waited in the car for a moment while Step led them in a short prayer. Help us know what she needs and provide it for her, help her know that she can rely on us-that sort of prayer. Then they went up to the door and knocked.

It took forever for her to get to the door, but when she got there it was as if she were receiving royalty. She was dressed to the nines and her stark white hair looked as though she had just stepped out of a beauty parlor.

She was gracious and elegant, as was her home, though it tended to be a little too knick-knacky for Step's taste.

A grandma house, he decided, a grandma house where the grandchildren never came, so that nothing had ever had to be put up out of the reach of children.

But there were pictures of children, and so Step asked about them, and that was good for fifteen minutes of talk about how wonderful they were but their parents just didn't seem to take the gospel seriously and the children were downright frivolous sometimes, all except her son's eldest girl, who was quite a serious child and wrote to her once a month, without any prompting from the girl's parents, which is a very fine thing in this day and age when children have no respect.

When that subject wound down-that is, when Sister Highsmith started asking about his family-he answered her briefly and then commented on the fact that she didn't seem to have a southern accent. That was good for another fifteen minutes about all the moving around that she and Nick had done before he retired from the military and they settled in Steuben. He died a year to the day after he retired, even though he had just invested most of their savings and all of her inheritance in a little fast- food franchise, but it turned out that Der Wienerschnitzel just didn't do all that well in Steuben. It just wasn't a southern franchise, they realized too late-southerners didn't want mustard and onions on their hot dogs, they wanted chili and Cole slaw and they also wanted a place to sit down and they weren't go ing to pay Der Wienerschnitzel prices to do it. So the business wound down and even though she lost all that money, she didn't mind, because she had plenty of pension money on top of social security and her life with Nick had been a good life and if he had lived he would have made the franchise work, she was sure of it. So now it was just a matter of waiting until the Lord saw fit to take her home to heaven so she could be with Nick again.

"Do you really think he's in heaven?" asked Lee.

It was the first thing he had said in Sister Highsmith's house after the initial greeting, and the question just hung there in the air for a moment, as Sister Highsmith tried to discern whether he was challenging her assessment of her husband's righteousness.

"Brother Weeks here is new in the Church," Step explained. "I don't think he's suggesting that Brother Highsmith isn't in heaven, I think he's asking a doctrinal question."

"Oh, yes," said Lee. "I didn't think of it that other way-no, of course he's in heaven! I mean, even people who open hot dog franchises can still go to heaven, right?" He laughed, and Sister Highsmith and Step politely laughed along, though Step was meanwhile thinking, OK, let's get this boy out of here. Apparently Mommy hasn't given Lee much chance to learn what you do and don't say, and what you do and don't joke about.

"What I was asking," said Lee, "was whether you think your husband is a god."

Step cringed inside. What had the LeSueurs taught this boy? Step loathed the way tha t some Mormons bandied about the idea of godhood as if it were first prize at the county fair and really good Mormons would bring it home like a giant stuffed bear.

"I mean that's what first attracted me to the Mormons," said Lee. "Was the idea that human beings can become gods. I've always felt that. And then I saw this movie about how that's what you Mormons all believe and so I phoned up the church here in town and the missionaries came by."

"What was the movie?" asked Step. "Was it by any chance called The Godmakers?"

"Yes, that was it," said Lee.

"That's an anti-Mormon film," said Step. "It distorts our doctrines beyond all recognition. And the answer to your question is no, Sister Highsmith does not believe that her husband is a god. He's a man, and a good man-am I right, Sister Highsmith?"

"The very best sort of man," she said. "He became a colonel before he retired."

"Yes," said Step, "and now his spirit has left his body behind and he lives on with those of his family who died before him. But Lee, becoming holy and perfect enough to fully share in God's work is very rare and when it does happen it would happen only after long development and a long, long time after death and to most people it never comes at all. It's not like becoming a colonel." And then, to help Lee realize that the discussion should now end, Step added, "And it's not a doctrine that we discuss much." Or at least, if we have any sense of proportion we don't discuss it much. We don't even understand what Joseph Smith meant by it, for heaven's sake! Much better to concentrate on things like loving your neighbor and trying not to screw up your life and the lives of everybody around you than to get into mysterious doctrines.

Apparently mysterious doctrines were all that Lee wanted to talk about. "I think about becoming a god all the time," he said. "I think it would be neat to design planets and stuff. I could sure do a better job than this world."

Sister Highsmith blanched, and Step knew that she would not be reluctant if he now got Lee out of the house. "Well," Step said, "it was wonderful to meet you, Sister Highsmith. Can we have a word of prayer before we go?"

"Oh, do you have to go already?" she said.

Step cringed again, waiting for her to say the obligatory Don't go, wait awhile, it's early yet.

But she didn't say it. "Well, how sweet of you two to come by. And I'd be glad if you'd say the prayer, Brother Fletcher."

Yes, Lee had really put the stamp of strangeness on this evening. Sister Highsmith was glad to see them go-not exactly the best finish for the evening.

Out in the car, Lee seemed oblivious to the idea that he might have said something wrong. "That was neat," he said. "To be able to talk like that about things that I've just kept bottled up inside for years. I mean, that's the best thing about the Mormons, I can tell my secret thoughts and people understand. Not like Mom, I can't tell her anything or she just analyzes me to death."

I can understand that, thought Step, if you talk very much about becoming a god. To a psychologist, no less!

"I can feel it inside me, you know," said Lee. "All the time. Sometimes even a voice. And I know that it's the voice of God, it's the presence of God, just like Sister LeSueur told me. She said she had a vision about me, that I had the seeds of godhood inside me and I was just waiting for the gospel to bring it out of me. Some times I think that if I could just strip away all the weakness of this body that just ties me down to earth I could fly.

And I don't mean just flapping around like a sparrow or something, I mean soar up to the stars, go from planet to planet. I feel like that sometimes. I mean, sometimes I think that I really have done it, that yesterday I was on another planet just like this one, only the old one wasn't as real, this one is the real one, the other one was just an imitation and now, for the first time, I can see what reality is, what it means to be alive, and I think, No one else can see this, I'm the only one who can see this, because the god inside me has opened my eyes. Everybody else sees it, I mean, but they don't really see it. They see but they don't-they can see but-"

He was beginning to sound almost frantic, as if the right word were just out of reach and he couldn't quite find it. So Step offered a finish for this impossible thought. "You're saying that they apprehend it with their eyes, but you comprehend it."