Whenever some horrible tragedy happened, from the big stuff, like planes crashing and bombs exploding, to the smaller stuff, like a boy falling off his bike and drowning in the river or a crib death in the house at the end of the street, it would always be put down to “God’s work” by Ms. MacDonald. “Going about His mysterious business,” she would say and nod sagely as people ran from disasters on the television news, as if God were running a secretive office dealing in human misery.
