Living Proof, стр. 12

“That’s right. One day. Be good to Him and He will be good to you.”

“But is it too late now?” Trent asked, scrunching up his face in anticipation of crying. “Because I said I hated Him?”

She smiled easily. They really were about to be late. “No, honey, as long as we go to church right now, God will forgive you.”

Trent nodded, his brown curls bouncing. “Okay, let’s go,” he said.

His mother kissed his forehead and stood up, stretching out a hand to her son. As he grabbed it, he looked up.

“Bye, birdie,” he called, but the streak of scarlet was gone.

*   *   *

That incident had marked the origin of his disillusionment, neatly contained by his mother, until the church scandals two decades later dredged it up again. During the worst of it, he had briefly considered leaving the investigative religion beat altogether by switching to the newspaper’s science section; it seemed like the opposite of corruption and scandal, just hard facts and straight reason. But he knew it would just be a distraction from his internal dilemma.

Reassurance had come in the form of Father Paul, who offered the helping hand that pulled Trent out of the chasm. Brushing aside the church scandals as sabotage perpetrated by the Devil, Father Paul reminded Trent of the importance of faith in God at all costs, and told him that the only way to feel right again was to strengthen that faith.

“But how do you know when to be faithful and when to be skeptical of something?” Trent had wanted to know.

“You must always have faith in Christ, no matter what,” Father Paul responded.

“But how do you know to draw the line there?”

Father Paul looked exasperated. “If you come at it scientifically like that, you ruin the whole experience of faith!”

Trent persisted. “But how could He have let this hypocrisy take place within our own church?”

“You’re right, the Church isn’t perfect, but that’s because it’s run by men. Remember the whole idea of faith, Trent: Let go of reason and give in to God’s higher plan. We can’t question Him, we can only follow.”

“I guess so. It’s just hard when I’m so torn.”

“No wonder you’re miserable, Trent. If you think about yourself and your problems all the time, it only depresses you because deep down you know how selfish you’re being. Think of Jesus. You need to learn how to sacrifice your own desires in order to do something that will help others. That’s the only way to come out of this. Let the Lord guide you back to grace.”

Father Paul had recommended him to his old friend Gideon Dopp, and Trent had gratefully accepted the position he offered, moving away from Long Island and into a (much smaller) studio apartment in the city. He felt better for the first six months, set on the path of a noble mission instead of burying his pen in the Devil’s smut, but the novelty of his job had soon worn off. Instead of lofty goals, he saw inspection reports, clinic statistics, and bureaucratic forms. And walls.

And now, three years in, here he was—faced with the prospect of crawling back to Father Paul for another helping of religious meat and potatoes. A neglected sense of rebellion pricked him. He wasn’t that settled: no wife, no kids. The excited feeling of his youth surged weakly within him, the feeling that the best was yet to come. He could still pick up and go—maybe travel the world, write about it, sell his stories to magazines, and …

“I could not believe how many people showed up,” his mother was saying to him, recounting the latest charity drive she had run. “It was the most…”

He smiled and felt common sense kick in, the unfortunate side effect of fantasy. Traveling as a way of life wasn’t realistic; he knew he could not run away from guilt. So maybe he should accept his self-doubt as a personality flaw, like a permanent sunspot in his eyes, and simply wait until he didn’t notice it anymore.

With a stab of remorse, he remembered Father Paul’s warning: constant introspection was a selfish habit, a dangerous source of unhappiness. Even now, pretending to listen to his mother, he was indulging in it.

He picked up a steaming mug of coffee and guzzled it. The scorching pain in his mouth and throat shocked him back to reality, and he coughed.

“Are you okay?” his mother asked, interrupting herself.

“Fine,” he said, wiping his watering eyes. “Sorry.”

Suddenly a doctor’s name popped into his mind—he could envision her slanted signature on Inspector Banks’s form. What a chance Dopp had given him! How could he have forgotten to mention it? “By the way,” he said with delight, “I can’t tell you much about this, but I got a huge assignment at work.…” He trailed off, reveling in the contagion of his own smile. “I wish I could tell you more, but it’s confidential.”

His parents looked at each other wide eyed; the need for secrecy implied his work was important and therefore impressive.

“Look at you,” his father said. “Before we know it, you’ll be all the way up the ranks to supervisor.”

Trent shrugged, as if that were his plan all along.