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  “So you’re going dancing all the time,” he said softly.

  She nodded. “I’m going to dance until the day they strap me to a wheelchair.”

  His paper-thin lips tightened. “Damn them, whoever they are.”

  “The fates, I guess.”

  “I don’t believe in fate,” he retorted.

  “Neither do I.” She smiled and walked him to the door. “Have a nice evening, Sam. See you tomorrow.” She paused for effect, and the solemnity of her voice did not match her smile. “At church.”

  “See you at church,” he said, shaking his head. “Our irreverence never fails to amuse me.”

  She chuckled. “Me either.”

  “Good night,” he said. She closed the door and leaned against it.

  One of Sam’s earlier sentences, spoken with quiet frustration, had tempered her spirits like a thundercloud: There’s so much damn error in trial and error. Was she naïve to think three men could solve the unbelievably complex mystery of regenerating life through life? She frowned, feeling her heart quicken in that panic-stricken moment of doubt. On cue, her mind fed her the reassurance reel: The best and the brightest—if anyone can do it, they can—they have everything: knowledge, purpose, supplies, space—the best and the brightest … The pattern continued for several sentences until its triumphant conclusion: So they will do it in time. She summoned the words so often that their familiarity calmed her more than their meaning. A mantra, an obsession, a dream, hope—whatever their name, she clung to the words, for without their promise, soon she would have nothing.

  When her breathing slowed, she realized that something was wrong; it took her a moment to realize that she had not heard Sam’s footsteps in the hallway. She spun around to face the door, and froze. Through the peephole, she saw the familiar slouched figure standing still, hands in the pocket of his slacks, staring at her door. She wondered if he had forgotten something, although at least a minute had passed since his departure, and he hadn’t brought anything except the bottle of wine. Keeping her eyes trained on the peephole, she grabbed the brass doorknob and turned the cool metal. As if he were a puppet controlled by its movement, Sam straightened, turned, and ran down the stairs with surprising agility. Arianna swung open the door, but the hall was empty. His footsteps echoed below.

  She did not follow him. Instead, she thought of her late father, who, when she was a teenager, used to watch her from their second-floor window whenever she left their apartment at night. Rather than suffering adolescent embarrassment, she had always felt safe in his gaze, as if its protection alone were enough to fend off danger. Sam, she thought, must harbor a similar fatherly inclination. It made sense based both on their ages and the responsibility he carried regarding her life. A symbiotic pair they made—she, fatherless, and he, childless. Of course, he would deny tenderness toward anyone, so she wouldn’t humiliate him with her realization. That was one major difference between Sam and her father, who used to tell her he loved her with the regularity of the tides. But despite Sam’s misanthropic bent, she was glad to see he was still capable of fondness. With a little smile, she opened her shoe closet by the door and slipped on her dancing heels.

  * * *

  Trent wondered if he would ever meet a woman who was impressed by his job. Some of them blanched and bolted when he told them where he worked. That Saturday night, he bore the full shame of the stigma. The girl at the bar was stunning—her eyes were sea-glass green and her blond hair slid over her shoulders, skimming the tops of her breasts.

  “So, what do you do?” she asked after a minute of flirty banter. “Let me guess, but if I get it right, you have to buy me a martini.”

  “Okay.”

  She tilted her head. “I bet it’s something brainy. I’d say you’re that cute teacher the students are totally obsessed with.”

  He chuckled nervously. “Not quite.” An incongruous mix of pride and doubt laced through what felt like a confession. “I work for the DEP.”

  “As in the Department of Embryo Preservation?”

  “Yeah.” He tried to smile, despite sensing futility. “But I’ll buy you a drink anyway, since you never would have guessed that.”

  “You’re right,” she sneered. “I never would have pegged you as a religious freak.”

  “I’m not.” And that’s part of the problem, he thought.

  But she slid off the barstool without giving him the consolation of a second glance.

  He had expected his job to strengthen his faith—that had been his goal in taking it—rather than being humiliated by it. Thank God he wasn’t part of the DEFP, at least. Women in New York reviled that department even more than his own. It was a wonder that any single men there ever got dates.

  The next morning, over brunch with his parents, he vented his frustration.

  “Oh, Trent,” his mother sighed. “It’s so much easier to date someone with your values! Think of the women at church!”

  “Right,” he muttered, thinking of the devout, humble women who prayed beside him on Sundays. “Wife material, maybe, but no good for a night out.”

  Even though his parents had been married thirty-five years, they still held hands and even flirted. Trent saw them as the model for the relationship he wanted one day—though one day was turning into anytime now. He was thirty-six and single, his prospects as slim as the pickings, with a dull job that was supposed to be his life’s work. Yet his parents had been together since high school, and by age thirty, both had developed fulfilling careers.

  “So what’s the secret?” Trent asked them as his father kissed a spot of whipped cream off his mother’s lips. “You make it look so easy.”

  “What?” his mother asked.

  “Life. Love. All of it.”

  “Life—that’s one thing. But there’s no secret to love,” his father said, putting his arm around Trent’s mother. “It’s easy.”

  She grinned. “Actually I think that is the secret,” she said. “Finding a person who makes it easier to be with than without.”

  “Now you’re just rubbing it in,” Trent said. He said nothing about it for the rest of the meal, as he listened to them talk about their busy social life.

  But as they finished eating, his mother tilted her head at him. “Hon, this isn’t like you. You hardly ate anything.”

  He looked down at his plate, where scrambled eggs were pushed around, and felt a slight irritation at her prompting.

  “Is something up?” his dad asked.

  He hesitated a moment too long. He didn’t really want to talk, but at the same time, he wondered if it would be a relief to confide in the people who cared most about him. Then again, how could he explain a problem he didn’t understand?

  “Now you have to tell us,” his mother prodded.

  “Well,” he began, “I’ve been feeling kind of off lately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just something in my life, Ma. I don’t know what it is, and that’s the whole problem.”

  She eyed him. “Then how do you know it’s there?”

  “I feel weirdly … unsettled,” he said, struggling to explain, “like I can’t be myself in my own life.”

  Her skepticism took on a tinge of worry. “Are you trying to tell us something?”

  “I’m trying to understand something.”

  His father looked dubious. “You’re a bit young for a midlife crisis. Is it something to do with your job?”

  “I—I think so. I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Honey, you’ve got the best job around,” his mother said. “You know that.”

  Trent almost rolled his eyes. Just because a job had the society-approval stamp didn’t make it automatically fulfilling or fun. And maybe that was part of the problem.

  “What higher calling could there be?” his father chimed in. “If they had had the department up and running back when I finished school, I would have worked there in a heartbeat.”

  “I know that, Dad. You tell me a
ll the time,” Trent said, trying to keep his voice even. His father was an accountant who had once dreamed of being a policeman, though he hadn’t the courage. Trent could see that his own job would have been his dad’s perfect compromise between protecting others and inviting danger. “Hey, I changed careers,” Trent said. “Why can’t you?”

  His father smiled. “It’s enough that I can watch you succeed there. Father Paul told me just this morning that the big man—Dopp, right?—well, he told Father that he’s real happy with your work lately.”

  His mother beamed, while Trent gave a tight smile. “That’s great, but it still doesn’t solve my problem.”

  “Oh, Trent,” she said, “everyone feels restless sometimes. Do you think you’re just overthinking it?”

  “Maybe I’m not thinking enough,” he said quietly.

  A mischievous smile spread across her face. “I know what the problem is. You need a girlfriend, that’s all.” She paused, treading carefully. “You do want one, don’t you? You haven’t had one in ages.”

  He looked at her with exasperation. “I didn’t realize you were keeping track.”

  “You know what you should do,” his father said. “Come home and talk to Father Paul. He’s always helped you.”

  His mother nodded. “Whenever I doubt something, I know it’s time to get closer to God.”

  Trent knew she was right, but her advice troubled him more. Trying to get “closer to God” had felt like a futile exercise to him ever since his crisis of faith three years ago, from which he had never fully recovered.

  He had been working at Newsday and was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Catholic Church after a series of sex scandals involving local priests. He was overcome by conflict, as if he were stuck at the bottom of a deep chasm between the ideals he was raised to believe and the reality he reported on every day. If God was the ultimate leader of the Church, how could He have let it get so out of hand?

  That painfully uncertain time reminded him of his childhood frustration with God, the incident when he first experienced grave disappointment. The memory was vivid, and one of his earliest.

  * * *

  His back was to his house; he was crouching in its slanted shadow, fanning his palms over the prickly grass. One of the blades, he knew, was alive. It had jumped, nudged by the unwitting touch of his hand. The grasshopper’s legs rubbed together like a chorus of zippers, taunting him to follow. He inched his feet toward the sound, but it faded when he reached a tree with low branches. The early-morning sun splintered through the leaves and he sat back, lifting his face toward the warmth. Behind a cluster of leaves, a patch of red caught his eye. He stood up and craned his neck to see the robin.

  “Hi, little birdie,” he said, waving a chubby hand. It chirped and jumped to a closer branch. He stared at it, mesmerized by its breathless twitter.

  “Trent!” his mother’s voice called from the doorway to the backyard. “What are you doing? We’re about to leave. Trent Aidan Rowe!”

  He stood immobile, focusing only on one sound. His mother hurried over the patchy grass toward him, pinching her fitted black slacks at the knees.

  “You’re making Mommy ruin her clothes. C’mon, we’re going to be late for church.”

  Trent did not turn to look at her.

  “What are you doing out here, honey? Let’s go.”

  “Mama, what is the birdie saying?”

  “It’s saying you need to come inside with me so we can go. We have to leave in five minutes.”

  He did not move.

  “Hello?” his mother said, putting a hand on his shoulder and whirling him around. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you, young man.”

  “I’m not going,” he muttered, glaring up at her.

  “Of course you’re going.”

  She grabbed his hand and started to pull him toward the house. He stayed rooted to the ground.

  “Okay, Trent. We don’t have time for this. Why don’t you want to go?”

  He stared at the ground. “Because I hate God.”

  His mother’s eyes widened and she put her hands on his shoulders. “You must never say such an evil thing. Look at me. That is very, very wrong. Why would you ever say that?”

  “Because He took Grandpa away. And you told me to pray for him but God didn’t listen. So now I hate Him.”

  His mother took a deep breath and knelt down to his level. She seemed about to scold him again for his impiety, but then her expression softened. “Honey, I know it’s hard for you to understand why Grandpa had to go away with God, but God knew it was the right time to take him, and we have to trust His decision.”

  “Why do we have to?”

  “Because God knows what is best for everyone.”

  “Even me?”

  “Yes, sweetie, especially you. He is always taking care of all of us.”

  “But what about Grandpa?”

  “He took Grandpa to a much better place, and you will see him again one day if you are a good boy. I know you will be.”

  Trent was quiet for a moment.

  “So if I go to church, God will let me see Grandpa again?”

  “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.