The Book of Q by Jonathan Rabb Read Free Book Online Page A

give you the shriveled balls theory of resolution.”
    Andy let out a laugh and immediately sucked in a mouthful of water. Blessed with an Adonis-like build—six foot four, 220 pounds—he didn’t have an ounce of athletic talent to go with it. He began to cough up water as he tried to stay afloat.
    “You drowning on us, Lurch?” asked Pearse.
    “I’ll let you know.”
    “At least I’ve got some,” Jack piped in.
    Pearse laughed. “And this from a man who’s getting a Ph.D.”
    “Well, it is freezing.” Jack began to backstroke his way to shore. “You and Aquaman can figure it out. I’m going in.”
    The sound of lapping water grew more distant as Pearse let his feet drop down, only his head now above water. He could just make out Andy about ten feet from him.
    “You think I should go back?” he asked.
    “Maybe.”
    “The philosopher speaks.” Pearse waited. “No, what do you really think?” He heard Andy take a few strokes to his left.
    “I think it would make your life a whole lot easier if it was only about her.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning, if it was just her, you would have stayed.”
    Pearse didn’t answer.
    “So it’s not just about her,” said Andy. They floated silently for several minutes before he spoke again. “You should read Descartes.”
    “What?”
    “Descartes. Cogito ergo sum . You should read him.”
    “Okay?”
    “Except that’s not really it. It’s not the thinking that tells him he exists; it’s the doubting. Because if he’s doubting, then he must be thinking. So it’s dubito ergo sum that leads him to cogito ergo sum .”
    “How much did you have to drink?”
    “You’re not listening, E. Look, I’m probably the closest thing we have to an atheist in this family, but even I know faith begins with doubt. If you don’t question it, what’s the point in having it? So things got a little rocked over there. That was the whole reason you went, wasn’t it? If you hadn’t come back a little disillusioned, then you’d have a problem. I might not get it, E, but I know you do. You always have. This is the first time something’s forced you to defend it. And that’s what’s making it so tough. Until you figure that out, she could be out here with us right now, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.” Pearse heard Andy duck his head underwater, then come back up. “One thing is for certain. It’s fucking freezing out here.” Andy started in for shore.
    Pearse stayed out a few minutes longer, always happiest giving in to the isolation, his utter insignificance within a seemingly empty sea.
    “Thanks, Andy.”
    And, somehow, the ball began to fall into his glove again.
    All through seminary, he had managed to hold on to that feeling. That connection. That sense of absolute wonder. A life of cloistered contentment. The surest way to keep Petra at a distance.
    And, for a time, the questions faded, even the doubt that Andy had said was so essential. Pearse preferred it that way. Pure reflection. A proximity to God felt in the shadowed recesses of an afternoon prayer.
    But only for a time. Once on the outside, he began to run into even greater confusion, especially in the role of priest: too much responsibilityceded by a willing congregation; too easy a reliance on detached hierarchy. Church dogma had a way of clouding everything. And what had been so pure, so personal at the seminary came to resemble that arm’s-length quality he had seen with his parents. Genuine connection no longer made sense. There was too much standing between believer and Christ to allow for it.
    Not surprisingly, the emptiness from Bosnia slipped back in, threatening everything he had built for himself. He knew he needed to find another venue for his devotion, one more isolated, safer, where church structure couldn’t undermine his ever-tenuous belief. And where he wouldn’t allow Petra to find her way back in as a different kind of answer.
    Walking alone one afternoon near Copley