The Source - Michael Cordy [26]
'It's okay, Maisie. I'll deal with this,' interrupted the older woman. She adjusted her spectacles and smiled sympathetically. 'Maisie's new here. Is this to do with all that's happened, Sister?'
Sister Chantal fingered her crucifix, dismayed that Lauren Kelly's achievement was already making waves. 'Yes . . . yes, it is.' She had hoped the translation would attract little attention until it was completed. And without her help she was confident that that would never happen. 'Do you know where I can find her?'
'Yes. I'm sure we have the name of the hospital on the computer.'
'Hospital?'
'I assumed you wanted to visit Dr Kelly there because of her injury.'
An icy hand squeezed Sister Chantal's heart. 'Injury?'
The woman frowned. 'You don't know what happened?'
14
A few miles away, Ross Kelly was still trying to process Greenbloom's chilling prognosis. As he left the Sacred Heart Hospital, he felt curiously drawn to its small chapel.
If the total life of Earth was scaled down to a twenty-four-hour day, then mankind had turned up in the last few seconds – so it was odd that God should have created man in His own image. It made much more sense that man, with his evolved consciousness, had created God. It was one of the things Ross and Lauren had argued about from the very first time they met. He envied the comfort her faith brought her, and marvelled at how believers always credited God with the good things but never blamed Him for the bad.
His mother's faith had comforted her, too, in times of crisis. When she had miscarried, she didn't blame God but sought Him out. And when she developed cancer, she had prayed to Him to give her strength. Even Ross's father found solace in accepting adversity as God's will. But Ross couldn't. He wanted to believe there was some divine order in the world: it made it so much easier to accept everything. But there was no evidence. Over the last few weeks, he had prayed for Lauren, but he had sensed only a void. The few times Ross had glimpsed a spiritual dimension, it had been in the wonders of the natural world: the crystal formations in the vast cave of Lechugia, the Ozark mountains at dawn near his father's farm. Even the awesome history of the planet could make him reconsider his place in the scheme of things.
If God did exist, Ross had no time for the religions that had claimed Him as their own. It amazed him that believers – Christian, Jew or Muslim – could ruthlessly dismiss all other religions and not understand why he might want to dismiss theirs. Religion had done him one small service, though: as a boy he had joined the church choir and from that had learnt he had inherited his mother's perfect pitch.
Perhaps it was those happier memories that now drew him to the silence of the empty chapel. With its faint smell of incense, the pale wood pews, smooth white walls and contemporary stained-glass windows it offered a peaceful haven from the worries of the world. He took a seat at the front, looked up at the cross and wondered why religions cared more about a person's faith than what he or she did with their life. Why did we have to believe in God to be saved? Was He so vain, insecure and petty that He needed us to recognize Him? Why couldn't we just live good, worthwhile lives? Why did He allow Lauren to suffer when she believed in Him, but spared Ross who didn't?
'May I sit here?'
Ross jumped. He turned to see a priest standing in the aisle. There was something familiar about him. 'It's your chapel,' he said. 'I'm not a believer.'
The priest smiled. 'We all believe in something. Faith is what separates us from beasts.' He sat down beside him. 'And this is your chapel. It was intended for people in your predicament, Dr Kelly.'
'You know my name.'
Another smile. 'I'm a great admirer of your wife and her work, which deserves to be more widely appreciated. She deserves to be more widely appreciated.'
At that Ross remembered who he was. 'You were at the Beinecke when