Read Online Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction by Grif Stockley - Free Book Online

admiration for him. Even with your parents egging you on, it can’t be easy being a little Billy Graham. My own failures with Sarah stand in stark relief.
    This kid is practically an evangelist; Sarah was lucky if I dropped her off at the front door of the church. It wouldn’t have killed me to attend Mass more. It’s not as if I were developing a cure for cancer and was just too busy to tear myself away.
    Bracken begins to clear the table.
    “Would you like some blackberry cobbler,” he asks cheerfully, “and some coffee?”
    “Sure,” I say. How can I be rude to someone who’s dying? Wynona springs up to help him, leaving Trey and me to stare around each other. It is as if I had farted and everyone was determined to ignore it. How odd this all is, I think. After Bracken dies, what a story I will have to tell. Chet Bracken stories are legion, but nobody will be able to top this one.
    Again, blushing furiously. Trey asks, “Maybe you can come to church with us this Sunday.”
    I look at the boy, astounded that a child so young would be this relentless. His eyes are somewhere on the middle button of my shirt. Doubtless, his parents have overheard him, but it is as if we were discussing base ball cards. Opening the refrigerator freezer. Bracken says, “Come on and go with us. It’ll make your investigation go easier.”
    Extremely uncomfortable now, I lift the crystal water glass to my lips to give myself time to think. What can it hurt?
    “Actually, I’ve already been invited,” I fudge, adding specificity to Rainey’s open invitation, “by a friend to attend your church this Sunday, so maybe I’ll see you there.”
    “Who?” Trey asks, a little suspiciously. This is too easy. Yet his parents let him continue as if I were a prisoner of war in a country that knew nothing of the Geneva Convention.
    I tell them about Rainey, but, not surprisingly, in a church with a cast of thousands, they have not heard of her. Wynona has a way of listening sympathetically, and I tell more about Rainey than I intended, managing only to leave out my consternation that she has joined Christian Life. No matter. As she fills my coffee cup, she re marks, “You must feel she’s deserting you because she’s gone so much.”
    “Exactly,” I say, glad that someone understands.
    “She might as well put her house up for sale.” Wynona reminds me of someone’s grandmother. I wonder how she and Bracken hooked up. A plain Jane if there ever was one, she wouldn’t have caught Bracken’s eye on a crowded street. Since she is perhaps a decade older than Bracken, she surely thought she had a husband for the rest of her life. As Julia, my secretary, says, “Even if you can find one halfway decent, he’ll wear out so fast and die you won’t even remember what he looks like.”
    Chet, who has said little during the meal, sits back in his chair.
    “There’s only one cure for that. You’ll have to start going, too.”
    Damn. I look at Wynona, who nods.
    “She probably can’t tell you what it means to her. When you first start getting to know your family, there’s a kind of glow.
    That’s how me and Chet met. Trey and I were assigned to be part of his family when he began coming regularly six months ago.”
    My head spins to look at Chet, who gives a confirming nod and a sheepish grin. I guess I should have figured, but I’d never heard about Chet having a wife or family before. With those ears. Trey couldn’t look any more like Chet if he’d had plastic surgery.
    “How long have you been married?” I ask, incredulous.
    “Three months,” he says, beaming at his bride. The kid calls him Dad, and Chet and Wynona look as if they have been married forever. Everyone seems happy. How can they stand it? The Lord’s will? I suppose if you believe it’s all for a purpose, you can endure anything, although I can’t quite buy that.
    As Wynona clears the table and does the dishes with Trey, we take our dessert and coffee and adjourn