“Why?”
“She didn’t like my boyfriend.”
“Why?”
“He was a guy.”
“Oh.”
“She’s going to Heaven and I’m going to Hell with my ‘worthless drunk’ old man.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Not all Christians think that way, you know. Jesus preached about forgiveness, not damning people.”
“What about those guys with the signs, ‘God Hates Fags’?”
“God doesn’t hate. You shouldn’t lump us all in together. Just because they call themselves Christians…. I don’t want to be associated with that. Most Christians don’t.”
“I think I believe in God. But that word ‘faith’.”
“What about it?”
“It’s like ‘listen to whatever I say and don’t question it’. I don’t like that.”
“You don’t understand faith the way I do.”
“So what is it?”
“Faith isn’t about believing things that aren’t true because some authority told you to do it. It’s about trusting in things that are true, even if you aren’t in a position to prove it. Sometimes you have to believe in something before you can see it…. I have faith in you.”
The corners of Ian’s lips curled up into the distinctive smile that Paul loved so much. “Are you going to do a sermon about me this Sunday? The sinner you bailed out of jail?”
“You’re not a sinner,” Paul said firmly. “You have an addiction. God doesn’t damn people for being sick.”
Ian chewed on his lip for a moment. “It would be cool, though,” he said, “if you wrote a sermon about me. That stuff about faith. I’d come and listen.”
“If that will get you into church, I’ll do it.”
“I want to help you win that trip to Tahiti.”
“If I do, I’ll take you with me.”
“Deal.”
After Sara died, Paul couldn’t stand to be in the house they had bought together. It had too many memories, too many ghosts. There were the happy memories, of course, like the day he had carried her in across the vestibule to mark their new life together, the wallpaper in the bathroom that Sara had picked out herself and curiously hated—a source of constant playful teasing—and the plans they had made together at night in bed. All of those joyful moments had been rendered painful by the loss of Sara.
Like the guest room that they had planned to one day make into a nursery, each room contained dreams of a future that would now never be. The kitchen table would now always be the place he’d been sitting when she gave him the news about her diagnosis. The bathroom off the master bedroom was now the place where Paul had cleaned up the vomit and scooped the strands of red hair from the sinks and the drains. The sofa in the front room was where he sat in a daze and met with the many church members who came to bring him hot meals and sympathy. He couldn’t face any of it.
He bought a modest two-bedroom condominium. The master bedroom contained a dresser and a king-sized bed. The second bedroom Paul filled with books and made into his study. The living room was open and airy and under-furnished. There was a black futon, a matching chair, and a wide-screen TV in a wall-mounted shelving unit.
Even though Paul had lived in the condo for some time, Ian was to be his first overnight guest. Paul was about to apologize for how small his home was when he remembered Ian’s apartment.
“Wow,” Ian said, looking around. “This is a great place.”
“Thanks,” Paul said. “I don’t have a guest room, but the futon folds ou