“After my mom’s mental health improved, she joined a different church in Groomsport and has been going there for years. I still believe in God, but I haven't been a regular at any church since.”
“Sadly, one of the biggest obstacles to Christianity is the way some Christians treat people. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. I get why it's almost impossible for people to separate God from the hurt the church caused them.”
Her words impacted him like an arrow. They were true. He'd felt let down by the church and so he'd also felt let down by God. “This is an area where it doesn't make sense for McConnell and me to be the same.”
During one of their first phone meetings, they'd agreed that he and Jude McConnell would overlap in as many areas as possible. He and his alias had to be different when it came to family, hometown, college, and career. But for the sake of simplicity and clarity, Jude and his alias would share the things they could share—hobbies, preferences, movie favorites, forms of exercise, and more.
“McConnell's parents were never divorced,” he continued, “and were never the subject of a scandal. So McConnell wouldn't have experienced what I experienced with church members. Let's just say that McConnell went to church a lot as a kid but is busy and so doesn't go that often anymore.”
“All right.”
This talk was getting so personal that it was making him desperate to change the focus to her. “What's your faith life like?”
“My family also went to church a fair amount growing up. Unlike you, I wasn't the one who nagged the others to go. I was the one who nagged them not to go because I found it boring. The lessons from church only penetrated skin-deep.”
“Ah.”
“But then my own mom's life got messy. Really, our whole family's life got messy when my dad was arrested and Mom's health deserted her. Our church friends were incredible to us. They took turns at the hospital with Mom so I could go home and sleep. They fed us. They hosted my youngest brothers for weeks in their homes because Nicolas and Ronan were too young back then to stay home alone for extended periods.”
Just because his experience with the church when he’d been going through a crisis had been bad, he'd never have wanted the same to be true for her. “I'm glad.”
“I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life,” she said. “Dad was gone and I thought that my mom might die. I begged and begged God to get my mom through the stroke. He did, of course. But an unexpected thing happened.”
“Which was?”
“He gotmethrough it, too. My prayers were all for her. Yet He graciously carried me. For years. He was and is my source of strength. We became pretty close, God and me.” She paused for a moment. “Does the fact that I'm a Christian surprise you?”
“No.” For all her outward energy and his outward calm, she was the one who had real peace at the core of her.
“I wish I'd been your mom's friend after her split from your dad,” she stated. “If I had been, I would have stepped right into that mess and I would have helped you.”
Gratitude and affection for her broke free in his chest. “I believe you would have.”
Selfishly, though, he was glad she was not the age of his mom's friends. The world needed her just the age she was and just the way she was.
* * *
Two nights later, Jude knocked on the alley door at the rear of Perfumes by Gemma Clareforhis lesson in perfume making. He hadn't seen Gemma in person since last Friday, when they'd met with Dixon and Shannon, which felt like an extended drought of time—
Gemma swung the door open and waved him in. Then indicated her mouth, calling attention to the fact that she was chewing something.
Waiting on her to finish chewing was a blessing because, as usual, he found it challenging to adjust to Gemma in the flesh. Even the air around her—which smelled like pineapple cake this evening—seemed to spark with vitality.
She made him feel the way he'd felt standing in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence looking at the Venus figure in Botticelli's paintingPrimavera. Intrigued. Spellbound. Willing to stay in place for hours, studying what was before him.
Gemma swallowed, scooped up an open box of chocolate truffles, and held the box out to him. “Would you like one?”
“I’ve already had my chocolate for the day.”
“How about walking on the wild side and enjoyingtwoservings of chocolate today?” She rustled the box.
There were a lot of things in Jude's life that he desired but resisted because they weren't good for him. Consuming too much alcohol, relying on painkillers to numb anxiety, bingeing TV, sitting around instead of exercising, Gemma herself.
Something about her made him want to rebel against his own self-control. If he was going to be self-destructive and rebel against his own self-control while under the influence of Gemma, chocolate was by far the least harmful mistake he could make. He took a truffle.
“Bravo, Jude!”
“And here you thought I was a prude,” he said wryly.
