Childless: A Novel (17 page)

Matthew sighed
as he scraped half of Reverend Grandpa’s lunch into the garbage can. It was something he had done a thousand times before while caring for his mom. He tried to recall when she’d begun leaving more food on her plate than she ate. Was it about the same time she’d started forgetting to take her medications? Or when the spark of determined strength in her eyes had surrendered to befuddled fear? Either way, he recognized diminished appetite as a sign of something wrong. Disease? Depression? No. Decay.

His client, like his mother, must be crying out for help. Why else would he specifically request a bean-and-cheese burrito for lunch and then shove it aside after a few pitiful bites? Why else would he keep himself cooped up in his bedroom like a man condemned to solitary confinement? During the five days Matthew had lived with Reverend Grandpa he had seen only one brief sign of passion: the covert scheming with his grandson. Even that, come to think of it, had sounded more like an effort to convince himself than an effort to cheer up Peter. Did Reverend Grandpa really intend to stick around for a long time?

Matthew finished the cleanup process and mentally checked off the third of five daily chores. Then he walked toward the laundry room, where a clump of damp towels awaited transfer from the washer to the dryer. He halted, trying to recall what the old man had told the boy.
Your mommy and I discussed the money already. I’m gonna live right here, real close, for at least six months
.

Of course!

Abandoning his to-do list, Matthew gave himself a much more important assignment.

“Free to thrive?” Reverend Grandpa said with a snigger. “Is that what they taught you up there in Boulder?”

Matthew couldn’t quite read whether his client was intrigued or incensed.

The old man put both hands on his left leg brace, the first of three sequenced steps before standing. Matthew instinctively moved toward him, then remembered the rule:
Only assist when asked
. Afraid of another rebuke, Matthew reminded himself that his client was not, in Reverend Grandpa’s words, “some helpless invalid!”

“Actually,” Matthew answered, “the wording came from a column written by my girlfriend’s sister.” Mostly true. Maria Davidson might not yet qualify as his official girlfriend. But Julia was her sister.

“Oh, I see,” Reverend Grandpa mocked. “So you got this entire cockamamy philosophy from a blogger?”

“Not the philosophy,” Matthew corrected. “Just the
free to thrive
part.”

The old man placed his right hand on the arm of his chair while the other reached toward the top of his leg brace. Step two of three. Then he paused to look up, unimpressed, toward Matthew’s face.

“Uh-huh,” he said. “And the rest?”

Matthew wanted to mention the mountain of ancient sources, academic articles, and recent books he knew existed that would substantiate his philosophy. But in the moment only one touchstone of credibility came to mind.

“I’ve been studying under the chair of religious studies at the university. His name is Thomas Vincent.” Matthew let the name linger in the air, waiting for his client to recognize the renowned scholar.

No raised eyebrow. No reaction at all.

“Dr. Thomas Vincent, PhD,” Matthew added.

“Never heard of him.”

Reverend Grandpa appeared distracted by the small icon affixed to the top of his leg brace. Despite repeated pressing, the hydraulic lift moaned without movement.

“Probably a low battery,” Matthew said. “I better add recharging your brace to my daily routine.”

“You do that,” the man barked, reluctantly waving Matthew in his direction. “Don’t just stand there like a worthless college boy. Help me up.”

He bent down to receive Reverend Grandpa’s weight.

Look who’s calling me worthless
, he thought while loaning the man his own limbs.

Five minutes and thirty-seven laborious steps later Reverend Grandpa settled into the front room recliner, inhaling rapidly through a suddenly stingy oxygen tube.

“You good?” Matthew asked.

A single nod.

Both men sat quietly until the deprived lungs were replenished.

“There.” Reverend Grandpa sighed with some comfort. “So, what was it we were talking about?”

“Manichaeism,” Matthew resumed. “Saint Augustine embraced it before he submitted to church dogma. I’m surprised you didn’t study it in seminary.”

A hint of vague familiarity appeared on the minister’s face. “Fourth-century Augustine?”

“That’s right,” Matthew said eagerly. “You’ve heard of him?”

A laugh. “Of course I’ve heard of him. Bishop of Hippo. Wrote
Confessions
.”

The title didn’t ring a bell. “
Confessions
?”

“You know, his testimony.”

“Testimony?”

“Good gravy, boy!” Reverend Grandpa exploded. “You haven’t spent much time in church, have you?”

“Plenty. I went to parochial school.”

The old man waved off the comment. “I’m not talking about catechism classes.” His speech took on a melodic rhythm. “I’m talking about Bible-preaching, song-singing, amen-shoutin’ church where people give a testimony of how God saved ’em from hell and damnation by his grace-givin’ love!”

Matthew met the statement with a puzzled stare. Was he serious? Or was this another effort to pull the college boy’s leg?

A smile on the minister’s face told him it was both. “You’d need to be my age or older to remember what church was like back in the day.”

“In what day?”

“Sunday!” he said as if delivering a punch line, laughing weakly. “At least, Sunday where I grew up.”

Matthew watched his client’s eyes enjoying a moment of reminiscence. They suggested deep bonds to a world quite different from the one Matthew inhabited. A universe far away, he assumed, from the one Reverend Grandpa’s daughter had chosen.

“Did you raise Marissa in that kind of church?”

“I tried,” he said dimly, placing his hand reverently on a book sitting beside him on the end table. It was the same vintage Bible Matthew had perused on the night he arrived at the house. “But times change, my boy. Times definitely change.”

Matthew sensed the dismal cloud reclaiming Reverend Grandpa’s disposition. He remembered his mission.

“So, Manicheans taught that the spiritual realm is good and the material world evil.”

The comment seemed to pull Reverend Grandpa out of his descent. “And the incarnation?” he asked perceptively.

“A great question,” Matthew said. “Church dogma says Jesus was God, a spirit, who became a man by taking on a material body.”

“Amen!”

Matthew froze at the abrupt interruption.

“Sorry, old habit. It means I agree.”

“OK. Well, anyway, some of his followers also created the myth of Jesus’s bodily resurrection. The Manicheans, by contrast, understood that Jesus’s resurrection was spiritual, not physical.”

“They understood that, did they?”

“They did. And they saw Jesus as one who helped show us the way to God.”

“Oh really. How?” Reverend Grandpa sounded as if he were humoring a child rather than engaging a foe.

“How what?”

“How’d he show us the way to God?”

“By transcending the prison of an evil, smelly, decaying body.”

“So you think he died to escape stubbed toes and mosquito bites for some out-of-body existence?”

“Exactly.”

“God didn’t become flesh?”

“Didn’t need to. Nor would it make sense. A perfect spirit wouldn’t contaminate himself with an evil, material body.”

“I see,” the minister said. “And no bodily resurrection from the dead?”

“What for? The body decays. Only the spirit matters.”

“Go on,” Reverend Grandpa said, as if loosening a fishing line. “You say Augustine believed this?”

“He did. At least until he blindly accepted church dogma that condemned Manichean teachings as heresy.”

“Those nasty church dogma guys!” Reverend Grandpa seemed to suppress a smile.

“Are you mocking me?”

“Not at all, my boy. I would never—” A bouncing torso interrupted the minister’s explanation.

“You’re laughing at me!”

The old man regained his composure with a snort. “I’m sorry, son. I’m just playing with you.”

“But I’m serious!”

“I know you are.” He suppressed another laugh. “If you only knew how many times I’ve heard some version of this same nonsense.

“Jesus wasn’t God, just an exceptional man.

“Jesus didn’t rise bodily, he showed us the path to enlightenment.

“Same song, two thousandth verse!”

“Have you ever asked yourself what it would mean if the Manicheans got it right and the Church got it wrong?” asked Matthew.

“They didn’t get it right.”

Matthew thought of Dr. Vincent. “Some very smart people think they did.”

“I’m sure they do. But a lot of very smart people think and do some very dumb things.”

“But if the Manicheans were right it would make a big difference, you know, in what you need to do six months from now.”

Reverend Grandpa glowered at Matthew. “What do you mean, six months from now?”

Matthew swallowed hard at the realization he had said too much. “I didn’t mean to hear.”

“Hear what?”

“I overheard your conversation with Peter.”

“Little Pete,” he corrected. “What part of the conversation?”

“The part where you talked about money, and how you would be around for another six months.”

The old man appeared confused. “And?”

“And, well, I assumed you were depressed because you plan to”—Matthew groped for the best word—“volunteer.”

“Volunteer for what?”

“To transition. What else?”

The minister’s face turned a furious shade of red. “So you brought up all this Manichean nonsense because you thought I was planning to commit suicide?”

“Not suicide. Transition.”

“Same difference!” he barked. “Why in the world would I kill myself?”

“Well,” Matthew scrambled, “you seemed a bit depressed. And then I heard you talking about money and a change in six months. I just assumed you wanted to help your daughter and grandkids.”

The old man took a deep breath as if trying to submerge his rising ire.

“I do want to help Marissa and the kids,” he began. “I’ve sat in that room thinking about little else. But, other than going back in time”—he slapped his leg brace and pinched his oxygen tube—“there aren’t any good options.”

Matthew sensed an intense self-doubt. No, self-condemnation. That would explain the depression.

“It was an accident,” he said sympathetically.

“A stupid accident. And an avoidable accident if only I hadn’t been too stubborn and cheap to add the accident anticipation package when I bought that car.”

“Package?” Matthew wondered aloud. “I thought accident anticipation came standard on every vehicle.”

“It does now. But not in the late twenties when I bought it.”

“The twenties? Wow.”

“Vintage, my boy. Vintage. Anyway, a measly thousand dollars then would have saved us a boatload of medical costs now. Plus I could’ve kept working for at least another decade. As it is, I’m probably gonna end up living with her and the kids.”

“Is that so bad?”

“You tell me,” Reverend Grandpa said. “Would you want the burden of me if you were my child? A child, incidentally, who’s spent her whole life trying to get away from her religious nut of a father?”

Matthew held his tongue. He, too, had rejected a parent’s religion. He knew what it was like to dread and then endure days on end managing doctor appointments, medication doses, overdue bills, and bathroom mishaps. The time and expenses of caring for a sick parent strangled dreams and killed options. They had reduced Matthew from budding professor to live-in caregiver.

“Six months is how much we have left on my reverse mortgage,” he explained. “After that, no more income.”

“What happens to the house?”

“The bank will own it. I can still live here until I die, but without the monthly check I can’t afford utilities, upkeep…” He paused, glancing back toward Matthew. “Or help.”

“I see.”

“Either I’ll move in with Marissa or she and the kids will move in with me. We need to pool resources.” A faint, humorless laugh. “Correction. We’ll live off her paycheck.”

Reverend Grandpa looked around the room as if scanning a gallery of better days. “Olivia and I bought this place when she was carrying Marissa. Seems like yesterday. Three hundred and sixty payments later it was all ours.” He stopped, another reminiscent gaze sweeping over his eyes.

“How’d you lose her?” Matthew asked gingerly.

He cleared emotion from his throat. “Her ticker quit. Seventy-one years young.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Anyway, I’ve been living off the house’s equity ever since the accident.”

Matthew tried to imagine how it would feel, a proud father knowing he would soon be dependent on his little girl.

They sat silently, two men living in the wake of different misfortunes.

The elder finally spoke. “I should have listened to Olivia.”

Matthew didn’t follow.

“She wanted to give Marissa a sibling. Maybe two. I didn’t think we could afford a houseful of kids on a preacher’s salary.”

“Sounds sensible to me,” Matthew said reassuringly.

“Now I’d give anything if she had someone to share the burden. A brother maybe.”

The minister put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder like a wounded marine explaining how to disarm land mines. “Marry that girlfriend of yours, Matthew Adams.” He moved his hand back to the side table, where his fingers gently caressed the book’s leather binding. “And once you do, take some ancient advice.”

“What’s that?”

“Be fruitful and multiply.”

Matthew smiled politely. “Forgive me,” he said. “But you could leave what little is left in your estate to Marissa, Isabelle, and Peter by doing the same thing millions of others in your situation have done. Volunteer.”

“I can’t do that,” Reverend Grandpa insisted. “Never could.”

Matthew heard a hint of hesitation and saw a touch of self-doubt in his client’s eyes before they looked away. He decided to drop what was clearly an uncomfortable subject.