Atmosphere(59)

Joan thought of all the people she believed she had known well in her life. Her family, her old friends back in college, Donna and Griff. She would have said she knew everything about them. But it was only now, vulnerable in the intimacy of the middle of the night, that things turned granular. It was only now, in the quiet of this moment, that Joan’s eyes could see the redness around Vanessa’s cuticle.

“You don’t believe in any god at all, or just the Catholic God?” Joan asked.

“The Catholic one is the only one I know. And I will fight against it until the day I die.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean . . . sometimes my mother and I go months without speaking to each other because I refuse to go to Mass, and she refuses to drop it.”

“Months?”

“One time it was a year.”

Joan’s eyes went wide.

“She says I’m stubborn,” Vanessa said. “But it’s . . . it’s hard to pick up the phone sometimes when I’m mad. And that doesn’t come from nowhere—I got it from her.”

“Don’t you miss her? When you aren’t talking?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why not just go to Mass when you visit her and ignore what they say?”

Vanessa turned onto her side, to face Joan. “Because I do not believe there is any original sin in any of us and I cannot sit there and listen to someone say there is. I don’t want to believe in any being who would judge and punish like that. And I’ll pay the price if I’m wrong and God does exist. Because I will not submit to a God like that willingly.”

Joan cracked a smile.

“What’s funny?”

“No, nothing’s funny. It’s just . . . you’re so . . . dauntless.”

“I’m dauntless?” Vanessa said.

“Yeah! I mean, you’re so bold. You seem so unafraid. And . . . I don’t know. I feel like I’m always trying to not cause problems, but you’re not like that. You stand up for what you believe in, and I love what you believe in.”

“You do?” Vanessa said.

“You’re saying you don’t believe in a God who would hate, right? And if that God does exist, you’ll remain defiant.”

“Yes, that’s . . . yes.”

“Yeah, that’s incredibly daring! And it’s beautiful.”

“What about you?” Vanessa asked, her voice quieting. “Do you believe in God?”

“I think I do. In a different way than you’re talking about, though.”

Vanessa lay back on the bed, parallel to the headboard, and Joan did the same.

“Tell me,” Vanessa said.

“Well, my parents are Protestant. They believe that God made the world in six days. Eve came from Adam. The Earth is six thousand years old.”

“But that doesn’t work for you.”

Joan shook her head. “The Earth is at least four and a half billion years old. We know that, objectively. So I had to start asking myself different questions.”

“Because science and God don’t mix?”

Joan sat up. “No, no, no. Not at all. I don’t feel that way at all.”

“But why not? Why, when they tell you that God created man out of thin air and then you learn about evolution, why does the whole thing not crumble for you?”

“Because there are so many ways to define God and there’s still so much unknown about the universe. I could never say that science has obliterated the possibility of God. Certainly I don’t see that happening in my lifetime. And I think something would be lost, if it did. Or maybe I should say that I hope that if it did happen, it would only be because something even more incredible was discovered.”

Vanessa smiled. “You’re so passionate about the subject of God,” she said. “I had no idea.”

“I’m passionate about the Milky Way,” Joan said. “And I think God’s in it.”

“I’m listening . . .”

Joan looked at her askance. “You really want to hear all of this?”

“Yes, I’m fascinated,” Vanessa said.

“Really?”

“Desperately. I want to hear it all.”

Joan beamed and tried to hold back her smile. In all of her time spent watching others, she hadn’t picked up on this part of falling in love, that someone could look at you as if you were the very center of everything. And even though you knew better, you’d allow yourself a moment to believe you were worthy of being revolved around, too.

“Okay,” Joan started. “Well, the larger questions we ask when we talk about God seem to be ‘Why are we here?’ And ‘Is there an order to all of it? Is someone or something in charge?’ But the thing is, science is largely about figuring out answers to those very questions.”

“Science is about figuring out the meaning of life?”

“Science is about figuring out the order to the universe. Yes.”

“Okay . . .”

“The theory of general relativity explains the rules of the physical world at large scales, the world we can see with our eyes. Quantum mechanics explains the subatomic world, like electricity and light.”

“Gravity and electromagnetism—I’m with you.”