Casey meant it when she said, “Forgive us for our debts as we forgive our debtors,” because they were for her the hardest words to live by, and by saying them, she hoped they’d become possible.
Like Ted, Casey would never discuss her ambivalent views on religion. She was honest enough to admit that her privacy cloaked a fear: the fear of being found out as a hypocrite. Casey was keenly aware of her Christian failings: Routinely, she mumbled, “Jesus Christ,” when she stubbed her toe; for a young woman, she had slept with enough men she’d had no love for or intentions of marrying; she’d had an abortion without regret; she’d tried drugs （liked some very much and feared that she had an addictive personality, and for that reason alone, she did not seek them out）; she enjoyed getting drunk and acting on her passionate impulses; she loved acquiring nice things, and it was an explicit goal for her to have them; every day, she envied someone else’s life; she adored gossip in any form; she’d stolen clothes from the return bin at Sabine’s; she disliked many Christians—finding them dull and intolerant; and nearly two months prior, she’d told her own parents to fuck off. Her commandment violations were numerous and sustaining. She would not win any white-leather Bibles at Sunday school camp. Her awareness of a God, quotidian Bible reading, and obscure verse scribbling made no sense to her. Nevertheless, Casey could not commit to no God, either.
Ella had no doubts. In plain sight, she rummaged through her leather satchel, pulling out a black leather zip-up Bible and a fabric-bound sketchbook. She held a Waterman pen with a gold nib at the ready. She flipped open her sketchbook, its pages packed with blue-black-inked script, to find a clean sheet. Cross-referencing the program, she quickly found the Scripture on which the sermon was based. She wrote down the verse citation beneath the sermon title, “What sustains you?” with the precision of a student taking notes for chemistry lab. Ella looked fierce in her attentiveness.
She looked adoringly at Dr. Benjamin, which Casey found sort of amusing. The minister was middle-aged, no wrinkles—anywhere between forty-five and fifty-five. He kept his curly dark hair short and tidy. Silver-rimmed glasses covered his mink brown eyes. He wore a modest accountant-style suit with a crisp white shirt and mid-level banker’s red necktie. No black robes. His look was more shrewd than sober. Ella had mentioned before that it was impossible to be married by him because Dr. Benjamin was booked solid. Like everything else in New York, a good minister’s services required reservations and waiting. So Ella was going to be married by her father’s Korean minister in Queens—a very nice man who yelled a lot about hell.
Dr. Benjamin read the gospel verse from the book of Matthew: “Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
It was a curious consequence that from Casey’s years of private reading and Sunday school, she knew the Bible cold. In that selection, the devil tempts Jesus, hungry after forty days of fasting, by saying that if he is in fact the Son of God, he could command the stones to become bread. Jesus replies by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” The Bible was endlessly referring to itself, and in college, this peculiar knowledge—peculiar, since no one she knew at Princeton read the Bible—had been helpful academically, since most of Western writings referred to it, too.
Ella nodded incessantly at Dr. Benjamin as she took meticulous notes on the sermon. Casey found Ella’s devotion grating. When the sermon ended, the offering was collected by the ushers. A basket lined with gray sponge passed through. Casey opened her wallet and spotted two twenties—money Ella had loaned her to cover her till payday on Friday. Her Sunday school teacher Mrs. Novak used to say, “Test providence, give sacrificially.” She dropped one of the twenties into the basket. Ted dropped in a folded check for fifty dollars that he’d prepared earlier. Ella dropped in a folded check for two hundred dollars—this amount representing twenty-five percent of her weekly salary.
Dr. Benjamin gave the benediction and dismissed them. Ella put away her Bible and notebook. Then she leaned over the balcony railing in search of her cousin. Casey had been observing the crowds, and Ella said assuringly, “He’s supposed to meet us outside anyway.”
Once they were on the street, opposite the college building, Ted and Ella discussed the brunch options: dim sum or Sarabeth’s. Casey, who’d been half listening, shifted when she felt the light pressure of a hand on her upper arm. Ted’s expression changed to surprise, and Casey spotted the hand first with its short blond hairs across its knuckles, then recognized Jay. With her right fist, she swung. Ella covered her mouth with her hands to stifle herself, and Ted burst out laughing, saying, “Ooooh.”