of fucking nowhere! As soon as Dad’s feeling better, we are so out of here.”
There were some people in town who appeared to be organized, who had managed to collect food and other necessities and had put out the word that they’d help anyone who needed them. Some of them had even started going door to door. But they were Jesus freaks, his mother said, and she didn’t want to get involved with them.
“I mean, these people are actually happy about this catastrophe. They think any day now they’re going to be sucked up to heaven.”
Cole knew what his mother was talking about, but he didn’t understand. If God wanted to end the world, why wouldn’t he just do it? What was the point in giving a whole lot of people the flu first?
“Don’t ask me, sweetie. These people believe all kinds of things. All I know is, they think Jews like me are going to hell just for not being Christian. Let’s not talk about them anymore, it’s too depressing. Why don’t you toast some of that raisin bread? I’m going up to see Dad.”
Months later, wearing clothes that fit him but that weren’t his, and with his hair cut different from the way he usually wore it, Cole would find himself sitting across from a woman he didn’t know, answering questions.
So he’d never been to church before? Or any other kind of religious service? Was he sure? Religion had never been a part of family life?
They were in some kind of living room, though not in a house. Cole didn’t know if the building they were in was a church. It didn’t look like a church, but there was a painting of Jesus on one of the walls, and a banner in the foyer read Heaven. Don’t Miss It for the World.
Though the room was quiet and they were not sitting far apart, the woman had to ask him twice to repeat what he’d said. Her own voice was soft but clear. A flame-haired woman with a face like a platter and a shape that brought back Tickle, his old stuffed bear. Before she started questioning him she took his picture. When she asked him to smile, he tried, but the thought of Tickle made the corners of his mouth twitch, and for all he tried he could not prevent them from turning down instead of up. It’s all right, the woman said gently, and she snapped the picture anyway. She was young and kind.
Was he sure only his mother was Jewish? Then what was his father’s religion?
Atheist.
Well, atheism wasn’t a religion. It was the opposite of religion, the belief that there was no God.
He knew that.
So his dad was an atheist, but his mom was a Jew?
They were both atheists.
And would it be correct to say that’s what he was raised to believe, too? That there was no God and that all religion was wrong?
He’d been raised to believe religion was for retards. He’d been raised to believe people who were religious did more harm than good. He’d been raised to believe that God was a myth, that religion screwed up everything, that a person didn’t have to be religious in order to be a good person, that religious education of children was a kind of child abuse, and that if God did exist he’d have to be an atheist, too.
None of which he said.
And was it accurate to say that everyone else he and his family spent time with—friends, relatives—they were all unbelievers, too?
Now that he thought about it, yes.
Did he understand that whatever family he’d be placed with would not be atheists but most likely people for whom church was a very big part of their lives? Who worshipped God and believed that Jesus was the son of God, and who had taken Jesus as their personal savior? How would he feel about that?
He didn’t care. All he cared about was getting away from the orphanage.
EVERY MINUTE THAT SHE WASN’T with his father Cole’s mother wanted to be with him.
“We don’t have to talk,” she said. “I just want to be in the same room.”
With the TV off, if he didn’t mind. Then how would they know what was going on? The radio, she said. At least until the power went out again. It had already done so a few times, always during the day, thankfully, since they had no candles. They did have a flashlight—but where were the extra batteries?
A battery-operated radio was on