To call today a rollercoaster would be an understatement. Tomorrow will be, if not equally overwhelming, just as important; I should sleep.
I cannot sleep.
Tucked into the corner of my rucksack, my father's pocket Bible is the only book in this room. I would prefer lighter reading, but I am already in bed and Dief is snoring at my feet; I am loathe to wake him. The Bible will have to do.
I extol You, O Lord,
for You have lifted me up,
and not let my enemies rejoice over me.
Can this verse apply? To be sure, I've arrested men who didn't take kindly to being brought to justice, but they hardly qualify as enemies. I've made no friends among the mafia in Chicago, but I doubt they'd count me worthy of enemy status beside their might.
Victoria is...complicated in memory, even after all this time. Despite everything that went wrong, I can't bring myself to think of her as an enemy. I have no way of knowing whether she thinks of me now, wherever she is, whoever she has become. She may well regard me as an enemy. But I do not believe she rejoices over my downfall. This may be further proof of my relentless need to impute good will to the universe, but I imagine that if she spares me thought, it is with sorrow, and not with glee.
A fundamental will towards goodness in creation: surely this is what is meant by "God." This is what I tell myself when I thumb these onionskin pages. I do not believe that I have enemies, but perhaps that in itself is proof that God has lifted me up.
When You hid Your face,
I was terrified.
I called to You, O Lord.
God has never shown me His face; how then could He hide it?
No; this is disingenuous. I have seen the face of God in creation enough times to recognize holiness when it rises before me. The refracted blue of sunlight on glacier; the mighty rush of caribou hooves; the first fire of sunrise after three months of dark.
When I came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, I feared that I would lose those flashes of Presence. The crush of the city leaves little room for silent majesty. But I could not have known that something ineffable and real would manifest even here, in this crowded and angry city. That I would find something like brotherhood in the companionship and unlikely friendship of Ray Vecchio. That, against all odds and i n my moment of greatest fear, I would find something even more rare and more unforseen in my new relationship with this new Ray.
You turned my lament into dancing,
You undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy,
that my whole being might sing hymns to You endlessly;
O Lord my God, I will praise you forever.
When Ray called this morning to say he might not greet me at the airport, a fist as fierce as ice gripped me and would not let go. My traitorous heart winced more at the prospect of losing my best friend than it had at the reality of losing my father. I came as fast as I could. When I arrived in Chicago, I fell into confusion. But out of that confusion came something startlingly like hope.
Tonight, overwhelmed by the unreality of the day and seized by an imp of the perverse too strong for my intellect to naysay, I kissed this Ray at the door of his apartment. His mouth opened to mine without protest, and everything in me thrilled. When we broke apart, he was momentarily speechless; suddenly a coward, I turned tail and fled.
By the time I reached the Consulate, a phone message awaited me in Renfield's precise hand. "Detective Vecchio called. 'Got a hunch we're going to work well together. Free tomorrow night?'"
I do not dance, but for once I wish I could. It is late for hymn-singing, and the ones I know are melancholy anyway. My silent gratitude will have to suffice, the only praise I can offer this surely benevolent universe for giving me the courage to act rashly and the luck to be rewarded.
The End