Page 573 of End Game

He could have fixed it in five minutes.

He left it.

Years later, after I started calling him Dad without realizing I'd made the decision, I asked him why.

He told me because I'd helped make it.

I've spent most of my adult life separating faith from religion.

Not rejecting everything.

Just refusing certainty I don't have.

I think there's something beyond us.

God, maybe.

Something close enough that Christianity is still the language my brain reaches for when I try to picture it.

Jesus.

Grace.

Forgiveness.

The stories embedded too deep to remove without taking pieces of myself with them.

I know the Bible.

I know the parables.

The Proverbs.

The warnings.

The promises.

I also know people wrote rules around all of it until sometimes I can't tell where God is supposed to end and human fear begins.

I don't trust churches anymore.

I don't trust anyone who claims they know exactly what eternity looks like.

I don't think doubt is a moral failure.

Dad follows my gaze to the cross.

Then looks back at me.

“Do you understand what you're asking your mother to believe?”

I say nothing.

His voice softens. “That she'll spend eternity without her only son?”

Mom makes a broken sound beside him.

Fuck.