Free The Awakening by Angella Graff Page B

to sit.  Ben watched in fascination as Mark navigated around the bench with his cane, used his hand to examine the empty space, and then sat, turning to face Ben.
                  “I'm sorry to drop in on you like this, but you've been avoiding my phone calls,” Mark said.  His words were accusatory, but his tone was neutral, if not quite friendly.
                  “Right,” Ben said, clearing his throat.  “Look, I mean you're really nice, and I appreciate your religious investigative work, but I really don't want to be involved with things like this.”
                  “Does the idea of possibly being healed by a religious-based miracle make you uneasy?”
                  Ben shook his head, remembered Mark couldn't see him, and said, “No.  It isn't anything like that.  Whatever happened to me, happened to me.  Whether it was religious or a transfer of energy, or some ridiculous coincidence, it happened.  My biggest concern, truthfully, is Abby.  She's already terrified of losing me, I'm her only real living family left, and the thing is, there's a good chance my tumor will come back, and this time around I might not have some Jesus-like homeless man to lay hands on me or whatever.  Abby will upend her entire life, dragging me to bleeding icon after crying statue to get me healed, and when it doesn't work, and I die, she'll crack.”
                  Mark listened to this, his face stoic but understanding.  “If it helps, Ben, I don’t believe in religious miracles.”
                  “You don't?” Ben asked.  “Abby seems to think you're a religious miracle expert.”
                  “I am,” Mark affirmed.  “Not by belief, but by study.  I'm also not a particularly religious man, which I realize might be confusing considering my position in the school, as well as my past.”
                  “Abby said you came from Russia where you were a priest.”
                  “Priest can be a rather loose term in the Church,” Mark said.  “I didn’t hold Mass, but rather spent my days working and studying.  None of this is particularly important, though.  What matters is that you have someone who understands what you went through.”
                  “Why should your understanding matter to me at all?” Ben demanded, crossing his arms against the cold.
                  Mark leaned forward, taking off his glasses, his milky-white eyes fixed on Ben's face.  “Because it's the only way you're going to help me, and the only way you're going to believe me when I tell you that I know exactly why your tumor disappeared.”
                  Ben was stunned into silence, not because of the words, but because of the finality and surety behind them.  Ben, by nature, was a skeptical person, but in this moment he believed Mark.  Somehow, without even knowing this man, he knew Mark was telling the truth.
                  It took him some time to answer, but eventually he muttered out, “Okay.”
                  Mark smiled and his posture relaxed slightly.  “I don't believe it's fair to you that you experience something like this.  Having a potentially fatal tumor disappear isn't something you can just let go and stop thinking about.  I want to explain it to you, but the first thing we need to do is find where this man was taken, and then we need to find a way to see him.”
                  Ben licked his lips, a nervous habit, and shoved his hands into his coat pocket.  “I guess I could make some calls.  I can check his case file tonight, see who his judge was, and if he had a public defender or if he just pleaded guilty, and if that's the case, I'll try and find out where he was sentenced to.  It's not likely they just let him go, not with a violent assault like that.”
                  Mark reached