Free Flight Dreams by Michael Craft

old ways of the church never struck me as anything more than the wistful longings of a middle-aged widow who wanted to recapture part of the world she had known in her youth.”
    “Margaret told me that you wrote to Assumption to ask whether Helena might be there.”
    Carey sits next to Manning and explains, “Sometime after the disappearance, Margaret came to me and told me she wondered whether Helena had gone to Assumption. She didn’t know anything about the place—not even its name—but apparently Helena had spoken of it at home from time to time. Since the same thought had crossed my own mind, and since I’d known Father McMullen from school, I immediately wrote to him, asking if perhaps he had a new arrival who might be Helena. He soon wrote back, regretting that he could be of no help, assuring me that there was no such woman there.”
    Manning asks bluntly, “Would he lie to you?”
    The priest laughs, then rivets Manning with a dead-serious stare. “It’s unthinkable that Jim McMullen would lie or even stretch the truth for the sake of his personal gain.”
    “What about the sake of the community, The Society?”
    “I see what you’re driving at, Mark, but I know this man well enough to let the whole matter rest on his word.”
    Manning turns a page of his notes and asks, “How well do you know Margaret O’Connor?”
    “Margaret has never exhibited the depth of faith or the interest in church activities that her sister did. Other than Christmas and Easter, she rarely attends Mass. I like the woman; I just don’t know her very well. I have no idea what happened to her faith. I guess she’s just one of those who have gradually fallen away. Like so many.”
    “Like me. I fell away too, Matt,” Manning tells him with a directness appropriate to the confessional.
    “I wondered. Professional curiosity. But I’d never have asked.”
    “I know you wouldn’t have. And I guessed that you were wondering. I wanted you to know.”
    “Why?” asks the priest, leaning close. His knee touches Manning’s.
    “So you would know,” Manning says softly. “So you would have a clear picture of the person you’re dealing with. I don’t expect you to sanction my views. I don’t even want you to—that would imply a belief that I long ago abandoned.”
    The priest leans closer still, his leg pressing against Manning’s. “What is it, Mark, that you don’t believe in—the pope, the Immaculate Conception, heaven, hell, Christ, the Trinity, God?”
    Father Matthew Carey may be testing waters that are not entirely theological—Manning isn’t sure. His mind reels with a mix of conflicting emotions. Both attracted and repelled, he answers, “God.”
    “That’s the one I can’t touch,” says the priest with a vanquished smile. His leg no longer presses against Manning’s, but there is still a point between their knees where fibers of their trousers kiss, like microscopic diodes, arcing hot energy. “Any of the others, I might have offered logical arguments, or I might have slyly advised you to dismiss the smaller issue in favor of the larger. But you’ve already hit theological bedrock, so to speak, and I won’t question your intelligence by asking how you’ve drawn your conclusion. So we disagree. Let’s just say that what’s ‘right for me’ may not be ‘right for you.’”
    “Sorry, let’s not. When it comes to a question of existence— does God exist? —there can be only one answer. Yes or no. Something either is or it isn’t—that’s irreducible. If you say there is a God and I say there isn’t, one of us is wrong; it’s not an issue that we can have both ways. By your own definition, belief in God is a matter of faith, a faith that cannot demand proof and that condemns rational scrutiny. I hate to draw flat statements, but you’re wrong, Matt, and I’m right.”
    They sit in the front pew before the sanctuary, eyeing each other with an unwavering gaze. The church is silent except