He exhaled. “I’m very sorry if I overstepped or did something to upset you. Emma was safe and happy and…” He swallowed, searching her face, a troubled look in his eyes. “And I had a chance to really give things to God, too. In my own men’s group.”
She looked up at him, not at all sure she wanted to hear this. “And?”
“Look, Kate, I…” He threaded his fingers through his hair and pulled it back, a sure sign of stress. “I’m sorry this makes you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not…” But she was. “I just don’t think you had the right to take my child to a religious event without my permission.”
He smiled. “She’s not a child, Kate. She’s an open-hearted and hurting teenager who walked into that room and found a bunch of kids who accepted her. She told them the worst thing that ever happened to her and they didn’t flinch. They didn’t mock her. They didn’t petition to kick her off a team.” His voice stayed level, but she could hear the emotion underneath. “It helped her through a very difficult time.”
Kate couldn’t answer because he was right and she had no answer. But she was fuming at the man she loved.
“Eli,” she ground out his name in a whisper. “I can’t watch my daughter get swept into…a cult.”
He grunted at the word.
“I’m sorry if that’s brutal but I cannot let her build her life on a story I believe is a fairy tale. I can’t stand next to you while you lead her deeper into something that isn’t real to me.”
Staring at her, she saw his jaw tighten, the brief shutter of his eyelids. But when he opened them, his gaze was clear.
“Kate, I have to be honest with you about something.”
She heard the subtle break in his voice and knew whatever he was about to say was the final result of a spiritual wrestling match. And she was pretty sure she knew who won.
“I can’t deny what I believe. What Iknow. Whatisreal to me. I’ve tried—for you, for us—to keep it in the background, to not bring it into every conversation, to respect the line you’ve drawn. But it’s been eating at me because I’m not being true to who I am.” He took a breath. “I’m a Christian. Not casually, not culturally. My faith is part of every breath I take. It’s how I make decisions, how I love people, how I live my life.”
“Jonah and Meredith aren’t…Bible people.”
“That’s because Melissa and I found God less than a year before she died. We didn’t raise them as Christians, and by the time I got deep into my faith, they were broken and grieving. I gave them a choice because God gives us free will. I gave Emma a choice tonight, too.”
Kate exhaled noisily, once again unable to argue.
“And when I see a seventeen-year-old girl who’s hurting and searching,” he continued, “I can’tnotshare what I know to be true. I just can’t.”
“Even if her mother asks you not to?” she demanded.
“Even then. Because I believe that what Emma is finding isn’t acult. I believe it’s the truth that can and will change her life. And I’d be lying to both of you if I pretended otherwise.”
Kate stared at him, still only able to see the steadiest, kindest, most infuriatingly certain person she’d ever known. But that didn’t make what he was saying feel any better. In fact, it made things worse because he was not backing down.
“Emma has the freedom to choose what she believes, Kate, and so do you. I can’t control that and I wouldn’t want to.”
“But you can influence it. And you are.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “The same way you influence her with your scientific worldview every day. The same way Jeffrey influenced her with his anger. We all shape the people in our lives. The question is what we shape them toward.”
She felt the tears building and fought them with everything she had because crying would mean fueling this fire with genuine feelings. It would mean acknowledging that he might not be wrong.
“So where does that leave us?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” His voice was rough. “Where do you want it to leave us?”
“I want it to leave us together. But I don’t see how it can if you’re going to keep?—”
“Sharing my faith with someone who’s asking for it?”
She closed her eyes, dizzy in the dark because the space between them was no more than three feet, and it felt like miles.
“Are you asking me to choose?” he asked quietly. “Between you and what I believe?”