I thought about Dianne’s face, the look she’d given me when I’d come home that next morning, and how I’d convinced myself she didn’t know what had happened. But she knew. Of course she knew. I thought of the night a few weeks later when I’d found her passed out, unconscious, a failed attempt at suicide that had as much to do with my betrayal as with her disease. If I’d told her outright about Penelope, would she have said it was no big deal, it was my choice, my life, go ahead and do whatever you want? Relative or absolute?

I knew the answer already. She had given it without the question even being asked.

I had been wrong. And not simply by my own standard, because my standard at the time had given me the green light. In my eyes I hadn’t been wrong. But that didn’t matter. Just because I believed I was justified didn’t mean I was.

Moonlight shone on the snow outside, and I stared out the window for a long time, eyes fixed unseeing on frosted trees outside the window, my unwanted memories pulling me into a whirlpool of personal history. Lies told, women used, promises broken. My thoughts ranged beyond my own actions and flickered through newscasts from years gone by: planes hijacked and crashed, ethnic cleansings, computer viruses unleashed simply because someone had the power to do so.

Truth?

Absolute.

My skepticism is apparently obvious because Jack asks, “Whatcha thinking, Jada?”

“I don’t understand how you could use logic to help figure out religion. I mean, spirituality isn’t supposed to be logical” “According to whom?”

How could this man always be so exasperating? Sometimes I pitied Grace. “According to everyone! That’s the point!”

“Yeah, that’s what a lot of people think, and yet you can’t really explain why, right? because there’s no real reason. People just don’t want to admit religion should be logical because then they can’t just do whatever they want and claim it’s okay.”

I try to counter him, but find I can’t. “Fine, whatever, go on.” I’m getting to the point where I want to just finish this project and get out of here. These two keep making me very uncomfortable.