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him that creationism provides all the answers, then that’s fine by me, that’s exactly what we’ll tell him. I think a kid needs religion when he’s growing up. I mean, I know I did.”
    “And when you’re an adult, what? You put away childish things?”
    “Look, what I believe is of no real importance here compared with what I am prepared to pay lip service to, for the sake of family harmony.”
    “What if I wasn’t here? If I had a car accident and I wasn’t around anymore. What would happen then?”
    “In a situation like that, who can say how anyone will react?”
    “Is this what you’re telling me?”
    “I was watching TV, remember? You’re the one who set this crazy debate into motion.”
    “You think it’s crazy to talk about the moral welfare and education of our son?”
    “It seems to me we’re having a fight that neither of us can win. After all, you can no more prove the existence of God than I can prove he doesn’t.”
    For a moment Ruth looked as if she were trying to swallow something indigestible, and I felt sorry for her because I could see the dilemma she had—that we both had. Whereas before we had loved each other because of what we had in common, it was beginning to look as if we were going to have to love each other in spite of our differences. My own parents had managed this very well. Maybe that’s why I felt that this present difficulty was not at all insurmountable.
    Ruth tossed Hitchens’s book onto the La-Z-Boy and went out of the TV room without another word. This suited me fine as the Boston Celtics were now back in front.
    But then, right after Sunday-morning service, she started it all up again.
    “Well, that was embarrassing,” she said.
    “Sorry.”
    “Actually, it wasn’t the gun I was referring to,” she said. “No, you looked like you were a million miles away. That’s what I’m talking about. We used to worship like a family, and I just had to look at you, Gil, to know that your heart was in it, too. But not anymore.”
    She was right, of course. And I didn’t need to insult her intelligence by denying it. I sensed another argument was coming my way so it was fortunate Danny was already asleep. After 140 minutes of Lakewood, I could hardly blame him. I was looking forward to a Sunday-afternoon nap on a lounger at the Houstonian Club myself.
    “Perhaps if we didn’t sit so close to the front, that might not be so obvious. I’d feel more comfortable if we sat at the back.”
    “I like being close to the front,” she said. “It feels like I’m nearer to God.”
    “I think God notices the cheap seats, too, don’t you?”
    “Maybe we should speak to someone.”
    “I don’t think holding hands with a Lakewood prayer partner is going to help, Ruth.”
    “All right, then. Perhaps if we prayed together about this, Gil, just you and I. The way we used to pray.”
    The last time Ruth and I prayed together had been when we were trying to have a child. Ruth’s idea, not mine. She’d suffered a miscarriage and took happy pills for a long time after that. She also experienced difficulty in becoming pregnant again, and she eventually thought the Lord might be of some assistance. This was what got us both going to Lakewood. We went to church and we prayed for another baby, although when I say we prayed for another baby we didn’t just do it in church, we prayed in bed, too. Whenever we made love, we would ask the Lord for his blessing, and there’s nothing quite as unerotic as that: the whole sex-prayer thing more or less killed our sex life. Having Jesus in bed with the two of us gave me a real problem and obliged me to take Viagra in secret, which is probably the only reason she got pregnant at all—but for Ruth, Danny was the miracle that proved God’s existence. Since then, we’ve been pretty regular at Lakewood. Which is more than I can say about our sex life.
    “I’m certainly willing to give prayer a shot,” I said reluctantly.
    Ruth sighed