Jennifer Fulwiler Leaves Atheism

The roof party was already loud by nine. Someone had strung white lights along the railing of Joe’s downtown loft, and the skyline sat there like it had been paid to show up. I was leaning on the bar when Jennifer came over with two glasses, one for her and one she slid my way without asking. She looked past me at the city and said the usual line about how none of it mattered in the long run. Then she smiled like she had told a joke only she understood.

Joe stood a few feet away talking to someone from work. He had that quiet way of listening that made other people keep talking. Jennifer watched him for a second, then looked back at the lights. She never brought up what he believed unless someone else did first. When the subject surfaced she changed it fast, the way people change lanes on a highway they know is about to end.

We kept the same circle for months. The flights to places none of us could pronounce, the dinners where the check never came with numbers on it, the mornings after where the coffee tasted like the night before. Jennifer worked longer hours than anyone at the start-up. She drank more than she let on and laughed louder when the room got quiet. I once found her on the balcony at two in the morning staring at the street like she was counting how many stories down it was.

She told me once, after too many drinks, that she had started keeping score of every good thing that happened and every bad thing, just to see if the math ever balanced. It never did, she said. Then she laughed again and went back inside.

Joe proposed on a Tuesday. The wedding was small and the honeymoon was not. When they came back, Jennifer still avoided any conversation that drifted near churches or books with thin pages. She bought another round, booked another trip, stayed later at the office. The rest of us followed because it was easier than asking what she was running from.

One night the two of them argued in the kitchen while the rest of us pretended not to hear. It was the first time I caught Joe saying the word God out loud in their apartment. Jennifer’s answer was short and cold. After that she started leaving rooms when certain topics came up. She never explained why.

She began carrying books in plain paper bags. I saw one slip out once on the stairs, a thick paperback with a cross on the cover. She shoved it back in without comment. Later I found her in the hallway outside the office bathroom, earbuds in, staring at her phone like the screen held something she could not put down.

The medical news came the same month she stopped drinking. The doctors used words that made the rest of us look at the floor. Treatment options existed, but one of them sat directly across from everything she had started reading in secret. She told Joe first. Then she told the rest of us she needed time.

She read in the car, in the waiting rooms, in the bathroom stalls at the airport. She underlined passages with the same pen she used for grocery lists. Joe stayed beside her through the appointments and the arguments that followed. When the choice had to be made she chose the one that matched the books she had been hiding.