Remember (27 page)

He chuckled and gave a sad shake of his head. “Okay, fine. This is a communications class, which means we will be learning methods of gathering information and presenting ideas in a persuasive manner. Let’s use these skills to figure out what’s actually going on.”

He stopped pacing and clasped his hands behind his back, leaning slightly forward. “Now I realize this isn’t a philosophy class, so I’m not requiring you to use formal logic. And this isn’t a science class, so I’m not worried about strict scientific method. What I’m talking about is ideas, motivation, thinking clearly and persuasively about something that makes a difference in our world.

“This is important stuff, people!” His voice rose, and he stabbed his finger into the air for emphasis. “Is God really the one at work around the nation today? Or can the positive responses we’re witnessing be attributed to something else?”

Luke sat poised with his pen over a blank piece of paper.

The professor ambled in the opposite direction, waving his hand above his head as though he were grabbing thoughts from an invisible storage unit. “Record numbers of people line up to give blood. Thousands sign up with the armed services. Countless more send in millions of dollars for the victims. Volunteers are streaming in from every city in America.

“God? Maybe.” He stopped pacing and faced them head-on. “Maybe not.”

Luke shifted in his seat. Before September 11, a discussion like this would have made him furious, ready to load up his backpack and stalk out of class. But now . . . now at least it seemed worth listening to. At the top of his notepad he doodled the word
God,
and beside it he penciled in an oversized question mark.

The professor shrugged and continued pacing. “I believe this assignment will push you to think about your worldview and communicate it coherently. It will require research—you need the facts to be an effective communicator. It will also require persuasive argument—another vital skill. And it will require a commitment to reality—because with reality staring us in the face these days, we don’t have a foundation to stand on.”

He paused. “I want you to think . . . really think.” He smiled at them over his shoulder. “Is there a worldview that adequately explains the way society actually works, good and bad? Does it orbit around belief in some invisible higher being named God—what we call a ‘theistic worldview’?” Here he made a fist to punctuate the phrase. “Or are there other factors at work, ideas that adequately explain human existence without resorting to belief in a higher power? In short, is there a God or isn’t there?”

Luke had scribbled the words
theistic worldview.

“However you choose to answer the question,” the professor continued, “you must use facts and logic to support your argument.” The professor ambled toward the whiteboard, grabbed a marker, and wrote in large letters the word
humanism.
He stepped back from the board
.
“If you choose to argue against the theistic view, you may do so by siding with an alternative view.” He smiled. “Say, for instance, the worldview of humanism.”

He pointed to the word. “Humanism, ladies and gentlemen, is the philosophy of the day for many people. Whereas theism is based on the assumption that all goodness originates from a higher being, humanism places trust in the power of human intelligence and the human spirit to conquer evil with acts of goodness.”

Luke hid his grin. So much for objectivity. The man’s tone made it clear he hadn’t picked humanism as a random alternative view.

“You, of course, will form your own opinions in the course of this assignment,” the professor was saying. He paced a few slow steps, then paused to look at them once more. “But I caution you—examine both sides. And base your arguments not on your own bias or upbringing but on the preponderance of evidence.”

A dark-haired girl next to Luke leaned over and whispered, “Sounds interesting.”

Luke cast her a quick glance and nodded. She’d sat next to him since the semester began, but he hadn’t really noticed her before.

Two rows from the front a boy raised his hand. “What if our evidence leads us to conclude there is a God?”

Professor Hicks raised his eyebrows in a way that was mildly humorous. “More power to you—as long as you have adequate support for that conclusion.” He directed his attention to the rest of the class. “I’m not telling you how to think here, people. I’m simply suggesting that we’ve never had a better opportunity to become part of what’s happening around us—and in the process to learn valuable lessons about communicating.”

His gaze shifted back to the student in the second row. “Be careful. Your paper mustn’t be based on wishful thinking or parental propaganda. You must avoid stale or emotion-based arguments.” He went on about the assignment specifics—the documentation required, the timing of the oral presentation, the importance of working with a partner. “We should finish up sometime after Thanksgiving.”

Luke jotted down most of what the professor had said and stared at his notes. Was it possible? Had his own faith been nothing more than parental propaganda? Had he merely bought into a myth that had no bearing on reality?

He wouldn’t have considered such a thing before the terrorist attacks. But now . . .

Every night since Reagan left, he had tried to call her at her parents’ house. Most of the time no one answered. When someone did pick up, it was always a friend or relative. And every one of them said the same thing: Reagan wasn’t available. Reagan wasn’t taking calls. Reagan couldn’t come to the phone.

Didn’t she know he was dying without her—that the memory of that Monday night was enough to make him hate himself for what had happened? His family was no help at all. They were caught in a frenzy of patriotism and blind faith that in view of the terrorist attacks seemed completely unfounded.

In fact, the whole city seemed caught up.

Attendance at church yesterday was easily twice what it had been before the tragedy. Normally Luke and Mom and Dad would have sat near Erin, Sam, and Kari. But yesterday Brooke and Peter and even Ashley had been there—the first time they’d been together at a church service since Erin’s wedding. Mom and Dad had both dabbed at tears as Pastor Mark reminded them that good can come from evil and that God had plans for America.

But what good plans could God possibly have?

Reagan’s father was dead. She wouldn’t come to the phone. And together they’d done something they’d promised never to do.

Luke thought back to that evening in the parking lot—back when his greatest concern was whether they’d play softball or watch a football game.

Good from evil?

The only good thing God could do at this point was turn back the clock to September 10 and give them a chance to do it all over again. Luke would watch the football game at home, and Reagan would talk to her father and warn him not to go to work the next day no matter what.

Short of that, Luke couldn’t imagine any good coming from the attacks.

Professor Hicks had moved on to another topic, but Luke couldn’t get his mind off Reagan and her father. Whenever Luke called her house, he asked about Mr. Decker. The news was never good. There’d been no sign of Reagan’s father—no sign of any survivors in the enormous pile of debris. The last two victims found alive had been plucked from the rubble days ago.

By now the entire nation was beginning to grasp the enormity of the loss of life from the disaster. Even before the buildings collapsed, the heat inside the twin towers had been figured at nearly twice that of most crematoriums. Not only were rescue workers not going to find the missing people; they probably wouldn’t find their bodies, either. No matter what hope Reagan’s family held on to, the truth was obvious: Tom Decker wasn’t coming home.

Luke drew squiggly lines along the sides of his notes and thought about the professor’s theory. No God, only the power of the human spirit. People who were good, people who were bad. But as the outpouring of support after the terrorist attacks showed, a handful of bad people would always be defeated by a nation of good ones.

Was that all there was, then? The human spirit—nothing more?

It was hard to imagine existing outside the reality of God. What would the humanist theory say about death? That there was nothing after that? That people should be as good as possible, only to spend eternity rotting away in a casket?

Luke pulled himself from the cloud of his random thoughts and focused on God, what he knew of God. What he remembered. All the evidence gathering in the world wouldn’t prove or disprove an invisible, omniscient God. Only one thing could do that.

Lord, I’ve never been more confused in my life.
He stared at his paper and tapped his pen quietly.
How come everything’s so crazy? Why . . . why did you let it happen?
He doodled the word
why
across the top of his paper.
If you’re there, if you can hear me, make things right between Reagan and me. Please, God. That’s all the proof I need.

He looked up and saw the class filing out. The lecture was over. Luke slipped his notebook into his backpack and was heading for the door when the dark-haired girl fell in beside him.

“Hi.” She threw him a confident smile. “We’ve never really met. My name’s Lori Callahan.”

He held out his hand. “Luke Baxter.”

“Nice to meet you.” She looked up at him and gave his hand a quick, friendly shake. Something about her was cultured and attractive in a brainy sort of way. “Listen,” she said, “I have an idea.”

“Okay.” Luke wasn’t completely listening. He wanted to get through his classes and go home so he could try Reagan again.

“Let’s do the assignment together. You know, the one where we argue for or against God.” She grinned. “My dad’s a civil-liberties attorney. His peers think he’s a little one-sided.” She winked. “But he has more proof against God than anyone I know.”

They were outside now, and Luke stopped in the middle of a stream of people. He stared at her. Proof against God? Who was this girl? And why was she suddenly interested in him? He blinked. She was practically reading his mind.

“Umm . . .” He started walking again and shrugged. “Why not?”

“Good.” She tucked a small piece of paper into the pocket of his backpack. “Here’s my phone number. Give me a call so we can get together.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, Luke . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve wanted to talk to you since the first day of class.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “I wanted to invite you to one of our meetings.”

Luke blinked. What was he doing here? He didn’t even know the girl. “What meeting?”

“Indiana Freethinking Alliance.” She shrugged, and something shy flashed in her green eyes. It made her more attractive than before. “You know, dedicated to the promotion of free thought, skepticism, secularism, nontheism, and humanism.” She rolled her eyes and grinned, “That’s our mantra, anyway.”

“Right.” What in the world was she talking about? Luke gave a shallow laugh. “Sure.”

“So, do you want to?”

“What?”

“Come to a meeting.” She gave a playful kick against the toe of his tennis shoe.

“Uh, maybe sometime. Not this week, okay?”

“Okay.” She hesitated. “Call me about the assignment.”

“Right.” He took a few steps backward. “See ya.”

She waved and headed in the opposite direction. Luke made his way across campus to his next class, wondering the whole while about the girl and her certainty that between her and her father they could come up with enough evidence to disprove the existence of God.

Why had she chosen him, of all people?

There he was, praying for things to work out with Reagan, begging God for proof he was even there at all. And not two seconds later, he’d been approached by a girl who clearly was everything Reagan was not.

Luke huffed as he strode into his next class. Figures. The girl was just the type of answer his prayers had been reaping these days. The kind that would work well as evidence in his communications assignment.

Not the evidence everyone who knew Luke would expect him to find—in support of God.

But rather evidence against him.

* * *

Hope was getting harder to hold on to.

Six days had passed since the terrorist attacks, and Landon’s existence had become almost mechanical: eat, sleep, work at Ground Zero. Occasionally he thought about Ashley. But somehow everything that had happened before his arrival in New York felt like something from a dream—as if debris and soot and death were the only reality anymore.

Twice he had picked up the hotel phone to call her, but what would he say? His emotions were buried as deep as the twin towers victims.

By now, the rescue workers had settled into a numbing routine, an assembly line of sorts, in which a truck-size shovel of dirt would be dumped at the feet of the supervising workers and then sifted, one bucketful at a time. As long as no victim remains were found, the bucket would be passed down the line to a waiting dump truck, emptied, and passed back to the top of the line. Bucket after bucket after bucket. When the truck was full, it would move off toward the appropriate waste station, and another truck would take its place.

If victims or partial victims were found, however . . .

“We’ve got a body!” a voice shouted from the front of the line.

Landon looked up, weary. His throat was coated with a silty, strange-tasting ash, ash that all of them knew was more than crushed cement and debris. It was also human remains. He coughed and stared at the place where the action had stopped.

Two of the morgue workers approached with a body bag and a handheld stretcher. Landon watched as a small part—a hand or a foot—was placed inside the bag. A chaplain stepped in and placed his fingers on the stretcher. All the way down the line, hats were removed, heads bowed.

Landon was too far away to hear the prayer. But when it was over, the bag was placed on the stretcher and carried to a makeshift morgue set up in the back of a refrigerated truck.