Frameshift

Molly touched Pierre’s arm and seemed to hesitate for a moment before replying. “Forgive me for saying this — I don’t want to sound argumentative — but, well, I always find that sort of reasoning a trifle shallow.” She held up a hand. “I’m sorry; I don’t mean it to sound like a criticism. It’s just that the — the harshness of our world is apparent to anyone who looks. People starving in Africa, poverty in South America, drive-by shootings here in the States. Earthquakes, tornadoes, wars, diseases.” She shook her head. “I just — to me, I’m just saying to me — it always seems strange that one could go along without questioning one’s faith until something personally happens. You know what I’m saying? A million people starve to death in Ethiopia, and we say that’s too bad. But we — or someone we know — gets cancer or a heart attack or Huntington’s or whatever, and we say, Hey, there must be no God.” She smiled. “I’m sorry — pet peeve. Forgive me.”

Pierre nodded slowly. “No, you’re right. You’re right. It is silly when you put it that way.” He paused. “What about you? Do you believe in God?”

Molly shrugged. “Well, I was raised a Unitarian — I still sometimes go to a fellowship over in San Francisco. I don’t believe in a personal God, but perhaps in a creator. I’m what they call a theistic evolutionist.”

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

“That’s someone who believes God planned out all the broad strokes in advance — the general direction life would take, the general path for the universe — but, after setting everything in motion, he’s content to simply watch it all unfold, to let it grow and develop on its own, following the course he laid down.”

Pierre smiled at her. “Well, the course we’ve been laying down leads back to my apartment — and it is getting late.”

She smiled at him. “Not too late to know me in the biblical sense, I trust.”

Pierre stood up, offered his hand to Molly, and helped her stand up as well. “Yea, verily.”

Chapter 16

It was a small, quiet wedding. Pierre had originally thought they’d get married at UCB’s chapel, but it turned out not to have any such thing — California political correctness. Instead, they ended up being married in the living room of Molly’s coworker, Professor Ingrid Lagerkvist, with the chaplain from Molly’s Unitarian fellowship conducting the service.

Ingrid, a thirty-four-year-old redhead with the palest blue eyes Pierre had ever seen, served as Molly’s matron of honor; Ingrid was normally quite slim, but was now five months pregnant. Pierre, who had been in California for less than a year now, enlisted Ingrid’s husband, Sven — a great bear of a man with long brown hair, a huge reddish brown beard, and Ben Franklin glasses — to be his best man. Also in attendance: Pierre’s mother, Elisabeth, who had flown down from Montreal; bubbly Joan Dawson and a dour Burian Klimus from the HGC office; and Pierre’s research assistant, Shari Cohen (whom Pierre could not help notice looked sad throughout the whole affair; it had perhaps been an error asking her to attend a wedding just three months after her own engagement had broken up). Absent were any members of Molly’s family; she hadn’t even told her mother she was getting married.

Molly and Pierre had argued a bit about what vows they should exchange. Pierre refused to have Molly pledge to keep the marriage “in sickness and in health,” reiterating that she should feel free to leave anytime if he should fall ill. And so:

“Do you, Pierre Jacques,” asked the white-haired Unitarian, wearing a secular three-piece suit with a red carnation in the lapel, “take Molly Louise to be your wife, to cherish and honor her, to love and protect her, to respect her and help her fulfill all her potential for so long as you carry each other in your hearts?”

“I do,” said Pierre, and then, smiling at his mother, he added, “Oui.”

“And do you, Molly Louise, take Pierre Jacques to be your husband, to cherish and honor him, to love and protect him, to respect him and help him fulfill all his potential for so long as you carry each other in your hearts?”

“I do,” she said, staring into Pierre’s eyes.

“By the authority vested in me by the state of California, I take great pride and pleasure in pronouncing you a married couple. Pierre and Molly, you may—”

But they already were. And a long, lingering kiss it was, too.

Their honeymoon — five days in British Columbia — had been wonderful.