Geographies of the Heart by Caitlin Hamilton Summie

Author:Caitlin Hamilton Summie [Summie, Caitlin Hamilton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781953236401
Publisher: Fomite

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In religion 101, a slim boy named Emil, a freshman, asked Al what he personally believed. The question came up almost every semester. Al eyed the solid 35 who had stayed with him and answered as he always had, though he wanted to add something new this time. He wasn’t sure what.

“What I believe has to remain private, because of the nature of teaching today. It’s my job to lead a dialogue that isn’t suffused with any sense of persuasion.”

Emil nodded. Several in the class nodded. They understood. These were dangerous questions, ones that led in this new world to lawsuits. These were the situations where academic dialogue became stupid with fear.

Al cleared his throat. He felt himself on a precipice, lightheaded. “The point is, though,” he began, voice wavering, “that we all have to be clear with ourselves, don’t we?”

Al wasn’t sure where he was going with this but couldn’t stop himself. “The point of asking questions is to clarify or deepen our inquiry, the point of study is to educate, to understand. We study to understand our world, and ourselves. We ask questions to define who and what we are and believe.”

Someone squirmed and in the old lecture hall, one of the last, the sound seemed loud.

“You didn’t know religion mattered so much, did you?” Al smiled. “You thought you were just meeting a requirement. It’s that business degree that matters, huh? Well, part of being in business is being ethical.”

Al stopped. He flipped open his lesson plan, where he noted there was no mention of ethics or business degrees. He knew where he was going now, and he felt his throat close. He was talking about accountability. He was talking about his own. Anil was right. They had known. Each and every one of them. And they had pretended not to, buried the knowledge in politesse. But everybody had known that little boy, racing like he had wings, was increasingly desperate and God help them, they had quietly, uniformly, turned away from making the necessary phone call.

And here was the sad thing: Al finally had something to talk to his mother about. They finally shared common ground. He of the Questions would finally ask a new one: how did she do it? How did she dress each day in her handsome outfits, comb her hair, make him toast? How did she glue the pieces of herself back together?

In this, he felt somewhat removed from Sarah, who had the strength of oxen in her blood. She had endured deep pain and loss, and yet there never seemed in her any flagging of self, only energy. She was still there, burning bright. And Amelia had that, too, that presence. While Al felt he could melt away in a moment’s notice, missed only by them and Anil, who would wait while the world ended in his battered old car before turning on to the main road too quickly and missing his friend.

At five o’clock precisely Al was waiting by Anil’s car, as Anil sat inside trying with great patience to start it.

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