For extended author's notes, see Chapter 1. There will be religious debate in this chapter, even cursing at God. (OK, it's a Danny rant.) If this offends, move on to another story. I don't know if any hospitals have fulltime chaplains anymore, but this one does. I don't know if I represent the views of the Catholic Church fairly, but this is Danny's possibly biased point of view. I don't guarantee I've captured the Methodist party line, either, even though I am one. We're just exploring the topic here. You have been warned.

Godless

Chapter 2 - Belief

Moving his legs seemed to get Danny's mind moving again. Wrapped in the blanket and flanked by Chin and Kono, Danny frowned around the hospital chaplain's office as his friends ushered him to a seat on a comfortable couch. There was a small desk, several comfortable chairs and shelves full of books, at least three of which were Bibles.

Anger sparked in Danny's eyes. Anger was so much more comfortable than paralyzing parental fear.

"Who are you?" he demanded, when Steve and Jan came in.

"Danny …!" Steve protested, but Jan silenced him with a touch on his arm.

"I'm Chaplain Matheson. You can call me Jan."

Danny transferred his stony gaze to Steve. "I'm insensitive when I don't fall in line with other people's beliefs, but it's OK to ignore mine!"

He stood as if to leave, dropping the blanket in Kono's lap.

"Danny!" Steve pleaded.

"What? The insensitive haole's just not good enough? You want to use my time of weakness to pry open my head and pour different beliefs inside? Force me to change the way I think? Grace might be dying and you're pushing me at a minister. Is that why you came?" Danny was ashamed of himself, even as he yelled at his friend. He was ashamed to realize he wanted to start a fight. He'd rather rage than dwell on his fear for his daughter.

"Please, detective," Jan said. "I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm not trying to change you. We don't have to talk at all. The nurses will tell the doctor you're in here. My chairs are more comfortable than the waiting room and my coffee maker is much better than the vending machine."

Danny looked down at the Styrofoam cup still in his hand. The coffee was half gone already and it had been good, he realized, though he'd hardly noticed at the time. He looked back at the minister. Her kindly eyes and calm, confident bearing reminded him of his favorite aunt. Maybe it would be OK if she didn't preach at him. He couldn't listen to prattle about God's goodness when God had just played the cruelest joke of all on his daughter.

Danny sat down again. Somehow he and Jan had come to an understanding without saying a word, but Steve didn't understand that.

"Danny," Steve said gently. "I know what you gave up to help me when I was in prison. You stood by me when I needed it. That's why we're here, to be with you. The reverend is just giving us a little privacy out of Christian charity."

The minister nobly refrained from face-palming herself. Sometimes helpful friends and relatives just made things worse.

"Christian charity!" Danny exploded. "I've heard the stupid things Christians say," he jeered angrily. The words poured out of him in a torrent of pain. "'Everything happens for a reason.' A reason! Tell me the reason a man had a heart attack and ran his car into a crowd of school kids? Tell me why a boy, a nice boy named Kevin, had his head splattered like a pumpkin right in front of his mother's eyes. She was standing right next to him but the car missed her. It didn't touch her, but she stood screaming, screaming, screaming over her dead son. Is there a reason for that!" he screamed. "Is there a reason my baby is in the operating room instead of doing her homework at my place? If there's a reason for this, then God is a sadistic son of a bitch!"

"Danny!" Kono breathed. She was shocked by his blasphemy, but more shocked by the suffering on his face.

"And what's the other one," Danny continued, more quietly but more bitterly. "'God will never give you more than you can bear'? That is such bunk. I've seen so many broken people, I know that's not true. I know…" His voice caught in a sob. "I know I can't bear losing my daughter. I tell you I'll never attend Grace's funeral," he vowed.

Steve realized Danny meant he'd kill himself.

"Danny," he pleaded. He put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

Danny shook free, gaining his feet in a convulsive movement that left him swaying. When Steve would have followed, Danny moved another step away. Steve was left uncertain. He dropped his disregarded outstretched hand. He felt helpless.

Danny's face was set in decision, a stone carving of grief.

"I understand, Danny. No, I do," Jan answered Danny's look of skepticism. "I had a daughter. She was born with cystic fibrosis. She never drew a breath that wasn't painful. I used to have to beat her, pound on her back, to clear her lungs. She was a month short of her fifth birthday when she died."

"And you still believe?" Danny asked incredulously.

"How could I not? How could I not believe that my little angel has gone to a better place? A place without pain. How could I believe that her beauty, her patient spirit, have evaporated into nothingness? She taught me so much in her short life. She brought me such joy. To deny God would be to deny her. Yes, I had to let her go too soon, but I'm grateful I had her. My belief helped me through. I prayed for her every day of her life. I still do, but now I pray thanks. If you like, we could pray for Grace."

"No!"

Danny's denial so frantic, Steve reached out for him. Danny slapped his friend's hand away. He backed against the wall, panting as if he'd been in a race from death. "No! No praying. Anytime… anytime I prayed for something important, the answer was No."

Danny remembered praying for his grandfather unable to breathe after a stroke, who suffocated to death in front of his eyes before the paramedics could arrive. He had prayed for his marriage that had failed, for a childhood friend who had joined the Army and come home in a coffin, for a fellow officer shot in the line of duty. Prayer hadn't helped. Prayer had never helped.

"Anytime I prayed for people, they died! I won't do that to Grace! I can't!" the distraught man pleaded for understanding.

"Danny, that's superstition, not religion," Chin said with quiet sympathy.

"What's the difference?" Danny yelled. "One baseball player crosses himself before throwing a pitch. Another player always wears his wristbands inside out. What's the difference?"

"You must think God's is listening to you, if you think he's saying, No," Steve observed.

"If God is listening, he doesn't want to hear from me," Danny said bitterly.

"Tell me why you think that," Jan said, patting the arm of the chair next to her desk.

Danny knew he was being a coward, but if he focused on this nice woman, he didn't have to think about surgeons slicing open his child. He wrenched his thoughts back to the discussion and slipped into the chair.

"I don't believe. I did when I was a kid. But I've seen too much, too much inhumanity to think that God gives a damn," he explained. "I grew up in the Catholic Church. We weren't a super-religious family, but we attended on Sundays and the Holy Days of Obligation. When I became a cop, my hours were strange and, yes, I got lazy. So mostly when I went I was busy confessing that I hadn't attended regularly.

"Then I got married to a girl who wasn't a Catholic, wasn't even baptized. Rachel's parents were 'free thinkers.' The priests disapproved. They said the marriage wasn't 'valid.' I said 'screw this' and walked away."

"There are other churches," the Methodist minister said gently.

"Every one with its own interpretation of God," Danny scoffed. "If we can interpret God, isn't that the same as inventing God?"

"It may be that we simply don't understand him, Danny. People interpret paintings differently, but that doesn't mean the painting doesn't exist," Jan argued.

Danny just shook his head.

"Was that the reason you lost faith? When you felt the church turned its back on you?"

"No."

"Was it the job, then?" Jan probed. "I've seen it before in police officers and doctors and military personnel, people who see the worst of humanity."

Danny fixed his eyes on his hands, rubbing slowly back and forth between his knees. His voice was low when he answered. "I was a homicide detective in New Jersey. I closed 87 cases. Do you know what that means? That means more than 100 dead bodies. You have to build a wall to protect yourself, maybe I walled out God, too.

"It's just … some of the things I've seen. I can't believe … How can you say God cares when such things happen?" He met Jan's eyes, while avoiding the disappointment he expected to see in his friends' faces. "I was at 9/11," he said baldly. "I've seen drug war massacres and gang battles. I saw a fellow detective's head blown off not a foot away from me. Those were bad, but it's the little cases that haunt me, the pointless, senseless killings. A teenage boy killed for the swoosh on his sneakers. A woman beaten to death because her husband said she burned dinner, and it wasn't burned at all. A soldier just back from Iraq killed in a carjacking. They all took away a piece of my faith."

He smiled fondly. "I got a little back when my daughter was born." No, don't think of Grace. Not now. "But then my wife filed for divorce. So now I'm doubly damned by the church," he said bittterly.

To be continued

I know. strange place to break it, but it needed to break somewhere. Next time a resolution of sorts.