Chapter 3

"All those who journey, soon or late,

Must pass within the garden's gate;

Must kneel alone in darkness there,

And battle with some fierce despair.

God pity those who cannot say:

"Not mine but thine"; who only pray:

"Let this cup pass," and cannot see

The purpose in Gethsemane."

Ella Wilcox

He was at her grave again. He was too often at her grave. But he could be alone there. Who else would come to mourn those buried beneath the three crosses here? Boone had only Shannon, Shannon had only Sayid, and…the other one…what was his name, even?

But someone did come tonight. She came and sat a few feet from where he was squatting.

"Why are you here, Rose?" he asked without looking away from the grave.

"Sun was worried about you. She told me…about your conversation."

He turned abruptly to look at her. His face was hard to decipher.

"Please do not think she betrayed a confidence," said Rose. "She was desperate to offer you some comfort, and she didn't think she could do it."

"But she thought you could?' He sat down now on the earth, across from Rose.

"She thought I could understand you better because I'm religious."

"We practice different religions."

"Yes. But perhaps we have more in common than you think."

"She told you what I have done?"

Rose nodded.

"And you still want to talk to me?"

"Yes."

He let his arms drape across his knees. "Do you wish, like Sun, to tell me that I do not deserve my suffering?"

Rose smiled her knowing smile. "Oh, you deserve it," she said.

Sayid was startled, but he felt a new surge of respect for Rose. He had thought she was going to try to spoon feed him some sugar-coated religion.

"You think it's God's will that you have suffered," she said. "Well, I think you're probably right."

"Sun thought I was…" He trailed off. How did he explain how a person, so kind and so well meaning, could unintentionally disparage him?

"Yes, well, I don't," said Rose. "You know your suffering has a purpose. That's the first step. It's a big step, but it's only the first."

"And what do you think is the second?"

"When you drift with the will of your God, Sayid, you have to let it take you to grace too. You can't stop at penance. God will forgive you if you let Him."

Sayid snorted. "That is your view of religion," he said, "because you believe in some cuddly baby, a teddy bear in a manger. You do not believe in a single God of justice and of might."

"You speak as though the Koran had nothing to say of mercy, or as if my Bible had nothing to say of God's wrath. But the Koran does speak of God's mercy."

"How would you know?"

"I have read it," she answered.

"You have?"

"Mhmm," she murmured, fiddling with the cross that hung about her neck. "I have read many people's scriptures." She stared off into the distance and began quoting from the Koran, "He is God, the One God, the Everlasting Refuge." She looked now at Sayid. "Do you hear that? The Everlasting Refuge. And what was it that Muhammed said? 'God is more loving and kind than a mother to her dear child.'"

Sayid looked away, as though he were ashamed of being caught in a half-truth.

If anyone else had spoken the words that Rose next spoke, he or she would have sounded irritatingly judgmental. But Rose only sounded sincere and tender. "Reveling too long and too fiercely in guilt is a form of pride," she said. "You're too proud to accept God's forgiveness. You're too proud to admit that you could never have been a better man by your own efforts alone. You think you have failed to meet a standard. It was a standard you could never meet apart from the grace of God."

Sayid said nothing.

"You have endured much suffering," Rose said. "It's made you feel the weight of your sins. It's made you despise your old self. So why don't you accept grace?"

When he still said nothing, Rose stood up. She looked down at him and sighed, and then she turned quietly and left him to himself.