“You know, Mother," said Jack, setting his coffee aside, "I would understand if you decided I was too old for bedtime stories.”

“Nonsense, Jack. You know how much I enjoy our time together.”

“Perhaps. But I find that the subtexts of your narratives grow increasingly worrisome.”

Jack heard his mother snort into her cup of coffee. “I will have you know that my maternal sensibilities have spared you a great deal. My own mother began my theological education at the age of seven, with a lesson on Judith and Holofernes, followed by the story of the Levite’s concubine.”

“That explains much.”

“You have no idea.”

“Nonetheless, I feel obliged to ask if you have recently been issued any divine instructions.”

“I assure you, the Almighty has never spoken to me, save through crumbling parchment and ancient tongues.”

“That is not necessarily an answer.”

“I maintain a healthy, academic mistrust of voices that issue from nowhere, Jack.” She smiled. “At any rate, I should hope that I have raised you with more common sense than to follow anyone to the peak of a mountain with no better explanation for your sojourn than Abraham gave to Isaac.”

“Indeed. Though that is scarcely any comfort.” Jack paused to sip his own coffee, studying his mother over the rim of the cup. “If you intended to make a sacrifice of me, you would no doubt maintain deadly plausibility until you had succeeded in binding me to the altar.”

“I suppose you have a point.” She gazed into her cup, eyebrows aloof. “Perhaps there is a lesson here after all. A cautionary tale against the dangers of blind obedience.”

“I shall keep it in mind,” Jack said, rising, as the mantel clock struck the hour. “There is my cue.”

She stood, crossing the room to walk with him to the door. She retrieved his officer’s cap from the hat stand and placed it lightly atop his head.

“Do write occasionally,” she said, and though he was certain later that he must have imagined it, her eyes seemed to grow bright as he bent to kiss her.

“I shall send you a full account,” he said, “of all the nightmares you have provoked.”

Her laughter followed him down the street, to the train and beyond.


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