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Like all good stories, mine began with a girl. Two girls, to be more precise, both of them better than I deserve. The first one made me promise that I'd take care of myself, but I didn't. I didn't take care of her, either, when she needed it; I left her. I couldn't take what she was dealing with, even second-hand, so I left her covered in someone else's blood in an emergency room and walked out of her life. And then I met the second girl, and there was something about her that reminded me of the other, so I talked to her. I followed her around. I didn't want to lose track of her. I thought maybe I'd learned, maybe I could have a fresh start with her. I'd forgotten that I was still me. And when the chips were down, I was ready to leave her behind, too. No. Be real, Zach. I have to be honest, at least with myself, because there's no shrink in the world who'll believe me if I tell them what happened next: I laid down her life for mine. I was going to let her die, on the chance that it would save my life. I mean, to my credit, I did change my mind -- but only after it was too late to matter. And even though it worked out okay in the end (because the girls I fall for are so far out of my league they can do that, just broker peace treaties between warring tribes 3000 years in the past), she knew, and I guess I did too, that we would never be able to forget. There are things in a relationship you can move past, but that wasn't one of them.So I said goodbye, and got in my car, and started out down the road. It was funny. I would have done -- had done -- anything to get a second chance at life, and now that I had it, I was halfway tempted to crash the car and say screw it. But I didn't. I'd betrayed her once, and it seemed like throwing my life away now would be a second, worse betrayal. The question now was, what would I do with myself? Go back to Hartford and the law offices? Back to my boss, who is at least a decent guy as lawyers go, and back to school in the fall?I could see my life stretching out in front of me, the life my father had always wanted for me, the life that had always seemed good enough at the time. But the thing was, if I took that life, girls like Polly and Vicky would never have anything to do with me. And did that even matter? I'd blown it with both of them, blown it big-time. But if there were two girls out there like that, open and trusting and willing to see the best parts of me as well as the worst, there might be more. And that was the thought that kept me driving, steering automatically onto the highway. All right. I'd go to Hartford for now. I had commitments there, after all, and if I'd thrown everything else away, I might as well keep my career options open. It seemed like the right choice; once I'd made it, I was able to relax a little. I leaned back against the seat and thought about turning the radio on, but the silence in the car was peaceful, and I didn't want to fill it up with noise. It left me plenty of time to think, and I wasn't comfortable with my thoughts. But I'd always called myself a realist, so I figured I'd better be realistic.The bishop had said that there was always mercy. That no one was ever beyond it. I wasn't sure about that, exactly, but it was a comforting thought. And even though the bishop himself might not like me any better than Polly did, now, he was not the kind of guy who would tell comforting lies. Somehow I believed that. And Karralys -- I didn't want to think about what had happened in the past, but I couldn't seem to avoid it -- Karralys had said that I had to live with myself. That I would have to learn it alone.That wasn't anything new. I'd always been alone.Maybe that had been because I wouldn't let anyone in. I know I've kept people at arm's length, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. But now, when I wanted more than anything not to be alone, here I was. Alone. But maybe that would be better, for now. The thing about learning is, it's always come easily for me. I like knowing things, being able to show off what I know. But some learning, like music for instance, requires mistakes. You can't play well without making mistakes, trying again, finally getting it right. And music is forgiving. It will wait for you to learn. Your mistakes can't hurt it. But people... people can be hurt. And maybe the way around that was to try and make myself a better person first, before I tried to join myself to anyone else.I turned off the highway, an exit too early for the road to the apartment I'd rented, and followed the road to the library. It took a few minutes before I could convince myself to go in, and only the knowledge that I was unimportant, that the librarian would hardly notice me, let alone realize what I was guilty of, allowed me to open the car door and climb the steep steps to the building. I paused at the top, out of habit, but I wasn't winded. How long would it take to get used to that, I wondered, and then: should I get used to it? When you've been the beneficiary of a miracle, should you ever stop taking it for granted? Inside the building, I headed for the theology section and browsed through the shelves for a bit, looking for something I could read without feeling utterly ridiculous. I didn't believe in deathbed conversions ("deathbed coercions," I used to call them), and I couldn't bring myself to pick up the Bible. But I did find a few books on mysticism, and one on druidic lore with some footnote references to Ogam, and I carried them to a seat beside a window. It was hard reading. I've been schooled in logic and reason; my family has never gone in for emotion, unless you count Ma's conniption fits when she didn't get her way (or, come to think of it, my conniption fits when I didn't get mine). So reading about beliefs, about things that can't be proven, was new. I couldn't take it all in at one go. By the time the library was ready to close, I'd returned one of the mysticism books, found a different one, returned it too. I finally picked out a volume of early Christian philosophy, and took that and the druid book to the checkout desk. The woman at the desk, middle-aged but wearing more fashionable clothing than you'd expect to see on a librarian, looked over my selections as I filled out paperwork for a library card. "Those look deep for light reading," she observed. "Are you taking a course?""No, just following up on some recent conversations." Actually, though, a course didn't sound like a bad idea. I'd have to remember that for next semester."You must move in interesting circles." She smiled at me.I smiled back, my easy, disarming nice-guy smile. "I like to think so.""Well, if you're interested, there's be a speaker coming Thursday evening that you might like to hear." She nodded towards the bulletin board beside the desk. "Macarios Xanthakos. He's a priest; mostly retired now, but he still does lectures and seminars, and I can tell you from experience that he's a really engaging speaker."I nodded as she handed me my books, keeping my expression noncommittal. "I'll see what's on my schedule."I had no real intention of going to that lecture. But Thursday would have been my afternoon with Polly, and after I spent the afternoon moping around (there really wasn't a more dignified way to describe it), I decided that even listening to a priest would be better than my own company. If worst came to worst, I figured I could always spend the time coming up with counterarguments for whatever he ended up saying. Just in my head, of course, unless the preaching got really bad.I didn't have to, though. To start with, the librarian from last time remembered me -- she waved when she saw me come in. "You made it!""I did." I couldn't help smiling at her. It was nice to see someone who was pleased to see me. "Good." She held out her hand to me. "I'm Noelle, by the way, Noelle Hamilton.""Zachary Gray." We shook hands, and she led me into a decent-sized conference room, set up with two rows of chairs arranged in a semi-circle. There was a gray-haired man seated at a table with a lectern, making notations in a book. A few people had already arrived, and they were mostly standing around talking, or seated and reading, but there wasn't anyone I knew, or felt compelled to socialize with. "Make yourself comfortable," Noelle said, waving one hand at a table where a coffee carafe and a tray of cookies were set up.I shook my head. "I'm fine, thanks. I think I'll just go ahead and grab a seat.""Go for it." She tucked a strand of ash-blond hair behind her ear. "I'm just going to round up any stragglers, and then I'll let Mac do his thing."Something about the familiarity she used to speak of Father Xanthakos reassured me. It reminded me, a little, of how Anaral spoke about the bishop, and under the circumstances that might seem a funny thing for me to be reassured by, but there it was. I trusted Bishop Colubra. I believed what he said, to me and about me. And right then I wanted very badly to be able to trust someone else that way, someone who didn't know how terrible I could be. God, the God the bishop believed in, that Polly and Vicky and their nice happy families believed in, was no one I could trust. But there were good, trustworthy people, and people were something that I could believe in. I might not have trusted humanity in general any further than I could have thrown all seven billion of us at once, but even I had to admit that there are people of integrity in the world.So when he -- Father Xanthakos -- stood up and began to talk, I was listening. And maybe it was just wishful thinking, but what he said, I liked. He didn't preach. In fact, he didn't quote one single Bible verse all night, except when he was answering questions at the end. I guess it was what you might call a spiritual discussion, rather than a strictly religious one. He brought up science at one point and the part of me that always wants to answer back started to perk up, because that's where you'd expect to disagree with a priest, right? Except it never happened. I'm pretty sure the guy knew more science, hard science, than I did, and he used it to tie together some of what he was saying in ways that really thrilled me, made me want to go read science and theology and philosophy until the world made sense, because it sure seemed like, at least to him, it did.Anyway, like I said, at the end, he was answering questions. It took me awhile to work up the nerve to raise my hand, but when I did, he called on me. "Sir, earlier you said something about mercy. And it occurred to me, I'm not sure I really understand what mercy is. How would you define it?""That's a good question." He paused, thinking through his answer. "Mercy is easy enough to define, but not so easy to comprehend. I've spent a long time grappling with the concept, and I still have difficulty trying to offer an explanation. According to the dictionary, it can mean kindness, forgiveness, aid, or luck -- or, I suppose, any combination of those. It comes from a Latin root meaning "wages." So you could say that mercy means paying someone in kindness. But the nature of mercy also means that the kindness can be unearned. The story of the prodigal son, for instance, refers to mercy as "a gratuitous, generous gift," and I think that comes closer to my own understanding: mercy is a gift freely given, with no expectation of repayment, and no agenda beyond helping the recipient.""Then, by your definition, it would be impossible for anyone to be -- beyond mercy?" I wanted to bite back the words as soon as I had spoken them -- too personal, and I am not the guy who gets personal in a room full of strangers -- but it was out there, and I couldn't take it back. And, to be honest, I wanted to hear what the answer would be.Father Xanthakos looked at me, not judging, merely evaluating. "I would say, and bear in mind that I am only one man, that anyone who is the recipient of mercy must be, by definition, worthy, since the giver of mercy found him -- or her -- to be so."And I sat back and let the rest of the questions sort of flow over me, because my mind was awash with -- I guess I'd have to call it relief. Whatever else I might have done, I could say this much for myself: I had received mercies, great and small, and if receiving them makes you worthy, then no matter what, I wasn't hopeless. I could make myself into the man I wanted to be. Not the "self-made man" Pop and his friends talk about, making money hand over fist and not caring much who you take it from, but a man, the kind that someday, someone might be able to trust, without being let down.