The Sabbathday River by Jean Hanff Korelitz Page B

another piece of bread.
    Judith leaned conspiratorially toward Naomi. “Got him away from New York just in time. There’s a religious revival going on. This charismatic rabbi near Lincoln Center’s pulling ’em back into the fold like a Venus flytrap.”
    â€œOuch,” Naomi said.
    â€œAbsolutely. It’s invasion of the body snatchers, the Goldberg variation. People who toasted the death of God with LSD are studying Talmud with their kids. A woman I worked with started trading cases with me so she could get home before sundown on Fridays.”
    â€œBut you’re a scientist,” said Naomi to Joel. “How could you possibly reconcile genetics with God? You can’t believe in both.”
    He had evidently considered this problem before. “I don’t know. I think you believe what you believe. You let the details sort themselves out later.”
    Judith rolled her eyes. “God’s a pretty big detail, sweetie.”
    â€œWell, I’m perfectly comfortable with the fact that there is no God.” Naomi shrugged. Joel, pursing his lips, said nothing. “I used to say ‘agnostic,’” she went on. “Then one day it occurred to me: who am I kidding? I’m not agnostic. Saying you’re agnostic implies that you’re engaged in the active, ongoing pursuit of an understanding of God, and truthfully, I hung up my pursuit years ago. It would be like saying you’re training for a marathon when you’re not even jogging around the block—it’s misleading and even a little dangerous.”
    â€œDangerous?” Joel looked at her.
    â€œYeah, you get to thinking you’re not going to drop dead from a heart attack because you’ve been doing all that imaginary training. I mean,” Naomi said, “you get complacent about an afterlife because you can’t admit to yourself that you really just don’t believe. Like the God you don’t acknowledge is going to give you points for not admitting your disavowal outright.”
    â€œBut how can you be sure ?” Joel leaned forward.
    She smiled at him. “I must lack the gene for faith.”
    To her amusement, he seemed to take this seriously. “Perhaps you do. Perhaps it comes down to that, after all.”
    â€œYou have to forgive him.” Judith leaned in. “It’s his version of a
midlife crisis. This is what a midlife crisis looks like in a man who’s basically happy with his life. Like I said, I got him out of New York just in time. In another year, I might have had two sinks, two refrigerators, two dishwashers …”
    â€œBut you said you wanted two refrigerators in the new house.” Joel frowned.
    â€œYeah, sure. But not to keep kosher. It’s to keep sane. I’m going to have to freeze all the stuff I haul up from Zabar’s. And as you ought to remember, my dear husband, when I’m working, it’s dinner on ice. You may have transported me to the land of Live Free or Die, but once I start in Peytonville, you’re going to have to get used to defrost and reheat again.” She shook a silver-ringed index finger at him. “Much as I love you, you know the cow thieves come first.”
    â€œI know.” Joel smiled.
    Naomi offered coffee and got up to make it.
    â€œIt’s kind of funny,” she said to Judith, who had followed her into the kitchen, “when my ex-husband and I first came here, I was just charmed by that. ‘Live Free or Die’ on every license plate. I was thinking: ‘Born Free.’ Lions in Africa. I was thinking, you know, out in the wilderness, the feeling of freedom and exhilaration. Like: go out and really live your life, don’t just sit around and let it happen to you. Be free! You know? Then one day I was sitting on the porch at Tom and Whit’s, watching these two guys stock up their car to go out hunting. They’ve got a Stars and Stripes tied to the CB