Michael Cordy - The Source

Diana Wharton wiped her eyes and reached for the scan. 'Is Lauren suffering?'

'No.'

'And there really is hope for the baby?'

'Yes.'

She turned to Ross and his father. 'That's something, isn't it?'

Sam Kelly rested a hand on hers and smiled. 'That's a lot. There's always hope.'

Ross felt a rush of admiration for his father. A hardworking farmer, beset by disappointment and tragedy, he had learnt to accept and look beyond both. He remembered the day when his father had told him his new baby brother wasn't coming home, and that his mother couldn't have any more children. He had gone on to say he felt blessed that his wife had survived and that Ross should feel glad he still had a mother. Even when cancer had taken her a few years ago, his father still counted himself fortunate for the time he'd had with her. But Ross couldn't be so stoical. He couldn't just accept what was going to happen. Was Lauren at peace in a dark, dreamless sleep or, as in his nightmare, was she calling to him, desperate to be rescued?

Greenbloom stood up. 'We'll do everything we can for the baby. I just wanted to make sure you knew the facts of the situation so you could prepare yourselves for every eventuality.'

Ross blinked back tears of grief and frustration. He had made a career of finding what others couldn't but now, when it mattered most, he was useless. Her mother passed him the scan and he saw his own grief reflected in her face. Then he saw his father's sadness and compassion. In both he witnessed something else: resignation. They were already making their peace with whatever would happen to Lauren and pinning their hopes on their grandchild.

Ross couldn't do that. He studied the scan. The foetus looked like a baby: there was fine hair on its head; its fingernails were formed; the legs were longer than the arms. He wanted a child more than anything in the world, and he wanted it to have the brothers or sisters he had never had, but he didn't know the baby. He did know and love Lauren. He realized guiltily that he would gladly give up the baby to save his wife. His chest tightened and the blood pounded in his head. Whatever the doctor had said about Lauren, and whatever hope there was for their baby, Ross wasn't ready to give up on her. Not yet. Not ever.

Yale University, that evening 'Could you please tell me where Dr Lauren Kelly's office is?'

The young student shook his head. 'Sorry, Sister. Yale's a big place. You'll need to ask at Administration. They'll point you in the right direction. Go to the red-brick building, turn left through the arch and it's the big stone place on the other side of the green.' He checked his watch. 'It's getting late but someone should still be there.'

'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.'

As she walked off, leaning on her stick for support, she could feel herself tiring, but soon she'd be able to rest. She enjoyed strolling through the campus. Yale's leafy academic calm contrasted agreeably with the rush of the modern world, and reminded her of a more reflective age. The quiet didn't quell her excitement, though. Her heart was fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird. She was to be rewarded for her patience. The wait was over.

She smiled, suddenly grateful for the technology of the modern world. Jet planes had whisked her from Entebbe to London to Geneva. There, she had finalized her financial affairs and retrieved the item she kept in the bank's safe-deposit box, then flown on to New York. Without the Internet she couldn't have learnt so quickly of Dr Kelly's achievement. God had been smiling down on her that day at the Jambo Internet cafe when she had found Lauren Kelly's synopsis on the Yale website.

She opened her case, ignored the vacuum-sealed parcel she had retrieved from Geneva, and took out a creased printout. She reread the first lines of Dr Kelly's synopsis and crossed herself. She had forgotten how many times she had despaired of this day ever coming. It was appropriate that it should happen here, a few hundred yards from where the original lay in the Beinecke Library.

She walked into the stone building the student had mentioned and approached the reception desk. The two women behind it were collecting their handbags, getting ready to leave for the night. 'Can I help you?' asked the younger.

'I hope so. Where can I find Dr Lauren Kelly?'

The young woman looked down at her screen. 'I'm sorry. She hasn't been on campus for some days and we've no date for her return-'

'It's okay, Maisie. I'll deal with this,' interrupted the older woman. She adjusted her spectacles and smiled sympathetically. 'Maisie's new here. Is this to do with all that's happened, Sister?'

Sister Chantal fingered her crucifix, dismayed that Lauren Kelly's achievement was already making waves. 'Yes… yes, it is.' She had hoped the translation would attract little attention until it was completed. And without her help she was confident that that would never happen. 'Do you know where I can find her?'

'Yes. I'm sure we have the name of the hospital on the computer.'

'Hospital?'

'I assumed you wanted to visit Dr Kelly there because of her injury.'

An icy hand squeezed Sister Chantal's heart. 'Injury?'

The woman frowned. 'You don't know what happened?'

A few miles away, Ross Kelly was still trying to process Greenbloom's chilling prognosis. As he left the Sacred Heart Hospital, he felt curiously drawn to its small chapel.

If the total life of Earth was scaled down to a twenty-four-hour day, then mankind had turned up in the last few seconds – so it was odd that God should have created man in His own image. It made much more sense that man, with his evolved consciousness, had created God. It was one of the things Ross and Lauren had argued about from the very first time they met. He envied the comfort her faith brought her, and marvelled at how believers always credited God with the good things but never blamed Him for the bad.

His mother's faith had comforted her, too, in times of crisis. When she had miscarried, she didn't blame God but sought Him out. And when she developed cancer, she had prayed to Him to give her strength. Even Ross's father found solace in accepting adversity as God's will. But Ross couldn't. He wanted to believe there was some divine order in the world: it made it so much easier to accept everything. But there was no evidence. Over the last few weeks, he had prayed for Lauren, but he had sensed only a void. The few times Ross had glimpsed a spiritual dimension, it had been in the wonders of the natural world: the crystal formations in the vast cave of Lechugia, the Ozark mountains at dawn near his father's farm. Even the awesome history of the planet could make him reconsider his place in the scheme of things.

If God did exist, Ross had no time for the religions that had claimed Him as their own. It amazed him that believers – Christian, Jew or Muslim – could ruthlessly dismiss all other religions and not understand why he might want to dismiss theirs. Religion had done him one small service, though: as a boy he had joined the church choir and from that had learnt he had inherited his mother's perfect pitch.

Perhaps it was those happier memories that now drew him to the silence of the empty chapel. With its faint smell of incense, the pale wood pews, smooth white walls and contemporary stained-glass windows it offered a peaceful haven from the worries of the world. He took a seat at the front, looked up at the cross and wondered why religions cared more about a person's faith than what he or she did with their life. Why did we have to believe in God to be saved? Was He so vain, insecure and petty that He needed us to recognize Him? Why couldn't we just live good, worthwhile lives? Why did He allow Lauren to suffer when she believed in Him, but spared Ross who didn't?