Epiphany

“Oh my God. Oh … my … God.”

“Are you OK?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh.”

Mary watched Catharine sink into the leather and pull her legs to her chest.

“Talk to me. What happened to you?”

Catharine took a deep breath and another deep breath and another. “The most amazing experience of my life.”

“What?”

“Can you take me home? Now?”

“I’m not moving until you tell me you’re OK.”

Catharine turned and acknowledged her best friend for the first time. “I’m fine. I’m better than fine – I’m amazing. Are you happy? Will you take me home now?”

“Fine. Mabel, drive to Catharine’s house.” Mary’s car shifted into drive and merged into traffic for the ten-minute ride. Mary crossed her legs, turned, and stared at her friend. Catharine’s eyes were closed, her knees buried deep into her chest, and she was rocking from side to side.

“OK, tell me about it.”

Catharine opened her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve got the words to describe the joy that I experienced. I’ve never been that relaxed. That at peace with myself. It was as if the universe accepted me for who I am, without judgment. I had no fear. I was able to live entirely in the moment without worry or concern. I just was. It was the best hour of my life.”

Mary took a deep breath. “How did you get all of that from one hour at The Center?”

Catharine focused on Mary’s eyes and grabbed her hands. “You know their advertisement for Immersion Therapy?”

Mary remembered the ad she had seen while driving David to the soccer field the other day. The noise from the backseat had been too loud for her to focus on it. “Yeah, I guess so. Therapy from the world’s best therapist – something like that?”

“It is and it isn’t. Mary … I met God.”

Mary took her hands back into her lap and stared at her friend. She searched Catharine’s expression for humor and found none.

“I know, I sound crazy. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t just experienced it. But I’m telling the truth. It’s real! And it has changed my life forever.”

“What do you mean you’ve met God? The Jewish God? The Christian God? The Muslim God?”

“It’s not like that.”

“So explain it to me. How do you go from a woman who hasn’t attended mass since junior high to meeting God in Orange County on a Tuesday?”

Catharine’s eyes narrowed. She put her hands back into her lap. “They warned me that my friends and family wouldn’t believe me. The technology is too advanced for most people.”

Mary reached for Catharine’s hands but Catharine refused her touch. “Cat, it’s not like that.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t UNDERSTAND you. I believe you just had an amazing experience but I don’t know what I’d say except you’re not you right now.”

“See, that’s what you don’t get! I’m more me now than I’ve ever been before. And I’m not going back to the old me. I LIKE this me.”

Mary reached for Catharine’s hands again and was able to connect to a pinkie. “I like the old you and the new you, Cat.” Mary paused. “What do you mean you’re not going back to the old me?”

“Just what I said. I love this new me. And I want to keep being this new me. And the only place I can be the new me is The Center.”

“You made another appointment?”

“I made a permanent appointment. I need you to drive me back after I grab some things from the house. They’ve accepted me as a resident.”

Mary pulled her hand back. She looked at her friend’s face, the friend she had made in second grade, the friend with whom she had snuck out in ninth grade, the friend she had told she was pregnant before anyone else knew, the friend she had stood beside as she married Rodney. She looked to recognize that friend.

“Mabel, stop.” The car merged out of traffic and parked.

“Catharine, explain this to me. You say you met God. What EXACTLY does that mean? You walked into an office building and voila, there was God?!?”

“Why did you stop?!”

“I want to understand this and I can’t fully focus if we’re moving.”

“START THE CAR!”

Mary stared at her friend.

“They want me back within an hour or my spot will go to someone else. START THE CAR!”

Mary looked into Catharine’s narrow eyes. “Mabel, drive to Catharine’s house. There. Now explain this to me.”

“Are you going to listen or are you going to mock me?” Catharine stared at the floor mat with a bulging lower lip.

Mary took a deep breath. “I’ll listen.”

“I didn’t expect this, Mary. Honest. The receptionist led me to a room where I expected to see a couch, a white-haired doctor with a goatee and a notepad. Instead, the room had a platform in the middle that was extended by wires from the ceiling. They asked if I was willing to be part of an experiment in new therapy. They said it was decades ahead of anything done now. They said one session would be all I needed and that it was completely safe.

“I was skeptical but they said if I didn’t like it after five minutes I could quit so I didn’t think it could be that bad. They told me to put on a special suit and a headset that would aid the session. Then they had me stand on the platform. A harness came up around me. Then one wall of the room became a screen that showed clouds floating by. A voice said ‘Relax, Catharine, and come to me.’ I suddenly felt warm but not uncomfortable and waves of pressure surged through the suit as if three masseuses were working all at once. If the session was just that it would have been worth it but after a few minutes a voice from the wall said ‘Tell me your troubles.’

“I talked and He listened. He talked and I listened. It was like He had known me my entire life. By the end of the hour, I didn’t even have to talk – He could read my mind. And I realize now that I haven’t known peace like that because I haven’t known God.”

Catharine looked at her friend. Mary looked back at her friend. Mabel drove forward.

“Look, Cat – that wasn’t God. I don’t know who God is but I know He’s not in that building. That was artificial intelligence programmed to fool you into thinking you were talking to God. The impulses, the feelings …”

“OK, Mary, tell me – who is God?” Catharine yelled. “How do you feel when you pray? When’s the last time you prayed, anyway? When’s the last time you were in church? What makes you an expert?”

“I’m not an expert. You’re right – I don’t know much about God. I just know He’s not in a building talking to nervous housewives on a Tuesday in California.”

“Arrived at Catharine’s house,” Mabel declared. Catharine grabbed the door handle but Mary locked the doors.

“So that’s it? What about Rodney? What about your family?”

“The kids are grown and have lives of their own. Rodney knows I’ve been struggling lately, he’ll understand.”

“He’ll understand that his wife is leaving him to live in a retreat and fake-talk to God?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do. You’re fooling yourself. You’re throwing your life away to live with a computer.”

Catharine reached behind her neck and undid a clasp. “Can you do me a favor? Will you give this locket back to Rodney? It was his grandmother’s and I think he should have it.”

Mary fingered the heart-shaped pendant in her hand. “You’re going to regret this forever, Catharine.”

“I regret not doing this sooner.”