No Legal Grounds by James Scott Bell Page B

Would
he? Would he invite a peculiar guy who made veiled threats? What
better action? Church was where transformation happened. It had
happened to Sam, so it could happen to anyone.
Yet . . . Nicky gave off seriously creepy vibes. What if he actually
said, Sure, I’ll come. Can I sit with you and your family? Sam found
the thought repellant and knew at once his faith was weak.
    Invite him anyway.
Sam said nothing.
“Not that I’m not open-minded,” Nicky said, “but religion just
    doesn’t do it for me. It’s all based on fear, and I think fear’s for wimps.”
“Fear?”
“Yeah, haven’t you read Bertrand Russell? Oh no, you didn’t major in philosophy. You were poli-sci.”
Was there anything about college this guy didn’t remember?
“It’s clear that religion started with fear. Early man was afraid of the lightning and thunder, of the storms and the winds. What caused it? Must be some powerful god out there in the sky. All fear, right?”
“That’s what you philosophy majors would call a non sequitur.” Nicky flinched and Sam congratulated himself on a point scored. “Fear may indeed be a motivator to seek God, but it doesn’t mean the reality of God is proven false.”
Flashing a smile Nicky said, “By golly, you are a lawyer, aren’t you?”
“Speaking of which, I’ve got to get back to the office. I think you need help, Nicky, and I would just encourage you to keep an open mind about God, and — ”
“Sam, do I look unreasonable to you?”
“I wish you all the best.” Sam stood up, hoping this was all finally going to be behind him. He offered his hand to Nicky.
Nicky just looked at it. “You’re going to be sorry.”
Sam froze, his hand hanging stupidly in the air.
Then Nicky grabbed Sam’s hand and smiled. “Because the orange chicken is really, really good here.”
Sam allowed himself a nervous laugh.
“Later,” Nicky said, then let go of Sam’s hand.
5.
    “Linda, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
    The smell of freshly cut onions filled the kitchen. Linda looked up from the cutting board, knife in hand. “So talk.”
“I need your undivided attention.”
She turned to him. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?” “Hold it. There’s nothing wrong.” He hoped. “Can we just go
    into the living room for a minute?”
“You want dinner? I’ve got sauce simmering. I don’t want it to
burn.”
“Just a couple of minutes.” He hoped again, heading into the living room. His throat was already constricting. This was going to be
harder than he thought.
“So?” Linda was behind him.
“Let’s sit.”
“This is starting to sound serious.”
“Linda, you remember when we got married, and — ” “Yes, I was there.”
“ — a week before the wedding I asked you if you had any
doubts?”
“I remember. And I didn’t.”
“And I asked you once more if there was anything you wanted
to know about my past.”
Linda looked at her hands. “I do remember that. I asked you the
same thing.”
“We decided we weren’t going to go into it. We both know we
had other people in our lives before we met each other. And we
were very different then. We were completely worldly.” “So what’s this mean? You have some dark secret you have to
tell me now?”
“Good guess.”
She gave him a long, hard look. “Do I need to know this?” Sam nodded.
“Why now?”
“It’s come up,” Sam said.
“What’s come up?”
Taking a deep breath, Sam began. “When I was a freshman I got
involved with a girl. And she got pregnant.”
Linda didn’t move.
“I offered to marry her, which was kind of old-fashioned even
back then. I didn’t even consider asking her to have an abortion. She didn’t want one either. She was willing to marry me. But her father came out from Texas and talked her out of it. He was a big, tough guy. I thought he was going to rip my head off. He took his daughter back home with him. Later I got some papers from a lawyer. I gave up all rights to the