Sacred: A Novel by Dennis Lehane

unison.
    “Hi,” I managed and started looking around for their pods.
    “Deforest is suffering a bit of late-twentieth-century malaise,” Manny said, leading me farther back into the room. “Something we all know about.”
    Several voices cried, “Yes. Oh yes,” like we were at a Pentecostal revival meeting and the gospel singers were due on the floor any minute.
    Manny led me to a desk in the rear corner and motioned for me to sit in an armchair across from it. The armchair was so plush I had a feeling I’d drown in it, but I took a seat anyway and Manny grew another foot as I sank and he took a high-backed chair behind the desk.
    “So, Deforest,” Manny said, pulling a blank notepad from his desk drawer and tossing it on top, “how can we help you?
    “I’m not sure you can.”
    He leaned back in his chair, opened his arms wide, and smiled. “Try me.”
    I shrugged. “Maybe it was a dumb idea. I just was walking past the building, I saw the sign…” Another shrug.
    “And you felt a tug.”
    “A what?”
    “A tug.” He leaned forward again. “You feel displaced, am I right?”
    “A little,” I said and looked at my shoes.
    “Maybe a little, maybe a lot. We’ll see. But displaced. And then you’re out walking, carrying that weight in your chest that you’ve been carrying so long you barely notice it anymore. And you see this sign. Grief Release. And you feel it tug you. Because that’s what you’d like. A release. From your confusion. Your loneliness. Your displacement.” He raised an eyebrow. “Sound about right?”
    I cleared my throat, skipped my glance across his steady gaze as if I were too embarrassed to meet his eyes. “Maybe.”
    “No ‘maybe,’” he said. “Yes. You’re in pain, Deforest. And we can help you.”
    “Can you?” I said, working the slightest crack into my voice. “Can you?” I said again.
    “We can. If”—he held up a finger—“you trust us.”
    “Trust isn’t easy,” I said.
    “I agree. But trust is going to have to be the foundation of our relationship if it’s going to work. You have to trust me.” He clapped his chest. “And I have to trust you. In that way, we can work toward a connection.”
    “What sort of connection?”
    “A human one.” His kind voice had grown even softer. “The only kind that matters. That’s what grief stems from, what pain stems from, Deforest—a lack of connection with other human beings. You’ve mislaid your trust in the past, had your faith in people broken, shattered even. You’ve been betrayed. Lied to. So you’ve chosen not to trust. And this protects you to some extent, I’m sure. But it also isolates you from the rest of humanity. You are disconnected. You are displaced. And the only way to find your way back to a place, to a connection, is to trust again.”
    “And you want me to trust you.”
    He nodded. “You have to take a chance sometime.”
    “And why should I trust you?”
    “Well, I’ll earn your trust. Believe me. But it’s a two-way street, Deforest.”
    I narrowed my eyes.
    “I need to trust you,” he said.
    “And how can I prove I’m worthy of your trust, Manny?”
    He crossed his hands over his belly. “You can start by telling me why you’re carrying a gun.”
    He was good. My gun was in a holster clipped to the waistband at the small of my back. I’d worn a loose, European-cut suit under a black topcoat as part of my ad exec look, and none of the clothing hugged the gun. Manny was very good.
    “Fear,” I said, trying to look sheepish.
    “Ah! I see.” He leaned forward and wrote “fear” on a piece of lined paper on the desk. In the margin above it, he wrote “Deforest Doohan.”
    “You do?”
    His face was noncommittal, flat. “Any specific fear?”
    “No,” I said. “Just a general sense that the world is a very dangerous place and I feel lost in it sometimes.”
    He nodded. “Of course. That’s a common affliction these days. People often sense that even the