The Good Atheist by Michael Manto

there was a God who created everything, it was monumentally arrogant to believe he was so special that God would have the time of day for him or want anything to do with him.”
    I nodded. It was pretty sound logic. “How did he take that?”
    She flicked a hand in frustration. “It just bounced off him. He laughed and hugged me and told me how much God loved me and all of us.”
    “Wow.”
    She nodded. “Yes. When it finally reached the point where I knew he was beyond any help I could give him, I warned him. I threatened that if he persisted in this religious nonsense I would leave him and take you with me, and I’d be forced to call the Tolerance Bureau.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He asked me not to, and that he didn’t want to lose me or you, but he could not deny the Lord who bought him.”
    The Lord who bought him, I thought. What an odd thing to say. Whatever did that mean? It wasn’t hard to guess what happened next, but I waited for her to finish the story.
    “I started making plans that very night. Not long after that, one day while he was at work, I had the movers come and pack up. I called the Inquisitors from the car as we left town.”
    I remembered the move. At the time mother simply told me Dad would be joining us later at our new home. It never happened, of course.
    “You could have given Dad more time to get better. Maybe with a bit more time he would have come to his senses and none of this would have been necessary.”
    “Jack, you should know better. We could not take the risk that he would hurt someone or himself. Once a person catches religion, it’s only a matter of time before they start strapping bombs to their chest. You know that. We couldn’t let it go.”
    “I know, but I wish you’d at least told me the truth. I deserved that much.”
    “I didn’t want you to know what had happened. I didn’t want to have to talk about it, to you or anyone – it was too embarrassing. I needed the closure, and I didn’t want you getting teased at school by the other kids. So I told everyone he had run off. And I had to tell you the same thing to ensure that the secret was kept. It was, in a sense, close to the truth.”
    It was nothing like the truth, I thought. But Mother always had a weird knack for believing her own lies.
    “You didn’t allow Grandpa to contact me, did you?” I told her about the cottage and finding the letters.
    “He tried for a while, but I threatened him with legal action if he didn’t stop.”
    I didn’t say anything, but the look on my face must have betrayed my thoughts. Mother said, rather defensively, “It was my right as a citizen to protect my family from religious lunatics. I should have turned him in too.”
    Then she slumped into her chair, tears streaming down her cheeks. I felt bad for bringing all this up and forcing her to relive it. “You must hate me,” she said softly.
    I didn’t want to judge her. I didn’t like what she had done but I tried to understand. At the time, she had been a frightened young mother. And I was too shocked over the revelations to feel anger. 
    “No, Mom, I don’t.”
    “What are you going to do now?”
    “I’m going to go find him.”
    She let out a whimper and shook her head. “Please don’t do that. It’s pointless.”
    “I have to. He’s my dad. I’m not going to give up on him.”
    “It’s useless.”
    “Maybe so. But I want to ask him.”
    “Ask him what?”
    “I’m going to ask him why he did this to us.”
    “Then you don’t blame me?”
    “No, Mother. I don’t suppose I blame you. Not entirely. Dad brought it on himself.”
    We both sat in silence for a while. I looked around the studio at her sculptures. Mother stared at the floor with red, watery eyes.
    “How did you manage the news stories?” I asked.
    She looked up at me and shook her head as if confused. “What news?”
    “The stories on the news sites about Dad dying in the car accident about a year after you left him. How did