Eternity — David Plante

In London, Ted, a lapsed American Catholic married to a British woman encounters a friend’s child who is studying for his first communion. The boy, Jonathan, is terminally ill and believes the ritual of his first communion might miraculously heal him. Ted sees himself in the boy, and vividly recalls his childhood self. The idea of an eternal afterlife comforts Jonathan, but for Ted the idea represents a kind of dislocation: Is life merely something to be endured in preparation for eternity? Ted believed that as a child and now, in Jonathan, he finds the same beliefs taking hold. He must find a way back to his life and rediscover the profound joy that anchors him in this life, rather than in eternity.