Visitation

Someone knocked at the door. My wife peeked out through the curtains.
"It's the agnostics," she said.
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"The nondescript way they're dressed, midway between suit and polo shirt. And their car parked out front..."
"Which one?"

"See what I mean? I'll tell them to go away." She had been washing dishes and had a gigantic carving knife in her hand. They would have left with no protest.
"No, I'll get it. It's my turn," I said.
"Okay, but don't let them rope you into a long debate. Remember how hard it was to get the Jehovah's Witnesses off our porch?"

She went back to the kitchen sink and I answered the door.
"Hi, we're..."
"Bob and Wendy of the Agnostics," I said, reading their nametags.
They were only slightly taken aback. "And we were wondering..."
"If you could have a minute of my time."
"Well, yes."
Wendy wasn't bad looking in a college-educated way and poor Bob had a head too small for the rest of his body with beady eyes and ears that stuck out. Perfect.
"But only a minute and not a second more. My wife is sharpening knives in the kitchen and I hate to distract her."
They glanced at each other but their training took over and they marched into the house.
"No," I said. "The evening is too pleasant, let's go into the back yard."
I seated them at our new table, poured wine for everyone and gave them a broad smile.
"So."
"So, Mr...."
"Mig."
"Mr. Mig. We'd like to talk to you about the ordering force in the universe, little-g god, big-G God, whatever you choose to call it, whether or not it exists, which you have to admit cannot be objectively verified."
"Love," I said, taking another sip of wine.
"Excuse me?" Wendy said.
"I call it love."
"Love."
"Or happiness. They boil down to the same thing."
"Okay, Mig. Hard to say in the end, isn't it."
"Not for me."
"Ah, but how can you be so sure? I mean, somedays, yeah, you smell a rose and are overcome with the divinity and spirituality of creation, sure. But others, you're living on a dead rock."
"Maybe you are. I'm sure not."
"But, 'love'," Bob said. "How vague can you get? Is there any word more misunderstood than 'love'?"
"I mean something very precise," I said. "You know the new Nickelback video in heavy rotation on MTV?" I asked them. They nodded.
"Sure, we watch MTV like everyone else."
"Where the chick is crying and can't see the guy and drives off and gets smeared by a semi and *doing* now she can see the guy? Because now they're both dead? That's not the love I mean. Not anything obsessional and full of death. That video should be banned because it links love and death like that. I mean the jelly-shaking life force of the Beyoncé Knowles video they show after that one. An open love, not a closed one."
"I don't get you," Bob said.
"Wendy looks like she might," I said.
Bob scowled, Wendy glanced down at her hands, then she looked back up with a new expression on her face.
"I believe, Mig," she said. "I believe in love and happiness."
"Here, have some more wine, you guys," I said.
Bob glared at Wendy. "I don't believe you'd abandon me like this," he said. He stalked to the corner of the house, muttering, "Love." He waited there for a second but when it became obvious that Wendy wasn't going to follow him, he stomped off. A minute later we heard a car start up and zoom away with a grinding of gears.
"This wine is really going to my head," Wendy said.
"Would you like to take a dip in the mother of all wading pools?" I pointed over at the pool in the corner.
"But I don't have a bathing suit," she said.
"Do you know anything nicer than skinnydipping on a summer evening when the orange of the sunset is fading to..."
"Etc. etc.," she said. "Sure, sounds good. But what about your wife? She's inside washing carving knives in the kitchen, right?"
I slapped my forehead. "Oh, you're right." I glanced around nervously. "Look, you get in the pool, okay. I'll be right back out. I just have to run in and check on her, put her to bed or something."
"Sure," Wendy said.
"Mig, did you get rid of the agnostics?" my wife asked me from the kitchen when I went back into the house.
"Pretty much," I said. "No agnostics here, heh," I said.
She looked at me doubtfully. "You thought you could just get the Mormons to mow the lawn and then get rid of them, you remember how hard that turned out to be?"
Splashing sounds came from the back yard.
"Mig." She folded a dish towel and put it onto the radiator to dry.
"Look," I said. I led her into the library by the hand. From there we could see down into the pool, where Wendy frolicked innocently, no idea that we were observing her.
"Isn't she cute? Can we keep her?"
My wife smiled indulgently. "Keep her. Heh. Just this one. I won't have you collecting missionaries," she said.
"Cross my heart," I said.