The local Episcopal church had seemed like a good place for them to gather. It was four blocks from the women’s center where Sarah was hiding, just off the bus line that served Jordan’s school, and a quick walk across the town’s main shopping area from the parking garage, where Karen could leave her car and make certain she wasn’t followed by riding an elevator up and down a few times.
“The pastor has an office in the basement he says we can use,” Red One had said on the phone. “I told him we were trying to help out a friend-that’s you, Sarah-at Safe Space and needed a place to meet in private, and he was most understanding. He said he frequently sermonizes on family violence, so I made it seem like we were worried about an abusive husband.”
She had not said, “No Wolf will follow us into a church,” which was what Sarah was thinking as she crossed a black macadam parking lot that glistened with rain. Some crazy thought about sacred or consecrated ground reverberated within her, but she told herself that was for vampires, not wolves.
Red One had told her not to use the main church entrance, so she made her way around to the rear. There was a small basement entry that had a sign next to the door that stated: no admittance during sunday services. aa group meets 7-9 pm monday, wednesday, friday.
She stepped in a puddle, cursed, and hurried forward. She felt almost ghostlike, as if she were suddenly invisible. She wondered if this was because of the memorial service. A lot of people think I’m dead. I can’t let anyone who knew the old Sarah see the new Cynthia.
She pulled the door open and entered the church’s basement. A radiator was hissing and steam was clanking in some hidden pipes. Sarah pushed down a narrow corridor lit with uncovered bulbs that made the whitewashed walls shine harshly. At the end, the corridor opened into a larger space that had a low soundproofed ceiling and a linoleum floor, a stage at one end, and several rows of gray steel folding chairs arranged in front of an empty podium. It was a dingy, cheerless space, and she guessed this was where the AA meetings took place.
Off in a corner, there was a door open to another room, and she heard voices. She moved that way, and saw Karen standing inside next to a sturdy oaken desk. On the walls were some pictures of a silver-haired man in robes performing ceremonies and a pair of divinity school diplomas, but there was no sign of the priest. Jordan was beside Karen, fiddling with a camera, some wires, and a laptop computer.
Jordan looked up, smiled, and jokingly said, “Hey, dead woman walking. How’re you doing?”
“Not bad. Adjusting,” Sarah said.
“Cool.”
Karen came over and gave Sarah a hug, which surprised the younger woman. But she could feel a type of warmth flowing through the embrace: not exactly a friend’s embrace, but a we’re-in-this-together touch.
“How’d it go?” Sarah asked. She thought it was the most curious question, asking someone how her memorial service had been received.
Karen shrugged and smiled wryly. “It was good. A little weird-but actually good. You had many more friends than you said would come. People were genuinely sad…” She stopped before finishing the sentence, but Jordan jumped in.
“… Because you killed yourself.” The teenager grinned and laughed.
Sarah smiled weakly. She thought there was nothing in the least humorous in their situation, and what they’d done and what they planned on doing, and in saying farewell to her former life. But at the same time, Jordan’s response was precisely right: It was all hilarious, an immense practical joke.
The three Reds were silent for a moment.
“Was he there?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know,” Karen replied. “There were a lot of men, and families, but I couldn’t be sure about any one specific man. He wouldn’t wear a sign that said ‘Hi, I’m the Wolf’ or try to stand out in any way. I was trying to make eye contact, but it was hard-”
“He had to come,” Jordan interrupted again, speaking with all the determination of an athlete and the self-confidence of a teenager who was absolutely 100-percent certain about something. The other two Reds were older and therefore more accustomed to doubts. “I mean, come on. How could he not show up at the service for what he created? He’s been all over us in every fucking kind of way, so how could he stay away? It would be like winning a big lottery prize and not showing up to claim it.”
Karen, of course, imagined a million reasons the Wolf would stay away. Or one reason, anyway, she thought but did not say out loud. Because he’s smart and he didn’t need to be there. Because he’s waiting for us outside. Or close by. Or around the goddamn corner, or at my house or in my office or somewhere I don’t expect it and that’s where I’m going to die. She shook her head, not necessarily in reply to anything Jordan had said, but more in answer to her own ricocheting fears.
Karen had an odd thought, a memory culled suddenly from a college literature course, years before organic chemistry and statistics and physics and the interminable months of medical school training. It was a course on existential writing, and she hadn’t thought about it in decades.
Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.
She wanted to scream.
Karen dies tomorrow. Or maybe the next day; I can’t be sure.
Jordan looked up from punching buttons on the computer. “Hey, it’s working. It’s show time!” She laughed harshly. “All we need is some popcorn.”
The three women leaned across the desk and watched as the computer screen filled with the images of people coming through the door to the memorial service. The canned solemn music played in the background. There was little other sound, as people were quiet and respectful as they shuffled unknowingly into the camera’s vision and then out.
“Keep watching,” Karen continued. “Sarah, you should identify everyone you can.” She opened the remembrances book that the funeral home had provided, where folks had written short statements or merely signed their names.
Sarah stared at the first person to approach the book on the video. “Okay, that’s my neighbor and his wife, and their two sons. The red, white, and blue superpatriot whose backyard you used the other night,” she said to Karen.
Karen took a pencil and made a notation in the margin of the book.
“And those people are parents of one of my students. And that’s their child. She was in my last classroom before I quit. She’s grown in the last year.” Sarah nearly sobbed. “She’s becoming beautiful,” she whispered.
Another notation went into the margin.
“Keep going,” Karen said stiffly. Faces, sometimes names, often contexts leapt out of the computer screen at the three Reds. Jordan used the computer mouse to slow the flow down, and once or twice to stop the picture as Sarah paused to place a person. The connections came to her hesitantly or instantly; it was a little like watching a strange sort of theater presentation, where there was no dialogue and no plot, but each separate image created a distinct and profound impression. Several times Sarah had to stop and walk around the room, as she delved deeply into memory to recall who someone was. The three Reds were alert to each man who entered the line, stopped by the book, seized the pen provided by the funeral home, and then passed out of the camera’s eye.
“Come on, goddammit,” Jordan whispered. “I know you’re here.” The flow of people dwindled and finally stopped. “Shit, shit, shit,” Jordan cursed again. The image on the screen was the remembrances book idly waiting on the table. The music ceased, and they could hear the first words of Karen’s eulogy. “Motherfucker,” Jordan added.