Chapter 4 #2
“Look, I need answers. I don’t understand what I’m doing here, I don’t know who you are, all this is crazy. I’m not sure it’s worth it.”
He raises an eyebrow and furrows his forehead.
Maybe he thought I’d be an obedient little puppy and follow his commands without barking back.
Probably he is used to girls doing that.
And look, I loved my sister. I still love her.
Not in the past tense but now. I love her, even if she doesn’t exist, but this…
None of this makes sense, and I don’t know if she thought she could use some handsome guy to bait me into going along with her scheme, but it’s not working. At least not for now.
“I think it’s a present,” Will says.
“What do you mean?”
“Lucy left you this before she passed.” He runs a hand through his hair, just as he did on the street when he read the letter.
He’s uncomfortable. It’s obvious he doesn’t have a way with words.
“I’m being honest with you, all right? I don’t know why she made up the Map of Longing and I don’t know why she wanted me to be a part of it, but you should enjoy it, because if you think about it, it’s the last thing you have left of her. ”
I swallow and nod. “What do I have to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m just following orders. I’ll be here waiting for you in forty-five minutes. That okay?”
Now he looks warier, warm even, maybe, though what I mainly notice is that distance that warns you that if he draws a line, you better not cross it. I ask myself if he realizes that him acting so enigmatic is only making me want to unravel everything he’s clearly hiding from me even more.
“Sounds fine,” I say.
I get out of the car and walk into the building in front of me.
A barely lit hallway leads to a room. A soft voice emerges from it.
When I get there, I freeze in the doorway as several people’s eyes turn to me.
There are seven or eight people sitting there in a circle, and farther off stands a table with coffee and pastries.
I smile nervously because if this is what I think it is, Lucy must have had a few too many painkillers the day she came up with it.
“Hi, how can I help you?” asks a middle-aged woman with short red hair framing the sweetest face I’ve ever seen.
“Sorry, there’s been a mistake.”
“Are you sure?” she responds.
“Well, I…”
It’s uncomfortable hesitating there in front of all those people devoting so much attention to studying my every movement. The woman stands up after a few seconds and waves me over.
“You don’t have to participate. If you want, you can just sit there and listen to what the others have to say.”
I’d like to say no, but for three reasons, I wind up walking over thoughtlessly and settling my butt down into the chair.
One, I agreed to follow Lucy’s rules. Two, it wouldn’t be easy to say no to that charming of a woman.
Three, Will is waiting for me outside, and I don’t know how he’ll react if I come barging back out.
So I do it.
I listen.
A big man named Adrian sobs as he tells us about the long road he went down with his wife and the word cancer before she lost the battle.
A girl lets it all out talking about how hard it is to raise her little boy after losing her husband.
Finally, another woman remarks that she’s managed to sign up at the gym after months of apathy, and everyone applauds her.
The redheaded woman is the moderator.
I don’t know how it could ever have occurred to my sister that I, of all people, would be capable of opening up in front of a bunch of strangers who seem to have nothing in common except that death has taken away one of their loved ones.
But I stay there. I don’t say anything. I almost don’t breathe.
What they say about time being relative is a great truth.
Minutes can turn infinite when you want them to go by faster.
And then the opposite’s true: When you wish it were possible to make the world stop turning, time can go by so fast. If only there existed a magic button you could control it with, but that’s not how things are, and so I just sit until everyone gets up.
The moderator comes over before I can escape.
“My name’s Faith.” I can’t ignore the warmth of her eyes, so I put off my escape. “I’m a psychotherapist and the founder of this group. If there’s anything I can do for you, I’d be happy to help.”
“No. Sorry, I think that…”
“It’s not for you,” she guesses.
“Yeah, exactly. I just came because I had to do it.” I gulp uncomfortably. “I had to do it for someone,” I explain.
“I understand. Either way, the doors are open if you ever change your mind. We meet every Thursday at the same time.”
I nod and expel the air I’m holding in. Finally I can leave without looking back. But right when I’m about to go through the door all the others have left through, doubt overtakes me and I turn around.
“Does the name Lucy Peterson ring a bell?”
Faith’s eyes light up before her expression changes to one of compassion, and it’s obvious that not only does she know her but she knows Lucy’s dead too.
“Are you Greta?”
I nod with pursed lips.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
I’ve been waging a private battle with this imprecise usage of the verb to lose, but now’s not the time to go into that.
“Was Lucy ever here?”
“Yeah, she came several times last year, when her health allowed it. At first she wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but I let her stay just to listen. How could I not? She was such a sweetheart.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Lucy was so worried about what would happen to her family when she was gone. I think she needed to understand the mourning process. So she would come here, listen, and live through others something she would never experience herself.”
“Sure.” I suck in a breath of air. “I’m sorry. I need to go.”
I’m incapable of giving a proper goodbye before I turn around and leave. And to make matters worse, when I get outside, Will’s car has disappeared.