Maybe I should light a candle, Laura thinks. For the dog.
She runs out of resolve halfway to the altar and slips into a pew quietly. She’s alone—if there’s a priest or something, he’s out of sight. She tilts her head back and studies the stained-glass windows one after another and then turns and inspects the big round one above the doors. It’s hard to see properly, but for the first time, it strikes her as kind of creepy. Saint David exorcising all these demons with their twisted faces and horns and bulging eyes. Saint David’s face has an eerie, serene look.
“Young Laura,” says a friendly voice that nonetheless makes her jump. “Didn’t mean to startle you. We don’t see you or your parents here very often these days.”
Laura turns to face the priest. He’s not that old and bears a curious resemblance to the Saint David on the stained glass with dark hair and a smooth face. She starts to mutter something.
“It’s fine,” he says. “What matters is that you’re here now. Did you want to pray or ask God for something?”
Laura chuckles but then stops herself. She doesn’t believe in God any more than she believes in Santa, and she always assumed that everyone who comes to church is actually the same. You grow out of the belief, but you keep coming to church on Sundays the same way you keep putting up a tree every December. The faith stops being the point and becomes more of an excuse.
“I wanted to light a candle,” she says. “For the dog that died. Can I do that, or do dogs have no souls?”
“Of course you can,” he says. “If you want to. It’s the meaning that you put in it.” He motions for her to follow him to where the candles are burning and gives her a new one free of charge. Laura hesitates but takes it. She lights it from one of the few other candles.
“I feel bad for the dog,” she says. Then adds, surprising even herself, “Everyone thinks I did it, but I didn’t. I swear. See? I wouldn’t lie in church.”
“Then God knows you didn’t do it.”
His face is impassive, and it annoys Laura to no end. So freaking what if God knows? Will God show up and tell Diane that before Laura has to explain to her mom why she can’t go for a milk run anymore?
Probably fucking not.
“So does God know who did do it?” she mutters.
“Of course,” he says without hesitation.
“But he won’t tell anyone. So what good is that?”
The priest sighs. “Dear Laura, all the evil deeds that people do come back to them, one way or another. It might take time, and it might not be apparent at first. But they always come back.”
Laura wishes she could agree. In her world, everyone gets away with shit all the time. Everyone but her. She can’t even seem to get away with things she didn’t do. How about that.
“I didn’t go anywhere near that dog.”
“Then you have nothing to fear.”
Great, Laura thinks. She throws one last look at her candle and heads out. It’s only her imagination, of course, but she could swear she feels the cold gazes of the glass saints follow her all the way to the exit.
EIGHT
2017
I have a nice long drive to ruminate on Jeannette’s words, and a new, unfamiliar feeling creeps up on me. A sort of empathy. I never thought of my hometown or the people who live there this way, not Jeannette, not even my own mother. For as long as I can remember living here, I’ve seen the place as annoying and limiting but temporary. Like prison or, more aptly, a shitty motel. You trudge through day after day, you hear your neighbors fucking through the paper-thin wall, you’re witness to everyone’s piss and shit and vomit in the shared bathroom, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. One day you’ll be allowed to leave, and that’s what keeps you going. Now, for the first time, I wonder what it’s like to be someone like Jeannette. To live with the town’s legacy that you’re also a part of, whether you like it or not.
At first, I shake off the feeling. It’s their own fault, I tell myself. They chose to stay here. They could have left, but they had no wherewithal to make a change, no ambition, no drive, no aspirations. Like my ex, whom I’ve never been able to stop resenting, even now. Or like Cath. I tell myself she’s the big loser here—apparently the height of her accomplishments is marrying my leftovers—and yet the resentment I feel eats into my soul like acid.
Nevertheless, only now do I begin to understand the thing that baffled me two years ago. I begin to understand why nobody was falling over themselves to talk to me for my podcast. They could detect my resentment and disdain on a deeper level. I can hardly blame them.
Still, that doesn’t explain everything.
Jeannette made it all sound almost sinister. The image of Michelle, blond nine-year-old who wore a different frilly dress in every photo of her that survives, lurking, watching the whole town like some sort of vigilante—that image stuck with me.
After a long stretch of flat road through nowhere, the GPS on my phone finally pipes up to inform me it’s time to take the next exit. I do that and pass a strip mall, a grocery, and a hardware store that sit in the middle of a vast gray parking lot. Another turn, and I drive up to the long-term care facility. The photos may have been true to life, but they judiciously cropped the sad surroundings, a string of warehouses and aeration ponds that fill the air with the smell of staleness.
I leave the car in the parking lot and make my way to the front doors. They part with a hiss and let me through, into the scent of air freshener and medicine. The desk at reception is front and center but there’s no one behind it and no bell to ring, so I hover, awkwardly waiting for someone to show up. I take in the surroundings: the polished but soulless lobby full of plastic plants, the chintz armchairs that don’t look like anyone ever sits in them, the faux fireplace. The thought of ending one’s life in a place like this is depressing, even without taking into consideration that for most, this is the best-case scenario.
The thought is humbling.
I begin to realize that in contrast with the smell of artificial lemon and flowers, my sweatshirt is quite ripe. I’m overdue for a shower. A glance at the nearest reflective surface confirms my suspicions: I’ve looked better. I’m starting to wonder if they’re going to throw me out of here altogether without letting me see Madame Fortier.
“Can I help you?”
I turn and find myself face to face with a woman in a white uniform and too much makeup.
“Yes, I’m here to see Marie Fortier,” I say with a grin. Her professional smile fades a little as she gives me a once-over.
“Oh, I just got into town. My mom is a friend of the family. She asked me to visit. Said it would make Marie happy. She hasn’t seen me since I was a little girl.” The lies are completely artless, and even as they come out of my mouth, I realize they’re pointless as well.
“Then your mother must have mentioned that Madame Fortier has dementia,” the woman says tonelessly. “She hardly recognizes her own family, let alone some friend of a friend.”
I make what I hope is an appropriate face, my eyebrows a dome over my eyes and my mouth slightly open in a mournful O. “No, my mom didn’t mention that. Maybe she doesn’t know. Has she really gone downhill that much?”
And if she has, will she be of any use, even if I do make it past this contoured sentinel?
“Look, Ms.—”
“I’d still like to see her, if possible. Can you ask her if she wants to see me?”
