Mending the Moon (40 page)

Anna raises a finger. “Not quite free, no. Property taxes. Utilities. Insurance.”

Jeremy looks taken aback, but then says, “Taxes are low in Reno. Mom always said so. You'd have to pay all those on your own house, too. Or maybe I can pay the property taxes, or the estate can. We'll talk to Tom. Amy? What do you think? V, her friends really are
very quiet
. They hardly party at all. They've never destroyed anything.”

Terrific, Veronique thinks. This is worse than any scheme Anna could have suggested, because it's halfway plausible. “I have to think about it.”

“Sure. Sure you do.” He smiles. “But think about being there and not having to teach. Or grade. And you'll have
some
money, right? I mean, for property taxes and all that other stuff, on whichever house? And food?”

Veronique ignores this. When did her financial profile become an appropriate topic of conversation? “And where would you be living, sir? And how would you be paying for it?”

“Dunno. Haven't figured that part out yet.” He picks up the fork again and dives back into the bread pudding. “It needs work, obviously.”

“It's cosmic,” Amy says, beaming. “Very Comradely of you, Jeremy.”

Jeremy puts his fork down again. “And Aunt Rosie's house
is
paid for, I know that much, and I don't know if she could sell it, but maybe the two of you could live in Mom's house. Then she'd be less lonely without Uncle Walter.”

Oh, joy. Living with Rosemary would be Veronique's idea of hell. “Jeremy, this isn't a comic book, and we're not chess pieces. I appreciate your concern, but I don't think this is the right time to have this discussion.” She glares at Anna, who raises an eyebrow.

“I believe that's my cue to use the powder room. I'll pay the check on my way back. Think about places you might want to go this afternoon.”

Home, Veronique thinks. My home. But she shivers. Fall's coming: change, change, and she has to go back to teaching again and has to hold it together, and she suddenly realizes, with an ache of longing, that yes, she'd infinitely rather move into Melinda's house than have to grade one more stack of undergraduate essays.

It can't happen that soon, of course. She has to teach for at least another year. Jeremy has to figure out his culinary school scheme, if indeed he still wants to do it in another six months or even two minutes. It can't happen soon, and probably it can't happen at all. It's too easy, too neat, and it can't be that easy or neat. Life doesn't work that way. She knows that. She has to stay realistic about this. But she's moved that Jeremy even offered. Melinda would be proud of him; this is something Melinda herself would have done. Something of Melinda has survived. And for that reason, if no other, Veronique feels a slight easing in her chest, and allows herself to name it hope.

*   *   *

After the sterile propriety of the Unitarian service, Rosemary's immensely relieved to be back in an Episcopal church. It's a pretty little place, dark wood and stained glass, with a much more diverse congregation than any in Reno. There are blacks here, Asians, a few same-sex couples of both genders—even not knowing them, you can tell they're together by how they touch each other's shoulders, how they pass the Peace to each other with kisses and long hugs—someone in a wheelchair with something that looks like cerebral palsy, lots of kids. It's a lively, happy place, clearly a healthy congregation.

Rosemary has always loved this set of readings. Abraham bargaining with God to save Sodom and Gomorrah: “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” Paul urging the Colossians to faithfulness: “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” And Jesus, in the Gospel, proclaiming the power of persistence: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”

Greg preaches well, talking about how sometimes it takes a lot of work to perceive God's generosity. Sometimes it feels like you have to haggle, to accept some hard bargains. Sometimes it feels like you're banging at 3
A.M.
on the door of a stranger who doesn't want to get up and help you. And it especially feels that way when you're in pain: grieving, struggling with loss, trying to make sense of tragedy.

He looks directly at Hen and Rosemary and Tom as he says that. He tells a funny, bittersweet story about having to propose to his wife three times before she accepted, and notes that as much as he adores his wife, he believes that God's even kinder and more loving. And then he looks at Hen and Rosemary again. “Sometimes we just have to keep trying. The important thing is not to go away, not to lose faith, not to take another offer or try a different doorway, some other place where it costs you less but you'll never get what you need.”

It's a good homily. Afterward—after the controlled chaos of coffee hour, with kids darting around adults to grab the best cookies first—Hen and Tom and Rosemary drive to Pike Place Market. Veronique's chocolate is gone. They all want more.

“I needed that sermon today,” Rosemary says. “I wish Greg had preached at Percy's funeral.”

Tom grunts. “The Clarks wouldn't have known what to do with it. I don't think the Sodom and Gomorrah passage would have been a pastoral inclusion. Anyway, you know funeral texts usually aren't that week's lectionary.”

“I know. I didn't say it was a
realistic
wish. I'm glad we got communion today, though, even if it was fish food.” Hen laughs, and Rosemary says, “Hen, how would you have handled that funeral yesterday? I've been meaning to ask you.”

“Do you even do funerals for people outside the parish?” Tom asks. “I mean, I know you do them for former members nobody's seen for ten years, but total strangers?”

“Nobody's a stranger to God. That's the Episcopal take on it. If the Clarks had come to St. Phil's and asked for a funeral, I'd probably have agreed. I'd have to run it past the vestry first—”

“No,” Rosemary says. “
This
funeral. You told me Anna wrote asking your prayers on the day of the service. What if she'd asked you to officiate?”

“I'd have helped her find someone in Seattle.”

“What if she lived in Reno, or you lived in Seattle? What if she said she didn't want someone in Seattle? What if she really wanted
you
to do it?”

Hen scrunches up her nose. “Is that a parking space?”

“Hen! Stop changing the subject!”

It is a parking space. Hen backs in with a small crow of triumph, and they all get out and dodge raindrops until they're in the market. Tom peels away to go buy salmon for dinner, leaving Rosemary and Hen to find the chocolate. First, though, they find the craft booths: gleaming silver, skeins of woolen yarn glowing in the dim light, hand-turned wooden bowls. “I think,” Hen says, peering at a display of earrings, “that I might have tried to include today's Gospel. I'd have suggested it, anyway. Because that reading doesn't just talk about God keeping promises, the opening doors and so forth. It compares divine love to human parental love. Jesus asks the parents in the crowd, ‘If your daughter asks for a fish, would you give her a snake instead? If your son asks for an egg, would you give him a scorpion?' If imperfect human parents work so hard to give good gifts to their children, he says, how much more will God give us? And I'd have talked, I think, about how hard parents—most parents, anyway, and certainly the Clarks—try to love their kids, and how sometimes the kids do hideous things despite the parents' best efforts. And it's not because they did anything wrong. It's because we have free will, and sometimes we misuse it. But God loves and forgives us even when we've done hideous things, and we have to try to forgive our children, and ourselves, when they do hideous things.”

Rosemary shakes her head. “So you forgive Percy?”

Hen sighs and picks up a pair of earrings, articulated silver fish with garnet eyes. “I said ‘try,' Rosemary. I'm answering your question: I think that's something like what I'd have said. And then I'd have talked about how frustrating it is to knock on doors when no one's answering, and you just have to keep trying until someone does. Anna went through a lot of rejection, planning that service.” She holds the fish up to her ears. “You like these?”

“I do. They're lovely.”

“You think they're too flashy for church?”

“They're fish. They're fine for church. Anyway, you can wear them when you're not in church.”

Hen grins. “Good. I'm buying them. Then we can look for the chocolate.” While the merchant's running her credit card, she says, “I'm glad Anna didn't ask me to do the service, though. I felt for that Unitarian minister.”

“You'd have done a better job than she did.”

Hen shrugs. “She's younger than I am. She's probably been ordained all of ten minutes. And, you know, I'm not sure I could have even thought about doing Percy's service before I'd done Melinda's, and you can't wish having to do a service like Melinda's on anybody.”

“True.”

Hen decides to wear her new earrings. They find the chocolate, and spend entirely too much money on an assortment of small, heavy bags: truffles and caramels and chocolate-covered pretzels and chocolate-covered orange peel. “For the ride home tomorrow,” Hen says happily, and Rosemary snorts.

“You expect there to be any left?”

Hen laughs, the silver fish swinging. They go back outside to wait in the van for Tom, passing the bag of chocolate-covered orange peel back and forth. “So,” Hen says, “how did it speak to you? Greg's sermon? What resonated for you?”

Rosemary looks out the window. “What he said. Persistence through grief. Which for me is also persistence in dealing with Walter. I guess, you know, I just have to keep knocking on that door as long as it's still there, and pray that I can catch anyone home, even for five minutes.” She rides a long, slow swell of sorrow, and wipes her eyes. “God, I miss Melinda. I'll be a complete mess when Walter dies, because then I'll be missing everybody at the same time. Although I did that when she died, too. But I'd counted on her to get me through losing Walter, and now she can't. Is that selfish of me?”

“Of course not.” Hen squeezes her shoulder, and then holds out a hand for the chocolate. “The rest of us will get you through it. We'll do the best we can.”

“I know.” Rosemary looks down at her lap. “And I think I'll be better at the hospital now. We get patients who've been staring into the void for so long they don't remember what sunlight looks like. I always felt for them, but I couldn't reach them, not even after Walter's illness. Maybe I'll be able to reach some of them, now.” She shivers. “Yeah. Not anything you'd wish on anyone. I asked for fish and God gave me scorpions, or gave me both. The scorpions sure don't taste as good, but they have their own uses.” She makes a face. “Give me that chocolate back, would you?”

*   *   *

Monday morning, Anna wakes up to a cold, wet nose in her face. She groans, pushes it away, and hears a mournful, muted howl from Bart. What's he doing in the bedroom, anyway?

She swings her legs out of bed, shoves her feet into slippers, puts on a robe, and heads for the kitchen, snapping her fingers for Bart to follow her. William must have left the bedroom door open, which isn't like him.

“William?” she calls. No answer. He's not in the living room or the kitchen. She does a quick tour of the rest of the house and then peers into the garage. His car's gone, but he left the dog here. Weird.

Not that weird, though, not lately. Shrugging, she goes back into the kitchen to see if he made coffee before he left. He didn't. The machine's cold, and there's an envelope leaning against it. A card.

A card?

She very deliberately turns on the coffeemaker, hands shaking only a little, and then reaches for the card. Percy didn't leave a note. Why has William left her a note?

She pulls out the card. It features Monet's water lilies on the front. Inside, William's written in his usual scrawl,
That was a fine and moving speech yesterday. You did a good job on the service. Thank you.

Nothing else. Her stomach tightens. Oh, God. Is this William's way of telling her that now she'll have to do good job on his service, too? How long should she wait before calling the police? What—

The phone rings, and she jerks toward it, panic fluttering like wingbeats in her lungs, her veins. It's eight on a Monday morning. What—

“Anna, it's Carl. Did I wake you?”

“No,” she says. Hearing from her lawyer at this hour's hardly an auspicious sign, but at least she's not hearing from the police. “I'm awake. Are you calling with bad news?”

He sighs. “William just called to let me know he's retained a divorce attorney, and recommends that you do the same. He wants it to be amicable, he says, but he thinks all the communication should go through the lawyers.”

Anna laughs aloud. “Communication? What communication? He hasn't talked to me since Percy died.”

“Oh, Jesus, Anna, I'm so sorry.” Carl sounds more upset than she is. Right now, she's just relieved that William's alive. “And to hit you with this so soon after the funeral—”

“It's okay,” she says. “Listen, I need to eat breakfast and take the dog out. I guess I have custody of Bart: William left him here. Can I call you in a few hours, to get some referrals?”

“Of course. Are you all right?”

“I am,” she says. “Don't worry.” And when she gets off the phone, she discovers, somewhat to her amazement, that she
is
all right. She's been expecting this for months, has been living with the dread of it even before she could consciously recognize what she feared. Now it's happened, and she feels like a boil has been lanced or a fever has broken. She feels better. You aren't supposed to make major decisions for at least a year after a major loss, but if this has to happen—and she can't see any way around it—she'd rather begin.