by Kate Hewitt
A few journalists and cameramen milled about, a bit further away; it seemed Laura West’s murder was still news. I avoided their curious gazes; one man was smoking as he waited, no doubt for the money shot of the grieving family.
I led the way, since no one else seemed to want to, climbing the steps and stepping into the cool dimness of the church. It smelled familiar—of incense and candle wax and dust. I had not been inside of a church since I’d gone to Mass with my mother as a child. My father had been a cultural Muslim, my mother a nominal Catholic, Mass reserved for Christmas and Easter or when she was feeling anxious.
The last time we’d went had been at the start of the siege, before it became too dangerous to cross town. I remembered kneeling, closing my eyes, offering a silent, formless prayer, no more than please.
I wanted to believe there was something bigger going on than the terror all around me; I still did. It all felt so empty and pointless if there wasn’t, and yet life, time and again, had made me wonder. Doubt.
Now I walked to the back of the church and slid all the way down the pew. Selma and the others followed me, and we all sat quietly, waiting for the service to begin.
I’d been given a service sheet as I’d come in and I flipped through it, jolted by the photographs of Laura and her family on its thick, creamy pages: Laura and her husband at their wedding, looking young and a little scared, their smiles tremulous; on a recent holiday somewhere coastal and warm, a sailboat in the background on a placid sea, their children lined up in front of them—Alexa, the sulky teen who pouts instead of smiles, Ella, the dreamy middle one, gazing off into the distance, and Ruby grinning widely right at the camera. I felt as if I knew them, even though I didn’t.
There was a message from the family at the back of the program, a thank you to everyone who had supported them through this time, and a request for donations to the Global Rescue Refuge Center instead of flowers. I read their names silently, my mind lingering over them: Nathan, Alexa, Ella, Ruby.
Cathy slid in to the end of the pew, and a few minutes later the service began. I felt another jolt as the casket was brought in, held aloft by six solemn-faced pall-bearers. It suddenly seemed so real, this presence of death, the complete absence of a person. It hit me like a fist in the chest, leaving me breathless. Then, following the casket, the family: a man with his head lowered, holding the hand of a little girl. Ruby. The other two girls walked behind him, staring at the ground, everyone subdued and silent. The girls were all dressed in starchy dresses of navy blue; they looked new and uncomfortable, too formal, even for this occasion. I felt their sadness like a palpable thing, a physical pain, binding us together.
I sat through the entire service, letting the words and music wash over me in a soothing tide. This wasn’t just a way to remember Laura, it was a way to ascribe meaning to her life. She mattered. I felt that now, the necessity of it, when someone was gone. It didn’t make it better, I knew, but it was still important.
Afterwards, we all headed downstairs to the church’s fellowship hall, where there were platters of limp-looking sandwiches and large metal vats of coffee and tea. Everyone talked in low murmurs, not sure where to look. I wondered whether we should have come down; we didn’t know anyone, and it was obvious that we didn’t really belong in this small but well-heeled crowd.
Cathy, however, was determined to make a point of being there. After we’d sipped some lukewarm coffee from paper cups she headed towards Laura’s husband Nathan, gesturing for us to follow, which we did, like a row of ducklings following their mama.
“Mr. West.” She held out her hand which he took after a second’s pause. “My name is Cathy Trainor. I’m the director of the Global Rescue Refuge Center. Your wife was a great asset to us. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Each sentence felt as if it had been rehearsed, spoken by rote, although I was sure Cathy meant every word.
Laura’s husband looked a little dazed, wearing a rumpled suit, dark circles under his eyes.
“Thank you…” he said after a moment, and then seemed unable to say anything else. His gaze moved over each one of us without any real interest. He was in shock, anyone could see that. Yet Cathy, for some reason of her own, persevered.
“Laura was so lovely, always bright and cheerful when she volunteered, chatting to everyone. We really appreciated her work at the center.”
Nathan’s gaze moved back over us in turn, this time more alert, before retraining on Cathy. “You all knew her,” he said slowly.
“Yes… although I’m afraid not very well.” Cathy looked back at us. “Maria probably knew her the best.”
I stiffened as Nathan West turned to look at me. His eyes were very blue, piercing, even. They made me want to look away. “You did?”
“Yes,” I offered hesitantly. “We were… friends. We chatted sometimes.” My throat felt dry, my heart starting to hammer. Why was I so nervous?
“What did you chat about?” He looked lost, as if he didn’t know what questions to ask. “What did she say?”
I hesitated, unsure how to answer. What did he want to know? Would it help him somehow, knowing she’d spoken to me, that I’d called her a friend? I could understand wanting to hold onto this thin thread of connection, before all was severed. “This and that,” I told him. “The weather, or work… she chatted about your children…” I glanced behind him, to where the three girls were clustered by the platters of sandwiches, an older woman, perhaps a grandmother, holding Ruby’s hand tightly.
“She talked about the girls? I didn’t even know…” He shook his head slowly, still dazed.
“It was clear she loved them very much. She showed me a photo of Ruby, once.” I didn’t know why I said this. It felt too intimate, like an invasion, but Nathan West looked grateful.
“Thank you,” he said, and I felt a wave of relief, that I’d done the right thing by telling him.
We left a few minutes later, after saying our goodbyes to Nathan West. He shook my hand, looking at me directly, his gaze once more so intent that I struggled not to look away. Then we headed upstairs and outside, and I breathed in the cold, fresh air in gulps as the tension that had knotted my shoulders for the last hour started to lessen.
I had paid my respects to Laura West; I had seen her husband and children. They were grief-stricken, but they would be all right. They had each other, as well as family and friends, a place to go home to, food on the table. They would survive, and even more than that. Eventually they would heal. They would flourish. And I had done my duty—if I’d ever had one—it was over now.
So I told myself, and I meant it as a reassurance, even if it didn’t quite feel like that. Even if I still thought of them, still wondered, still missed Laura, and bizarrely, missed her family, even though they were strangers to me.
I thought it would all fade in time; it would have to. I had no idea that when I spoke to Nathan West in that chilly church hall, it was only the beginning. Of everything.
Seven
Nathan
The day after Laura’s death, I’d gone to the station to collect Laura’s things and get some answers.
“Why haven’t you found this man?” I demanded before the same two plain-clothes officers had had a chance to settle in their seats. I knew I sounded aggressive, and that it probably wasn’t the best approach, but I was exhausted, angry, and fragile, my emotions bubbling away, seeping out like some noxious liquid no one wanted to touch.
“We are doing everything we can to apprehend the suspect, Mr. West,” the woman, Lisa, said.
“The suspect? I think it’s pretty cut and dried, isn’t it? You’ve got umpteen witnesses who sat on their asses and watched while my wife was shot, and you’ve got the man waving a gun on CCTV. How is he only a suspect?”
Lisa’s face tightened as she amended, “The man in question.”
I took a steadying breath, knowing there was no point in getting their backs up, even as part of me wanted to reach across the table and grab them by their
shirts. “So what do you know?”
“We’re investigating a potential link to the Global Rescue Refugee Center, where your wife volunteered. Could you tell us about that?”
I shook my head helplessly, hating my own ignorance, shamed by it. “No, I can’t. I didn’t even know she volunteered there.”
I could see that this surprised them; they exchanged looks, the sharp, blue-eyed Tom and the friendlier Lisa, caught on the back foot, just like me.
“She never mentioned it to you?”
“Obviously not.”
Lisa frowned. “According to the director of the center, she’d been volunteering there for nearly a year.”
I shrugged, because what else could I do? Why had my wife not told me she was volunteering? What did that say about her, about me, and about our marriage? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “Do you think he came from there? The man who shot her?”
“We’re looking through the CCTV footage from their lobby, to see if he’s ever visited the center. At the moment, it appears he didn’t visit it on the day of the attack, although CCTV from the subway station confirms that he came from that direction.”
“The same direction as Laura.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know any more? There have been suggestions on the news that he had been targeting her specifically…”
“That is a possibility,” Tom cut in, his voice low and gravelly, a real man’s man type of voice. “Although I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what’s in the news. Most of it is sensationalist.” Which was what I’d told Alexa, yet I had trouble believing it now.
“Why would he target her, though?” I pressed. “There has to be some reason…” I couldn’t help but grasp at straws, searching for answers when there didn’t seem to be any. I wanted to make sense of it all, and I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.
“We don’t know that he did,” Lisa said quietly. “It could have been random, or he could have known her or just seen her. We’re still pursuing the possible connection, if any.”
“How are you pursuing it?” I asked, turning aggressive once again. “What are you actually doing now to find him?”
Lisa looked down at her notes, unfazed by my tone. “We’re going over the CCTV of the Global Rescue Refugee Center, as that still seems the most likely lead, although you should be prepared for the possibility that he wasn’t from there, that there was no link, and that your wife’s murder was just a senseless act of violence.” Her face softened in pity, but I wasn’t having it.
“It was a senseless act of violence, link or not.”
She nodded. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. We’re also circulating the artist’s sketch of him, based on the CCTV footage and witnesses’ recollections, as well as some photos of him from that footage—although unfortunately they’re not very clear. But hopefully someone will come forward.”
Hopefully? Was that all we had?
“Did your wife ever mention being followed by someone?” Tom asked. “Any unwanted contact…?”
“No, of course not.” I sounded irritable, even petulant, but I couldn’t help it. My anger had to go somewhere. “Don’t you think I would have mentioned it if she had?”
“We’re trying to help, Mr. West,” Lisa said gently, and suddenly I deflated, my shoulders slumping, that tidal wave of grief poised to crash over me once more and suck me under.
“I’m sorry.” My voice choked and I took a steadying breath. “I know you are. I just… I just can’t believe this has happened. Why didn’t anyone do anything? At least twenty or thirty people in that subway car, and not one person moved a muscle.”
“He had a gun,” Lisa reminded me gently. “People were shocked as well as scared.”
“I know, but… how could he have got away? Just walked out…”
“Ran out, still waving a gun,” Tom interjected. “And there were no transit police in the station or on the train at that time.”
Even if there had been, it wouldn’t have mattered. Laura would still have been dead. Yes, her killer would have been caught, but who cared? He was, in all likelihood, some strung-out nobody who had acted in a moment of insanity. How could I believe anything else?
I left them a short while later, and at the desk they gave me Laura’s things. I took her battered leather bag, wincing at the bloodstains on it, horrible proof of what had happened. Although the police had been through it all, I wanted to see what was inside, to check if there were any clues, or even any messages—something for me, for the girls, even though the sensible part of me knew that there wouldn’t be. It wasn’t as if she’d known what was about to happen.
I ducked into a coffee shop near the station, ordering a black coffee before taking a table in the back. I put her bag on the table, running my hands over the soft, worn leather. I’d been thinking of getting her a new bag for Christmas, something from Coach or Burberry rather than this cheap knock-off she’d had for years. Why hadn’t I done it for her birthday, or for last Christmas? Why had I waited? The thought angered me now, even as I recognized that Laura probably wouldn’t have cared either way. She’d never been into brands, had laughed at my Gucci sunglasses.
I unclasped and opened the bag, staring into its dark depths. It was a mess of crumpled tissues and crumbs, as most of Laura’s bags were. I took out her wallet, flipping through the cards. No surprises, and no money either, because Laura always forgot to go to the ATM.
Besides her wallet, there was a hairbrush, a tube of lip balm, and a crumpled brochure for the Global Rescue Refugee Center. I stared at the photograph of the uninspiring building on the front, a 1970s low build that had been squeezed between two brownstones. The kind of building that I would like to tear down, and build something new in its place, something both sophisticated and utilitarian, multipurpose and eco-friendly.
I flipped through the brochure, skimming the paragraphs about English lessons and classes in US Citizenship, help in filling out forms, dealing with health insurance, legal and banking services, job placement.
How had Laura even found out about this place? According to the police, she’d been teaching an English class there every Tuesday morning since last January. Why? And why hadn’t she ever said?
Or had she, and it had slipped my mind? Uncomfortably I wondered if this could be the case. I’d often been busy and distracted in the evenings, worried about prospective bids, issues with new builds, zoning permissions, the cost of sourcing materials… it felt never-ending, always needing to stay on top.
I could almost picture the scene—the girls in bed, the two of us on the sofa, my laptop open as I did some work while pretending to watch some Netflix series or other with Laura.
I’ve started volunteering at a refugee center downtown. Every Tuesday morning, teaching English.
Huh. That’s nice.
No, surely it hadn’t happened like that. Surely I would have remembered; I would have said something. I would have asked why, or how it was, or if she enjoyed it. It would have penetrated my consciousness, rather than just being another detail I skimmed over.
In fact, as I thought about it, I realized if I’d listened properly, I might have resisted the idea. Do you really want to spend your time doing that? What about Ruby? What about working on the apartment, money pit that it was poised to be, or, better yet, getting a job as I’d suggested before?
Before the girls, Laura had been an editorial assistant for a boutique children’s publisher. It had paid a pittance, but it still would have been something.
Sitting there, with Laura’s bag in my hands, I knew that conversation could very well have happened, if I’d listened to her in the first place. If she’d told me about the refugee center, I might not have been supportive. I didn’t trust my own responses, just as I didn’t trust my ability to sift through the good memories from the bad. The real from the wished-for.
Too many times I’d been distracted, even indifferent, focused on work, on what I deemed was impor
tant. And it was important, because it paid the bills. It financed our whole way of life—the apartment, the schools, the vacations to Cape Cod to be with Laura’s difficult parents. I might have worked too hard, but it had been for a reason.
Early on in our marriage, I’d told Laura about my upbringing. I hadn’t wanted her to feel sorry for me, but I’d wanted her to understand. My mother’s New Age schtick could seem endearingly goofy to the outsider; her tie-dyed T-shirts, flowing scarves, and crystal necklaces (white had healing powers, even I remembered that) were quirky and cute.
The reality, though, was that my childhood sucked. I never knew my father—never knew if he had ever been in the picture, or wanted to be in the picture, or even if my mother knew who he was. When I’d been old enough to ask, she’d dismissed him with an airy wave of her hand: He’s not important, Nathan. We need to live in the present.
Except I never wanted to live in the present, since the present was moving around so much—my mother was on a quest to find herself, and I still don’t think she has. She claimed she didn’t care about money, so we never had any; she said “experiences” were more important than stability (or “stagnating’, as she would have said with a shudder), and so I didn’t finish a single school year in the same place. Possessions weren’t important, so I never owned more than a suitcase worth of stuff.
All of it made me want my life, my kids, to be different. To have more opportunities, better options, and always to feel safe and secure. Laura’s death made that last one feel less certain, but I knew I’d always do my damnedest to manage the rest—and so, yes, I worked hard. I wouldn’t apologise for that, not even to myself.
But right now I felt the resulting lack like an emptiness inside me. When was the last time Laura and I had had a real conversation, one that didn’t involve the girls’ homework or who was picking up the dry cleaning? When had I last come home early and taken her into my arms for a smacking kiss? Or when had we lain in bed, legs tangled, lazy in the sunshine of a summer’s afternoon? They all felt like a montage of moments that had never happened, and yet I knew they had. Once, they had.