Within twenty minutes, I’m glad I wasn’t born into a Catholic family. There’s a lot of singing, chanting, repeat-after-me, hand gestures, and we move so often you’d think the priest was trying to keep us awake by force. Stand, sit, kneel, stand, kneel again! We’re told to ‘give each other a sign of peace,’ whatever that means, and Willa gets a weird look for giving an old lady the live-long-and-prosper sign.
The three of us stay in the pew while the rest of the crowd lines up for communion. I’m pretty sure you have to be a member to receive it, which disqualifies our little group.
“How much longer, do you think?” I whisper. Willa can only shrug. Thankfully it isn’t too much longer. We kneel, then sit, then kneel one more time, and then we stand and sing one last hymn while the priest and his entourage file out the back. I’m happy to be free until I realize I’m not—therapy starts now.
*
The ‘youth group’ as it is so wittingly called, is held in the parish hall next to the main church. It’s a rectangular building that looks like a bare reception room, the kind that businesses rent out for weddings and occasions. There are about twelve folding chairs arranged in a circle. The group leader, a guy in his mid-twenties, sits across from the door with a few pamphlets and a bible in his lap. I hope he doesn’t quote from that too much. Willa and I take seats a few spaces away from him, but not directly across. If we’re in his direct line of sight he might pick on us to share.
Willa scoots her chair so close to mine we’re practically touching. The other kids give us weird looks for it, but Willa pretends not to notice.
The group leader, Arthur, welcomes us all and starts the meeting off with a prayer “that we learn to accept ourselves and others and to become better people in Christ.” This whole thing sounds wildly optimistic.
“Let’s all introduce ourselves,” he says, and we go around the circle. I feel like I’m in kindergarten. “It’s nice to have new faces here,” Arthur says to Willa and me when we introduce ourselves.
“Oh, I’m not really ‘here,’” I tell him. “I’m just supporting her.” I point to Willa and she elbows me.
“He is not.”
Arthur smiles and kindly ignores this irregularity. “What brings you here today?”
Willa and I stare at each other with a mutual expression of You go first. Neither one of us speaks, and after the silence gets awkward the girl across from me asks, “How long have you been in treatment?”
I wonder if I could get away with punching a troubled Christian girl in the face, because I sure as hell want to. My illness is none of her business. I stand up to leave and Willa grabs my arm. She pulls me back down to the chair so hard I almost fall into her lap.
“He’s in remission,” she says stiffly. “And I watched my sister die at home.” That’s a nice, tidy way to abbreviate assisted suicide into something people can stand to listen to. She gives Arthur a hard look and he moves on to the other group members.
One of them is a recovering user. He makes himself seem pretty badass, but then it turns out he just liked to smoke a joint or two on the weekends before he saw the light, and who hasn’t gone through that phase?
One of the girls is here as part of bereavement counseling. She lost her brother in a drunk driving accident. The boy beside her as bullying issues, and no wonder, because he’s got ‘victim’ written all over him. The guy next to me introduces himself like he’s at an AA meeting, except he just says, “It’s been thirty-four days,” without specifying what he’s free of.
“I think he’s lying,” another boy pipes up. Arthur gives the kid the eye and says we don’t belittle our fellows here.
Willa leans past me to ask AA Boy what he’s thirty-four days clean of, and this stellar specimen of human intelligence replies that he’s overcoming a crippling addiction to pornography.
Willa gives him the look I so desperately want to. “Really? Isn’t watching that stuff just a regular hobby for teenage boys?”
Arthur chimes in with some points about how pornography and the viewing thereof violates the temple of the body. He even pulls out a few bible passages to support his argument.
“So, what are you into?” Willa asks. “Solo? Doubles? Fetish? Gay? And isn’t it a damn shame that RedTube put up a pay wall?”
Arthur cuts Willa off before she can say more. “Let’s not discuss this in any further detail. We’re all very proud of Greg for overcoming his addiction.”
“Yeah, overcoming,” Willa whispers. “Coming over and over and over…” I try not to laugh so Arthur won’t call on me, but he does anyway.
“I suppose congratulations are in order,” he says. “Remission. That’s a big step.”
And you, my dear sir, are a joke.
“Yeah.”
“May I ask what type of cancer you had?”
“No.”
My abruptness doesn’t bother him. Arthur’s voice goes all gentle and he asks, “So what brings you here today?” Willa did, but apparently that’s not a legitimate answer. Willa notices my hesitation and slips her little hand into mine.
“Bereavement,” she says.
Arthur turns to her. “For your sister?”
“Not me.” Willa nods to me. “Him. It’s like that line from Arnold, ‘Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.’” Clearly the quotation of a work non-biblical throws Arthur. “The old him is dead. The new one is in transition. Grief is involved.”
Arthur turns his benevolent gaze on me. “Jem, would you say that’s a fair assessment?”
Yes, but that doesn’t give her the right to answer for me.
“She blames herself for her sister’s death.” None of them know she really killed Thomasina, but that’s beside the point. Arthur is mildly amused by the way Willa and I contribute each other’s issues to the group instead of just dealing with our own shit.
“Clearly the two of you are very close. It’s obvious you have a real connection.” His eyes flit to where our joined hands rest on my knee. Willa and I don’t say anything.
“How long have the two of you been friends?”
We both have to pause to think about that. The answer feels ridiculous: “Three months.” The short length of time surprises Arthur, too.
“Well, it’s clearly quite a bond.” He asks some more questions about Willa, some of which she answers herself, but I end up fielding all the personal ones. Willa deals in facts: it’s been more than two years since Thomasina died. She had lymphoma that spread to her liver and intestines. She died of internal bleeding. The emotional shit—that Willa and Thomasina were close, that she still carries a lot of guilt and self-loathing, are things she doesn’t want to talk about, so I do, because this is stuff that Arthur needs to know if he’s going to help her.
“Is there anything you’d like to share, Willa?” Arthur offers. She declines, and the floor goes to the girl whose brother died. She’s clearly been here before. She’s good at the whole personal sharing thing—has a whole monologue of her feelings prepared.
My ass is numb from sitting by the time we break. The session ends with another prayer, and we’re all free to go. Most of the group hangs back, waiting to talk to Arthur one-on-one or to say goodbye to other group members. Willa and I just leave, back to the main church building to find Frank.
The sanctuary has emptied out. It’s just a long, tall hallway with colored patterns on the floor from the stained glass. I’m looking around for Frank when Willa suddenly grabs my elbow and pulls me through the door on our left.
The space beyond the door is dark and cramped. We’re in a confessional. Willa wraps her arms around my middle and squeezes, hard.
“Thanks for coming.”
I hug her back. The top of Willa’s head fits right under my chin.
“You’re welcome.” Her hair is so soft. “You had to pull me in here to tell me that?”
Willa shrugs. “I didn�
�t want Frank to catch me touching you, heaven forbid.”
I snort and point out that if her brother sees us leaving a confessional together, he’s probably going to think we were making out in here.
We could…
Because talking about her dead sister would definitely put her in the mood, idiot.
Willa lets go of the hug and steps out of the confessional. I follow her into the aisle to continue our search for Frank. He’s not in either of the side of the chancel or in the little side chapel dedicated to St. Paul. We don’t find him until we pass by the parish office, and Willa spots him through the window in the door. He’s in conversation with the priest and looks very troubled.
“Shit,” Willa mutters. Her shoulders sink and she turns away. It doesn’t take much to figure out that she’s the cause of her brother’s worries.
Willa marches away from the office, out the nearest door that leads away from the parking lot. I’m not sure she wants company right now, but I follow her anyway. We’re barely ten feet beyond the side door when she stops dead and stares at the cemetery behind the church.
“I didn’t know they had a labyrinth.” She points to the center of the cemetery, to a paved space surrounded by shrubs and four benches. It looks like a place where people can congregate before and after burials.
“A what?”
Willa takes the gravel path up through the cemetery, right to the edge of the paved platform. It’s red paving stone inlaid with grey to form the shape of a circular line pattern with a flower in the center.
“They put a maze in a graveyard?”
“It’s not a maze, there’s only one path.” Willa points out the solitary route through the symbol. “You’re supposed to walk it and meditate.”
“You’ve done it?”
“I’ve seen it done. Discovery Channel.”
“You want to try it?”
Willa walks around the edge of the platform to the spot where the circle opens to let people in. She pauses at the entrance for a moment and then steps onto the platform. It’s by impulse that I reach out and grab her hand, and she doesn’t seem to register it—she just pulls me along with her, onto the narrow path that winds back and forth on itself. The path takes us around the center of the pattern, around the flower, back and forth, back and forth. The outside of the circle seems wide and remote, like we’re so far from the goal on the fringes of the path. I keep looking down, tracing how far we’ve come and how far we’re going. Willa doesn’t look the same way. Her head is bowed and her eyes unfocused, tracking the space immediately in front of her and nothing more. She doesn’t look at the distance, at the forward and backward motion of it all. Her pace slows to a crawl. I walk close behind her. Willa still has one of my hands in hers. I rest the other on her waist, moving forward with her.
Every step forward is a step back, the way the path winds back on itself over and over. It’s like walking through a mind full of indecision. When she stops, I don’t immediately realize why, and then I notice the scalloped tiles. We’re at the end, which isn’t really the end. The center of the circle is a spot big enough for three or more people to stand. The hand I rested on her hip slips around her front in a gentle hug. She lets me hold her, and it feels good.
“What now?”
Willa sighs. “We go back.” She turns to face me with a strange smile. “You lead.”
The fact that the returning path is the same but opposite throws me off the whole meditation thing. It’s harder to lead than it is to follow. I reach a hand back to where I can feel Willa walking behind me, but she doesn’t take it. She puts her little hands on my shoulder blades. It’s a gesture that’s both comforting and encouraging.
I feel her forehead come to rest against my back.
“Are you ever afraid to touch me?” I murmur. I know it’s not easy for her to look at me sometimes, even though she does it anyway. Her touch, though, makes her more unique than she must realize.
“Never.” I can’t feel her forehead against me anymore. Her hands move down from my shoulders, running slowly to the small of my back and returning to their original spot. Her fingers trace the backs of my shoulders, down my arms, and in between my fingers. We end the walk hand in hand.
Kiss her.
“How do you feel?” I look up to find Arthur sitting on one of the benches around the platform, watching us with a smile. “It’s very centering, isn’t it?”
How long has he been sitting there?
“Yeah,” Willa says. “It is.”
Arthur gives us this cheeky grin and says he should have known we’d walk it together. “Friendship is a blessing. A bond like yours is an uncommon gift from God. I’m glad you seem to treasure it.”
What are we supposed to say to that?
“I have to go find my brother.”
Monday
Four. Fucking four. Four fucking opportunities to kiss her this fucking weekend and I didn’t take a single fucking one. But why the fuck should I have?
No, I’m not stressed. Why do you ask?
“This is nice,” I tell her. “Uncomplicated.”
Willa throws a potato chip a few feet from the picnic table, just to see what happens. A seagull snaps it up and waddles off with the chip clasped in its beak.
Willa’s got her blank look on, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
“Yeah, uncomplicated…” She puts a chip in her mouth and chews slowly. “We should take bets on how soon karma is going to screw it all up again.”
I scowl. Pessimism is my job, damn it.
The bell rings and Willa stands up to go back inside for Social Studies. I don’t immediately follow, and she actually stands and waits.
“Dipshit,” she says when I take too long, “that was the bell.” I get up and we trudge back to the main building, taking our sweet time about it.
“What does your brother think of your filthy mouth?”
“Hates it.” Willa crumples her empty chip bag. “I had to watch my language around the Jesus freaks yesterday. It sucked.”
I tell her she can pay me back for having to endure that Group session this Thursday at five-thirty.
“Bring your album,” she says. “We can dissect your life this time.”
Hell no.
Tuesday
Fuck you, Oxy.
The hot water on my shoulders feels nice. It soothes the worst of the joint pain and relaxes me. I don’t want to get out of the shower. I know it will start to hurt again once the warmth is gone. I’m used to a dull ache, but weaning off the painkillers has just made me more aware of the soreness.
I come out of the bathroom to find a steaming mug of tea on my dresser. Thank you, Mom. I’m slowly getting dressed, muttering “fuck Oxy” under my breath at every painful step, when Dad knocks on my door and asks if I need help.
“A little stiffness is to be expected,” he says as he helps me on with my shirt. My shoulders are too stiff to lift my arms over my head.
“Don’t tell Lise and Eric, okay?”
He’s reluctant to agree, but he does promise not to say anything until I decide to tell them myself. I don’t want to worry them. They’ve gone through enough because of me.
Wednesday
I wish my sister was a lesbian. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to stand here and listen to this ignoramus talk about Radiohead like they’re the best band in the world. Eric is running late, and unfortunately he has the keys, so Elise and I are stuck waiting by the car for him. That’s when Mr. I-Have-A-Hard-On-For-Radiohead came up and started talking to her. Apparently, Elise’s favorite band is suddenly Radiohead too. What a coincidence.
“I liked you better before you sold your soul for tail,” I tell her as we drive away. She turns around in the front seat and asks, “Have you kissed Willa again yet?” She smirks wickedly and I know she’s got some evil plan to use her ill-gotten Polaroid against me. I give her the finger and Eric chimes in with surprise, “You kissed Willa?”
“Wow.” Eric shrugs with his eyebrows. “I thought she had standards.”
“Shut up.”
Thursday
I pick Willa up at five, as per our agreement. As we pull away from her house she reaches into the backseat and picks up my backpack.
“What are you doing?”
Willa unabashedly rifles through my stuff. “We need to make a quick stop first,” she announces.
“What?”
“You were supposed to bring the album, remember?” I was hoping she had forgotten about that.
“We don’t have time to go back to my house.”
“That’s okay,” she says. “Let me take your car after we get to the hospital. I’ll get the album from your house and come back to meet you.” Because I’m just going to let her poke around my bedroom when I’m not there. Even if Mom or Elise was with her, they would still give her too much information.
“Next time, okay?”
The Dialysis Clinic is on the second floor of the hospital, next to the fracture clinic. Willa keeps her hood up as we walk to the elevators, trying not to be seen and roped into volunteering by any of the people in green vests. She relaxes when we get in the elevator, but hunches up again as we cross the second floor to the clinic.
“Hey,” Willa says. She gently tugs the side of my jacket to get my attention. “I’m gonna go to the washroom first. I’ll meet you in there.”
“Sure.”
It’s not until I’m taking my jacket off for treatment that I realize it doesn’t feel right. One of the pockets is empty. Willa stole my keys.
She’s gone for thirty minutes; long enough that I’m already hooked up to the dialyzer and mad as hell when she gets back. And she doesn’t just have the photo album with her. She’s got the album, a shoebox, and a black note-calendar in her backpack.
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