beautiful woman with blue-black hair and fair skin… the expensive drape of her designer clothes, the easy way she crossed her legs, communicating wealth and confidence. A man, older than she but fit and equally well dressed, hovering protectively. Another man, the approximate size of a refrigerator, leaning into them, forearms on his thighs, fingers laced. There was an aura of intensity to the group and, yes, excitement. Jeffrey knew it felt good to all of them to be back in the chase. The quiet of the last year had been a necessary time of healing. Jed McIntyre had taken something from all of them, and left part of himself behind in each of them. They’d needed time to process the events that had changed and scarred them. He felt vaguely guilty that it took someone else’s tragedy to move them toward the next stages of their recovery, but that, it seemed, was the way their lives were constructed, for better or worse.
“What happened?” repeated Dax. “I went to The New Day and told them I needed to be saved.”
Lydia looked at him. “You did?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They said it was too late for me.”
“Seriously, Dax. What happened?”
He stood up and stripped off his three-quarter-length leather jacket, exposing his muscular shoulders and huge biceps straining against a black tee-shirt.
“You might think about laying off the weight training,” said Lydia. “Pretty soon, you’re not going to be able to put your arms down at your sides anymore.”
He ignored her and reached into his lapel pocket and withdrew some brochures, handed them to Lydia, and sat back down.
She read the titles off of each of them. “Grief Counseling, Addiction Recovery, Moving on From a Painful Childhood, Ending an Abusive Relationship, Stop the Cycle of Child Abuse, The Legacy of Sexual Abuse, The Weight of Your Pain.” They were all simple tri-fold pamphlets, with the same images of culturally diverse faces that they’d seen on the Internet.
“Sounds like The New Day has it covered in the self-improvement department,” said Jeffrey.
“I went there this morning and walked in through the front door,” Dax said, leaning back on the couch. “I didn’t see anyone at first but there was like this kiosk beside a reception desk that held all these pamphlets.”
Dax was taking some, shoving them in his pocket when a woman appeared at the door. She wore a white tunic and faded blue jeans over a slender body; her short blonde hair was slicked back from her face. A slight smile turned up the corners of her mouth. She had a kind of peaceful, ageless face… like she could have been thirty or fifty and would have been beautiful either way.
“Can I help you?” she said, leaning against the doorway.
“I found your church on the Internet,” said Dax. “I thought I’d see what you had to offer.”
There was something catlike about her, aloof and knowing. She nodded.
“I’ve been feeling… depressed,” he said.
She looked at him, cocked her head slightly. “I noticed you limping when you came in,” she said, pointing to a surveillance camera in the corner of the room. Dax had noticed it on arriving. He’d also noticed a keypad by the door for what looked like a component in a very expensive, very sophisticated alarm system. There was no brand on the keypad or on any of the exterior windows.
The blonde woman motioned for him to follow her and they moved to a comfortable sitting room, off a much larger room with a stage and rows of chairs that looked more like a movie theater than the chapel he’d expected.
I told her, you know, that I’d been in a car accident over a year ago. That a friend of mine had died and some of my other friends had also been hurt. My injuries are not healing the way I expected they would and I can’t work the way I used to, at least not yet. That this period of convalescence has caused me to look at some of the choices I’ve made in my life and I’m not as happy with things as I thought. I’ve been feeling hopeless, depressed. But I don’t know how to change things.”
He was looking at his feet as he spoke, and his voice had gone really soft, almost throaty, and Lydia and Jeffrey exchanged a look. He put his head in his hands and Lydia saw his big shoulders shake. She felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. She moved quickly over beside him on the couch and put both her arms around him, or tried to.
“Oh, no, Dax,” she said, all her guilt rearing up in her heart. “Do you really feel that way? I’m so sorry.”
He looked up at her with a broad smile. “Pretty convincing, huh?”
“Oh, my God,” she said, punching him as hard as she could in the side. He let out a groan as she connected right below his rib cage. “You asshole.”
She moved back to the chair and glared at him while he laughed. She really hated him in that moment. Then she felt laughter and a smile threaten. She quashed them. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Lydia, I never knew you cared,” he said when he’d stopped laughing. He cracked himself up again.
“I don’t,” she said stonily.
“You’re such a hardass all the time,” he said. “But you just have a big marshmallow center, don’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Can we get on with this?”
Jeffrey could see the flush in her cheeks that told him she was really angry. Only he knew that beneath her stone facade was a cauldron of emotions so strong that she was swept away by them sometimes. And that was the reason for the facade in the first place. He’d heard journalists and reviewers call her cold, unfeeling in her treatment of some of her subject matter. But he knew the truth. He put a hand on her shoulder.
“Okay,” said Dax, wiping his eyes. “So, she was not quite as loving as you, Lydia, but she was very sympathetic.”
The room she’d taken him to was gently lit with pink lightbulbs, painted a soothing pale blue. Again he saw cameras, but they were small, recessed into the wall. He kept his face turned from them as best he could without being conspicuous; he had done this since approaching the building out of habit.
“So many people feel that way,” she said. “More than you’d ever imagine.”
He actually managed to get himself a little teary while talking to the pretty woman, who’d introduced herself as Vivian. And after a few minutes of comforting platitudes, a young man walked in, wearing the same outfit: white tunic and blue jeans. He handed Dax a cup of something hot. It smelled like some kind of herbal tea. Dax took it and thanked the kid, put it on the low coffee table in front of him. Vivian made no explanation for the kid or the tea. She slid a box of tissues across the table toward him. He took one and blew his nose loudly.
“The kid had a really glazed-over look to him. Not like drugged but more-” he said now to Lydia and Jeffrey, and paused as if searching for the right word. “Vacant.”
Lydia thought about what Matt Stenopolis had told her. Thelma Baker had used the words
Dax said that Vivian had nodded to the young man and he left quietly.
“My mother always said that everything looks better after a good cup of tea,” said Vivian, leaning into him and smiling.
“My mother always said you’re a worthless piece of meat that will never amount to anything,” Dax had said, leaning away from the cup.
Vivian nodded solemnly. “Sometimes our parents, acting from their own place of pain, don’t realize how powerful their words can be. How we carry them with us for the rest of our lives.”
Dax asked if he could use the bathroom then, pretending that the conversation was making him so uncomfortable that he needed a break. He took the tea with him. Vivian rose to escort him.
“Just point me in the right direction,” he said as she exited the room with him.
“First door on the left,” she said. “Shall I hold that for you until you return?” She nodded to the cup in his hand.
“No. I’ll hold onto it.”
She looked at him strangely but couldn’t really insist without changing the texture of their encounter. She didn’t return to the room but stood and watched him as he made his way to the bathroom. A quick glance revealed a white hallway of closed doors.
Inside, he dumped the tea down the drain and folded the Styrofoam cup and put it in the back pocket of his pants.
