Page 108 of Succubus

I instantly feel completely out of place as I walk through the glass doors into a low-ceilinged reception area where people mill around, chatting. I am early. I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I put them both on the strap of my bag. I don’t see Joel. I wonder if I was wrong, if he won’t be here. I could’ve just texted him, but I didn’t want to. In our last exchange, yesterday, he asked about Ella—she’s completely fine physically, but she vividly remembers every detail of what happened until the moment her head hit the column—and I asked him how he was doing, too. He was already out of the hospital.

I heal suspiciously fast, he wrote. And then: I mean when I’m not healing someone else right after getting stabbed. And then: Not to brag.

My relief felt like sliding into a warm bath.

All of today has been about playing games with and reading books to Ella. I got to apologize, finally, for hitting her. She tried to tell me it was okay and I told her it wasn’t. My impatience buzzed along the border of the day, but my wild gratitude held it off. It helps that Dee has been around. Mom has also been around, but just crying in her room. Apparently Madame Samantha, always unhelpful, agreed that Al was her soulmate.

People are making their way through another set of doors, picking up thick red books from a cart. I head that way, pick one up, too.

“Are you new here?” someone is saying next to me. I look over, then down. A very short, very wrinkled woman in a sparkly blouse, with a bit of lace pinned to her sparse purplyred dyed hair, is beaming up at me. “I don’t think we’ve met. Good Shabbos!”

“Oh,” I say. “Um. I’m just visiting.”

“Oh? For a special reason?”

“Yes, actually.” I step aside so others can pass into the larger room beyond the doors. It is the sanctuary, with rows of maroon-cushioned benches and a raised platform at the front that features an elaborate, tall cabinet with a Middle Eastern bazaar–style lamp hanging above it. “I am honoring a— ” A what? “A friend’s passing,” I finish uncomfortably.

“I am so sorry for your loss, dear,” she says, her round eyes going rounder and filling with moist compassion. “My name is Fran.” She reaches to grasp my hand in a firm, paper-skinned grip.

“Fran!” I exclaim, remembering her from Joel’s description of her kindness after Adam’s death, and she looks surprised. “Sorry,” I say. “I’ve heard about you.”

“Oh? Am I famous?” She laughs like a coughing fit. “I haven’t been a teacher for a long time, but I used to feel pretty famous when I walked around town and my former students recognized me.”

“A teacher!” I say, showing her I’m impressed. Homeschooling has given me plenty of fresh respect for the profession.

She grins, savoring the appreciation. “Come on in with me. Do you have anyone to sit with?”

“No, I’d love to sit with you.”

“Tell me who knows me,” she says as we walk into the sanctuary. A man with a short beard who may be the rabbi is up at the front, talking animatedly with a few congregants.

“Joel Tav,” I say, looking quickly around. He still isn’t here.

“Joelly!” Her entire face lifts with delight. “My favorite! So he talks about me?”

“And your quiches. Very fondly.”

She chortles. “Such a sweetheart. You could not find more of a mensch. And still single—it’s crazy. What a prize.” She surveys me more exactingly, something obviously occurring to her. We find seats and settle in. She sobers. “Then you must be here for his brother. For Adam.”

I nod, admitting that I am.

“A friend of Adam’s,” she says sadly.

I nod again. It’s liberating somehow, to confess this connection, finally, casually, to someone. I take off my coat.

And then the service is starting. A short man with a warm baritone sings something exuberant, then something that drifts into a wistful minor key. The rabbi introduces prayers. Fran points to where we are on the page, but the words are in Hebrew—in characters that look like tiny indecipherable drawings to me. When we reach a prayer that has an English transliteration below, I try to sing along. The melody is lilting, repetitive, melancholy, but with a thread of joy in it that I can’t resist. By the second repetition, I’ve gotten it down, and I allow myself to sing a little louder.

“Oh my goodness, you have the most beautiful voice,” Fran stage-whispers, and the couple in front of us turns around and nods, smiling at me encouragingly. I smile back, happy now that I decided to come here. Which is when I feel him there, to my left, across the aisle. He must’ve just come in as I studied the words in the book. He’s looking at me.

For a moment, I remember, viscerally, the first time I saw him, in Izzy’s hospital room. The first time our eyes met. Like then, he glances quickly away. Like then, he looks formal but friendly, his clothing neat, his posture upright and easy. I think the brown suede yarmulke looks good on him. Everything always looks good on him, though. I suction a quick breath, keep singing. I don’t want this one to end—I might not be able to sing any of the others. But the cantor is lulling it to a close. He’s starting on something else, chanting rapidly.

I glance over at Joel and he’s looking at me again. I think I can see him taking in the blue dress, the earrings. Or maybe I’m just hoping he notices.

I sing along with a few other melodies, grateful for the ones without any words at all, just yai dai dai’s. An hour glides by. The rabbi speaks briefly about the part of the Torah that’s being read this week, the cantor sings, and then the rabbi introduces the mourning prayer and asks the congregation if we’d like to share the names of those we are remembering today.

Many people offer names as he sweeps his hand slowly over us. He reaches Fran right before me, and she says two names. I say, “Adam Tav,” very quietly. The rabbi nods to me, and his nod is a brass stamp pressed into warm wax, sealing my gesture, sanctifying it. My heart lurches. I am sweating under my arms. After his gaze passes to the next person, I whisper under my breath, “Grub, Alabaster.” I wish a second later that I’d said Grub’s given name, even though no one heard me anyway.

Joel says Adam’s name and another name in Hebrew, which I realize after a second might also be Adam’s name. And then he says, “James Ash.” I stare at him, startled, my ribs clutching, but he doesn’t look at me. He’s looking straight ahead, as though directly into the glow of the light above the cabinet with the Torah scrolls inside.