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I text Sienna as I walk, reminding her that I’ll be late, and she replies with a quick, K. I ask if she remembered to close the front door and she texts back, Yes. These last few days, the door to our apartment has not been latching properly. It doesn’t always stay closed. It would be just an inconvenience, except that there have been a string of break-ins in the neighborhood lately. Crime, in general, has been on the rise citywide. Carjackings. Armed robberies. Just last week, a woman was followed into her apartment building on Fremont. She was attacked, beaten and robbed in the stairwell. The assailant left her with a broken nose and a broken arm; he took her purse with everything inside, all her money, her debit and credit cards. She’s lucky to be alive.
The police are still looking for who did it, which has me on edge. I can’t stop thinking that there’s this man out there somewhere, attacking women, and I wonder if he’s had his fill for now or if he’s already on the hunt for his next victim. The thought of it keeps me up some nights. It doesn’t help that Fremont is only two blocks from where Sienna and I live. I’ve asked the landlord twice already to fix the door, but he’s busy. He says he will but he still hasn’t.
Did you lock it? I text Sienna about the door.
Yes, she says again, and I want to ask if she’s sure, to tell her to double-check that the door is locked, but I don’t want to come across as paranoid or give her a reason to feel scared, and so I let it go.
I say goodbye and slip my phone into my bag. At Halsted I turn left, making my way toward Belmont. Halsted is alive tonight, full of people heading home on the evening commute, so that the air is electric, buzzing with the sounds of voices and cars.
Outside it’s begun to snow, a sudden blitz of big, fat snowflakes. The temperatures aren’t abysmally cold because of the snow, but still I pull my hood over my head to stay dry, tuck my chin into the coat, plunge my hands into my pockets and walk faster.
The church sits on the north side of Belmont, looking dignified and majestic in this weather. It’s picturesque with the snow coming down as it is, like something straight out of a Thomas Kinkade painting. When I come to Belmont, I wait for the 77 bus to pass and then jog across the street to the church. The building is Tudor Gothic style with towers and steep concrete stairs that lead to three sets of solid, arched wooden doorways, which are surrounded by stained glass windows. The church connects to the parochial school, so that the whole campus takes up almost an entire city block.
I climb the steps, pull open the heavy wooden doors and let myself inside, grateful when the doors drift closed and the city slips away behind me. The inside of the church is worlds apart from the outside. It’s quiet and warm, the lights are dimmed and the mood is calm and atmospheric. Up ahead, through another set of doors, sits the church’s nave, where there are rows and rows of empty pews and ethereal stained glass windows.
Just before me, a woman stands alone in the narthex. She wears a white, thigh-length winter coat and a black winter hat, looking very put together while I’m in my gym shoes and scrubs from work. The scrubs are slate blue, soft and ridiculously comfortable, but not exactly on fleek. Sienna would never let me hear the end of it if she knew I was wearing my scrubs out in public again.
“You look lost,” I say, smiling as I dry my shoes on the mat and come further in.
The woman is about my same age if not younger, a brunette with dark eyes and olive skin that complement the white coat. On her lower half are skinny jeans, tucked into the tall shaft of a pair of serious, rubber-soled winter boots with a fuzzy cuff, and I regret the gym shoes on a night like this, knowing that by the time I make my way home, the snow may be deep enough that it gets into my shoes.
The woman laughs to herself—at herself—a nervous laugh like a titter. “I think I am,” she says, letting her eyes go around the room, where there are no signs, nothing and no one to tell her where to go. “I don’t know if this is where I’m supposed to be.”
“Are you here for the divorce support group?”
Another nervous, this time self-deprecating laugh. “Is it that obvious?”
I’m quick to reply, “No, of course not. It’s just that I’m headed there myself, and I don’t know of any other meetings in the building tonight. It’s usually just our group.” I take a breath, my tone changing. “You don’t need to be nervous,” I say, hoping I’m not overstepping but interpreting her posture, her body language. “I mean, it’s okay to be. Everyone gets nervous their first time here, but there really is no reason to be. I’m Meghan,” I say, stepping close enough to reach out a hand that she takes into hers, which is somehow warm despite the weather outside, and I wonder how long she’s been standing in the narthex, waiting for someone to come and help her. “Meghan Michaels.”
The woman’s expression changes. Her head lists and her eyebrows draw together, a look of something like disbelief washing over her face. Her eyes widen as if to take me fully in. “Meghan Michaels? Barrington High School, class of 2002?” she asks, and I nod dimly, my brain trying to catch up, to make the connection. I did go to Barrington High School, though that was a long time ago. It’s about an hour from where I live now, but my parents left the suburban town a year after I graduated and I haven’t been back much since, nor have I been good about keeping up with high school friends. “It really is you,” she says, as if seeing the resemblance between me and my teenage self. “It’s me,” she says, her hand going to her chest. “Nat Cohen. Natalie. We went to high school together.”
“Oh my God,” I say, happy but shocked. Natalie Cohen. Nat. I haven’t heard that name in over twenty years. She looks different, but then again we all do. Her face has thinned, becoming less round, and her hair is longer than I ever remember it being. She wore it in this short blunt bob for as long as I knew her, and I wonder when she made the decision to let it grow out. It looks gorgeous long. She is gorgeous. Nat was always pretty, but in high school, there was a tomboyishness about her that has since disappeared. She’s aged incredibly well. There are no lines on her skin like mine, and shallowly I wonder if she gets Botox, fillers or other injections, or if she was blessed with good genes. Nat and I were in the same graduating class. We played tennis together, though she was always so much better than me.
I open my arms and wrap them around her, conscious of how nice it feels to be this close to something from my past. I soak it in; I hold on for a minute too long. Memories of high school surface, of simpler, happier times that make me nostalgic. As I release her, I say, “I can’t believe it’s really you. How have you been? Where are you living? Are you still playing tennis?” I can’t stop myself from asking so much. I want to ask even more, but how do you catch up on twenty years, especially when we have only a few minutes before the meeting begins?
“I’ve been better,” she says.
“God, of course. That was a dumb question,” I say, feeling insensitive, if not stupid, because here we are, headed into a divorce meeting. No one that attends these meetings is living their best life. We’re all in limbo, trying to find ways to move on and be happy.
“You’ve let your hair grow out,” I say because, even with a hat on, her long locks come inches below her collarbone. “I love it. It suits you.”
“Thanks,” she says. “That old shaggy bob had to go.”
“You look amazing. Truly. How long have you been standing here waiting?”
“Ten or fifteen minutes. The truth is,” she says, visibly relaxing now that she’s with me, “I don’t know that I should be here. I don’t know that I want to be here.”
I say, “No, I get it. You’re not alone. My first time, I didn’t even come in. I made it as far as the building but then, somewhere just outside, changed my mind. I got cold feet, turned around and went home. I was sure everyone would be insufferable, and we wouldn’t have anything in common other than that we were all divorced. I came back, a few weeks later, and that time I stayed and I liked it and the people very much. They’re not insufferable at all but friendly and kind. You’ll like them, I think. It’s this way,” I say, taking a step toward the stairs so that she’ll follow. “Come with me, and we can catch up after the meeting, when we have more time. There’s so much I want to ask you.”
Behind us just then, the heavy church doors open again and I turn at the sudden onslaught of city noises infiltrating the quiet church. It’s Lewis, another of the group’s members, coming in. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nat startle at the sound of him, her reaction disproportionate to the noise. I let my gaze go to her, though her own eyes are fixed to Lewis, watching as he stomps his heavy boots on the mat, snow clinging fast to him and reminding us of the storm outside. It’s only when he removes the hood and she gets a better look at him—at his round, babyish face and benevolent eyes that belie his large size—that she settles, her body slackening, her fisted hands slowly uncurling.
We’re supposed to get something like four inches tonight, though it’s always so imprecise. It could be one inch or it could be ten.
“Beautiful night,” Lewis says, stepping past us, and I can’t tell if he’s being facetious or not, though it is truly beautiful. There’s something magical about the first snowfall of the season.
My eyes go back to Nat’s as he disappears down the stairs. “That’s just Lewis,” I say, wondering what about his arrival made her so scared. “Sweet guy. His wife left him for some other guy when he quit his high-paying corporate job to do something he found more fulfilling. Turns out she loved his money more than she loved him. What do you think?” I ask, nodding toward the steps. “You want to give it a try? You don’t even have to talk. You can just listen,” I say. Faye, the leader, is a therapist but, like the rest of us, is divorced. Her mantra is that this is a safe place to listen to one another, to offer support, to empower one another and to feel less isolated by our divorces.
That said, my first time here I was reluctant to open up. I came in planning to just listen and observe. I remember how I sat in my chair, looking out at the circle of faces around me, which were warm, open and receptive. It settled my anxious nerves and, when Faye asked that night if anyone wanted to share their story with the group, I felt my hand rise by instinct.
