Why the text now? She took a deep breath. Well, there was only one way to find out.
“Oh, my God!”
It was a picture of Bosch, a soaking wet and sudsy Bosch. He gazed directly into the camera, the accompanying text reading, Bath day for me, meeting day for you. If I can do it...
She clapped her hand over her mouth, a delighted giggle welling up in her throat. The dog’s expression was one of a long-suffering stoicism, his dark eyes stony, frothy white suds piled high between his ears like a unicorn horn.
The incongruity of Bosch’s toughness with the playful suds had her full-on laughing, and before she knew it, she was swinging her legs over the side of the bed and heading for the shower.
She found herself grinning through the whole of her morning routine. Geo hadn’t forgotten. He’d promised her an accountability call, and he’d delivered, in a way that still managed to respect the boundaries he’d needed to set. With one silly picture, he’d made her laugh, and most importantly of all...she was up and out of bed.
An hour later, juggling a plate of raw veggies with the shishito pepper dip she’d made the day before, Lani slipped behind the wheel of her car. She set the plate on the passenger seat and snapped a pic of it, texting it to “Bosch” with the words, On my way to the meeting with goodies!
A few seconds later, a string of paw print emojis popped up, followed by one of a fist. The canine version of a knuckle bump? Well, she’d take it.
Her good mood lasted all through the drive to Coronado, only to evaporate as she parked and lingered in her car, tempted to turn around and take her ass right back home. Getting out of the car took a monumental effort, and the walk to the door seemed to take forever, every step leaden, like slogging through quicksand. As she reached for the pull handle, the door swung open to admit her.
“Hello, my dear.” Maura’s face held a reassuring smile. “Welcome.”
Clutching the hors d’oeuvres in front of her, Lani burst out, “But I don’t want to be here.”
She’d tried a grief group not long after Tyler’s funeral, and all it’d managed to do was re-traumatize her all over again. A light touch on her arm cut through the roaring in her ears.
“This will be a much different experience than the one you told me about,” Maura said, her tone soft. “And I’m so glad you’re giving us a chance. Please, come in and join us.”
The room was bright and airy, with floor-to-ceiling glass panels that could be opened to let in the breeze and the roar of the ocean. A small group of people milled around a long table set up against one wall. Various crockpots emitted mouthwatering smells, and the delicious-looking selection of appetizers and desserts made Lani’s empty tummy rumble despite herself.
Shyly, she approached the table and put her plate down next to where a white woman fussed with some crackers and a cheese ball.
“It turned out so lumpy,” she complained, then caught sight of Lani’s pepper dip. “Ooh, that looks scrumptious! Is it spicy?”
“Maybe a tad. Not like jalapeños, though.” Already a little more at ease, Lani took the plastic wrap off the plate and arranged the cauliflower, carrots, snap peas and broccoli into a colorful, eye-catching pinwheel around the bowl of dip.
“All right, everybody.” Maura raised her voice to be heard over the laughter and conversation. “Let me get this introduction out of the way, and then we can all dig in to our delicious food while we chat.”
Lani stiffened as Maura stepped over to her and took her hand between both her own. “Friends, this is Lani, who’s ten years out from the firearm suicide of her older brother, Tyler. After Tyler’s death, she received no therapy, except for one generalized grief group session—” Maura paused “—that was held at a church with a clergy person facilitating. I think we all know how that turned out.”
Soft exclamations went around the group as Lani was catapulted back in time to a room smelling of stale coffee and the sickly-sweet aroma of donuts.
“Suicide? That’s a mortal sin!”
The young woman who’d been crying about losing her eighty-year-old grandmother to cancer glared at Lani in disgust, then moved her chair away.
“Suicide isn’t catching, bitch,” Lani snapped, her hands balling into fists. “Fuck off.”
The woman flinched, and the minister broke in. “Tyler’s soul is lost to God’s mercy through his sinful act, but we can still pray for your salvation.” He stretched out his hand as if to put it on Lani’s head, and with a sob, she pushed it away and shouted, “Assholes! My brother is not in hell!”
She clattered up the stairs into the frigid night air, every gasping breath stabbing her lungs like a thousand knives.
Lani opened tear-filled eyes to see sorrow, as well as empathy, on every single face looking back at her. The words welled up and spilled out. “I stood outside that church and screamed, ‘Fuck you, God’ until the preacher came out and told me to go home before he called the police.”
The woman with the cheese ball nodded. “I flipped God off at my son’s viewing when someone came up and said his suicide must be part of God’s plan. I said, ‘Well, his plan sucks,’ and stuck both middle fingers up at the ceiling.”
Lani tried to hold in a laugh, but it came out through her nose as a loud snort. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry,” she gasped.
Maura chuckled. “No need to be sorry. In our group, you can say, think and feel any way you want. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry. We get angry, too, a lot, and above all, nobody judges anyone else for anything.”
“During my daughter’s wedding rehearsal,” a different woman said, “I got so angry at my husband for killing himself and missing out on walking our girl down the aisle that I kicked over the guest book stand. A couple of people tried to intervene, and my son-in-law told them to leave me alone.”
Lani blinked back tears. “Well, I’m going to have a baby, and sometimes I feel so cheated over not having Tyler here, so angry at him. It doesn’t feel right to be angry at him, but how could he leave me? Why wasn’t I enough?”
“Ah, Lani. These are questions we’ve all wrestled with in regards to our loved ones’ suicides,” Maura said softly. “But the truth is, we’re in a club that nobody wants to be in, and we’re going to get through it together.”
After that, everyone headed for the potluck table, and balancing their plates on their laps, they sat around in a circle, the smell and sound of the ocean backdrop soothing.
“This is beautiful,” Lani ventured. “I was afraid it’d be another church basement.”
Maura smiled. “I had a client once who lived in a condo in this building. He arranged for us to use this room at no cost, because what suicide survivor wants to meet in a church basement, or a conference room in a hospital? That implies there was something wrong with our loved one, or with us, when instead we’re simply friends, sharing food, drink and conversation.” She took a sip of her iced tea. “So, my dears, how has your story changed since we last met?”