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By Root 310 0

most repulsive and irresistible show she’d ever seen. Three, sometimes four women sat around and said things like, “It’s not an ending; it’s a beginning.” What made it bearable to Clare was that the women were all ardent Catholics and not like her, except the discussion leader, who was so obviously Jewish and from the Bronx that Clare had to Google her and discover that she had a Ph.D. in philosophical something and converted to Catholicism after a personal tragedy. Clare got to hear a woman who sounded a lot like her great-aunt Frieda say, “I pray for all widows, and we must all keep on with our faith and never forget that Jesus meets every need.” Clare waited for the punch line, for the woman to yank her cross off her neck and say, “And if you believe that, bubbeleh, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you,” but she never did. She did sometimes say, in the testing, poking tone of a good rabbi, “Isn’t it interesting that so many women saints came to their sainthood through being widows? They were poor and desperate, alone in the world with no protection, but the sisters took them in and even educated their children. Isn’t it interesting that widowhood led them to become saints and extraordinary women, to know themselves and Jesus better?” The other widows, the real Catholics, didn’t look interested at all. The good-looking one, in a red suit and red high heels, kept reminding everyone that she was very recently widowed (and young, and pretty) and the other two, a garden gnome in baggy pants and black sneakers that didn’t touch the floor and a tall woman in a frilly blouse with her glasses taped together at the bridge, talked, in genuinely heartbroken tones, about their lives now that they were alone. They rarely mentioned their husbands, although the gnome did say, more than once, that if she could forgive her late husband, anyone could forgive anyone.

Clare dials, as soon as the organ music dies down, and Isabel picks up after one ring. Clare doesn’t speak.

“Clare?”

Clare sighs. Hanging up was bad enough.

“Isabel.”

Isabel sighs as well.

“I saw Emily a few weeks ago. I dropped off a birthday present for baby Charlotte. She’s beautiful. Emily seems very happy. I mean, not to see me, but in general.”

“Yes, she told me.”

“I shouldn’t have gone.”

“Well. If you want to offer a relationship and generous gifts, it’s up to Emily. Kurt’s mother’s dead. I guess it depends on how many grandmothers Emily wants Charlotte to have, regardless of who they are.” There was no one like Isabel.

“I guess it does. I mean, I’m not going to presume. I’m not going to drop in all the time with a box of rugelach and a hand-knit sweater.”

“I wouldn’t think so. Clare—”

“Oh, Isabel, I miss you.”

“Good night, Clare.”

When Clare gets off the phone, there’s a raccoon in her kitchen, on the counter. It, although Clare immediately thinks He, is eating a slice of bacon bread. He’s holding it in his small, nimble, and very human black hands. He looks at her over the edge of the bread, like a man peering over his glasses. A fat, bold, imperturbable man with a twinkle in his dark eyes.

Even though she knows better, even though William would have been very annoyed at her for doing so, Clare says, softly, “William.”

The raccoon doesn’t answer and Clare smiles. She wouldn’t have wanted the raccoon to say, “Clare.” Because then she would have had to call her boys and have herself committed, and although this is not the life she hoped to have, it’s certainly better than being in a psychiatric hospital. The raccoon has started on his second slice of bacon bread. Clare would like to put out the orange marmalade and a little plate of honey. William never ate peanut butter, but Clare wants to open a jar for the raccoon. She’s read that they love peanut butter, and she doesn’t want him to leave.

In an ideal world, the raccoon would give Clare advice. He would speak to her like Quan Yin, the Buddhist goddess of compassion and mercy. Or he would speak to her like Saint Paula, the patron saint of widows, about whom Clare has heard so much lately.

Clare