Free Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel Page B

service. Dan and his wife, hands folded in her lap, face sombre, were sitting in the middle of the gym. In the same row were their next-door neighbours, Tony Agostino and his son, so broad in the chest, his jacket strained across it. Tony murmured hello, Dan nodded. Josh had found himself a seat right behind his girlfriend, who sat in the front row with her sad parents and the officiating minister, who was of some indeterminate denomination vaguely related to Buddhism, but without the accoutrements. No saffron robe for him, he was wearing a dark suit. Even the owner of the candy-coloured house, slump-shouldered and middle-aged, was indistinguishable from any man at a funeral. This was the essence of Seaton Grove: the authors of fringe festivals had made babies and suited up, too busy to meditate anymore. And yet all through the gym people were invoking light in their own way, with prayer or a reachingstillness, asking peace to surround the bent heads of their sorrowing neighbours in the front row.
    Dan checked his watch. The service was supposed to start at seven. It was 7:04. “It’s late,” he said.
    “Do you have something else you have to do?” his wife asked. She held the program in her left hand. She was wearing a black dress, not particularly eye-catching. But there was that left-hand thing. Sharon was right-handed. And so Dan tried to look without looking like he was checking things off a list: the wife he knew best, soft-toned; the wife with moss green eyes who put chocolate chips in cereal; the one who didn’t waste words and liked to fix things; and this one—husky voiced, left-handed. The list of his wives, God help him.
    “I’d like to get through this and get home.” He tapped the program against the palm of his hand. “I don’t like funerals.”
    “Memorial service,” she corrected.
    “I don’t like those either. But I should be here, so I am.”
    At one time she would have asked him why, but she had learned that there were customs and habits that people relied upon in the same way that animals reduced strife by grooming each other. Take Dan’s lists. After he beat Josh at Stratego and gloated unmercifully, he’d retreat to his office to revise his to-do lists, colour-coded and indexed. Then he would emerge, cleansed of his competitiveness, until the next game of Stratego. And yet he would try again, making his lists, domesticating himself. Her father, who took pride in beating his children, would consider anything less a show of weakness. But she had seen the tension in Dan’s neck andshoulders as he sat at his desk, making a list. A man’s goodness was not dependent on the quality of his heart. Every heart was a writhing pit of need and want. His goodness revealed itself in his choice of action.
    “At least they could start on time,” he said, looking at his watch again. She never wore one. Watches went wild on her wrist, running past the time or stopping altogether. It didn’t matter anymore. She had a cellphone.
    She yawned as a squeal from the microphone sent someone to check the sound system.
    “You tired?”
    Callisto nodded. Too much had been going on inside. “I haven’t been sleeping.”
    “I’ll put the girls to bed,” he offered. “You can have some downtime.”
    All around them people were talking quietly.
How’s the baby? Doing well. I heard she can come home next week. Debra visits her every day. You have to touch babies or they die. What about the baby’s father? Who is he? Nobody knows. They think some street kid. He might try to get some money out of them. Don’t worry, they’ll take care of it. The baby is better off with them. That’s obvious
. The neighbours’ murmurs surged and died away as Rick Edwards took the podium.
    He wore a suit, white shirt, dark tie, his golden beard covering the faint acne scars on his cheeks. He was impeccable, shoes polished, hair neatly trimmed, a father who had failed his child, doing his best to hold his grief in check.