In Memoriam ✔️

3

After that night behind the cleaners, Kyle had stopped looking for Anita and started looking to understand her. He had begun to attend the Thursday meetings, to grieve with Wilton and the others that had fallen under Anita Shaw's wing, but, even then he had stayed wary. He'd watched Anita, listened to her, and waited for any sign of her past.

In the evenings after work – those evenings in which he wasn't at the meetings or deep in a bottle – Kyle scoured the local libraries. About a month into this stop-and-go research he came across the first classified ad in the archives at D.H. Hill. It had been embedded in The News & Observer deep in a back issue from '81.

Séance. Sat. Mar 7. 7-11pm. Madam Shaw's. 527 New Bern Ave. Limited seats. First come first serve. $30/person. 919-979-7429.

She had been just one more fraud in a long line of fakes. The thought had revolted him. Sure, he had attended her sessions leery of her motives, but at the same time he had felt himself slipping under her spell, beginning to believe, as all the rest had, that she truly cared about him; that she wanted to help her group through their grief. Then he realized she was just one more cheat playing a long con. She gained their trust, but at what point did she plan to tip her hand and reel them in?

He had arrived at group two hours early that Thursday finding Anita's Volkswagen already parked outside the laundromat. As he stepped to the back entrance, he could hear Jonesy bounding through the therapy room, likely chasing after that same damn tennis ball.

Kyle had pounded upon the door, a constant unending knock. He hadn't even realized he was rapping on the glass without pause until he had heard Anita cry out from inside.

"For heaven's sake! One knock will do. I'm old, not deaf."

Anita unlocked the door and cracked it open, holding Jonesy back with her foot.

"Crap, Jonesy. I'm fixin to lock your ass up, you don't settle down." Anita looked up at Kyle. "Come in, just help me with him will ya?"

"Sure." That had been all Kyle could manage to mutter. He had wanted to scream at her, to yell, 'con!' and rip into her, but as she set there holding back her corgi between her ankles and pulling the door ajar in invite, he had felt that affinity bubbling once again to the surface. Anita always seemed nothing if not genuine.

Kyle had pushed Jonesy back scratching behind his ears, then, grabbing and throwing that tennis ball, had sent him bounding back into the therapy room. Anita had made to follow after, but Kyle stopped her, pulling the adjoining door closed and leaving them in the employee hall separating the back room from the laundromat.

A lump formed in his throat and he remained there motionless.

"Out with it already," Anita said, never much with patience. "Obviously you got something rattling around up there."

He tried to speak, finding that lump still constraining him. At last he had managed to out the accusation. Anita had simply shaken her head in response, but let him plow through it nonetheless.

His allegation complete, Anita had gestured Kyle into the therapy room. Yes, she had performed séances in the past she had explained, though she had insisted hers to be genuine. She had communed with the dead for a price, but it had taken her years to realize that her wages were earned not in dollars but in tears. Even if successful in dredging the spirits back for one final goodbye, the living could never leave it at that. Their grief would drag out, the same customers returning week after week, year after year, never letting go.