Ruth had put Amie’s husband’s name on the list under those we remember. Amie wanted it somewhere else.
She sat nearest the door. The prayer group met on Thursdays in Ruth’s flat, six floors above a shop that sold mattresses. Getting there involved walking past a window full of beds with nobody in them. Amie had almost gone home at that window.
Ruth had been inviting her for three months. This was the first invitation she had accepted. She had come because her sister said people would know what to say, and because she was tired of eating Thursday supper with the television on.
Nine chairs filled Ruth’s sitting room. Beside Amie sat Len, seventeen, with a school bag between her feet. Her grandmother had brought her. Amie knew the grandmother, Mrs. Vale, from church, where she gave young people books whose titles began with How to.
Ruth passed round the list. There were names for an operation, an interview, a baby, two people looking for housing. Under those we remember was Martin’s name, written with his middle initial. He had hated the initial. It made him sound like the proprietor of a firm.
Amie crossed out the initial and passed the page on.
Ruth began by thanking God for their gathering. She prayed for the people named, leaving a pause between each request. At Martin’s name she asked for Amie to find comfort in the memories they had made.
Amie opened her eyes.
She looked at the cup on Ruth’s knee. Tea had climbed up one side because Ruth was holding it crookedly.
“I don’t want memories,” Amie said.
Ruth stopped. The cup became level.
“We can ask for strength instead.”
“I want him back.”
Someone shifted a chair. Len looked up from her hands.
Ruth said, very gently, that grief made people wish for things that could not happen.
“I know,” Amie said. “I’m still asking.”
Her voice had become louder than she wanted. She had not cried in front of these people, and now they would think this was what she had come to do.
Mrs. Vale leaned forward. “Sometimes the answer to prayer is learning to accept—”
“Gran,” Len said.
The single word was exhausted rather than rude. Mrs. Vale sat back, hurt. Len saw it and lowered her eyes again.
Amie stood. Her chair leg caught Len’s bag. She bent to free it, giving herself an unnecessary task before leaving.
Ruth put down the tea. “Please stay. I don’t know how to pray for that. But you can.”
Amie kept hold of the chair.
“You’ll all sit here while I ask for something impossible?”
“If you want us to.”
She sat. At first she couldn’t begin. Martin would have made a joke about nine people waiting for her to order. He had always been able to decide what to eat, while she read every item and then wanted his.
“I want him back,” she said again, this time without addressing anybody in the room. “I want him to be late because he stopped for milk. I want to be cross with him for it.”
She stopped there.
Ruth did not add a sentence. They waited until the boiler knocked and Mrs. Vale reached behind her to turn the radiator down.
Len spoke next. “Could we pray that Gran stops telling people about my mum?”
Mrs. Vale’s hand stayed on the radiator valve.
Len’s mother was on the list for the operation. Mrs. Vale had explained the illness to every new person at the last three meetings. She said each time that the family had been given an opportunity to bear witness.
“People need to know what they’re praying for,” she said.
“They know her name.”
“I’m frightened too, Len.”
“I know. I don’t want strangers asking me questions at school.”
Amie watched the older woman’s hand come away from the valve. She did not look reconciled. She looked as if the room had moved while she was sitting in it.
“I’ll try,” Mrs. Vale said.
Len thanked her. Neither embraced the other. Len pulled her bag closer to her chair.
They returned to the list. The man with the interview asked for work that would leave him time to take his father to appointments. Someone else asked for the baby to sleep, and admitted that she wanted the same thing for herself.
When they reached the end, Ruth held the page in both hands.
“There’s another name,” she said. “Jo. My daughter.”
Amie had seen Jo’s photograph on the mantelpiece. Ruth had never put her on a prayer list.
“We’ve not spoken for nearly a year. I told her that was her decision. Some of it was.”
She looked at the photograph rather than the people.
“I want her to ring me. I could ring her, of course.”
She was smiling when she said it. The smile lasted until she asked them to pray that she would not start the call with an accusation.
Afterward Ruth made toast. Amie stayed. Len helped her find plates in a cupboard where the small ones were stacked beneath the large ones. They lifted the whole stack together.
“I didn’t mean to make everyone talk about themselves,” Amie said.
“It’s a prayer group,” Len said. “They were always going to.”
From the sitting room came Ruth’s voice, carefully bright: “Hello, Jo. It’s Mum. You don’t have to answer tonight. I wanted to say—”
She stopped, then began again. Amie couldn’t hear the words over the toaster.
Mrs. Vale asked Len whether her mother wanted visiting on Saturday. Len said she would ask her. They took toast to the remaining people and sat beside each other on the sofa.
Amie checked the time. There was a bus in twelve minutes. She could catch it if she left immediately. Ruth came into the kitchen with her phone still in her hand.
“More tea?”
Amie said yes. She pulled her chair nearer the table, so Ruth wouldn’t have to keep walking round it.
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