“Weird.” There, I could speak. I had a voice. I was still a functioning human, somehow. “How much of that—what did you see?”
“What, with you and the rabbi? Or last night?” He eyed me. “You do remember last night, don’t you?”
“You know, most of the time when people are asked that, it’s because somebody had sex.”
He barked a laugh—Claire did too. Sunny and free, her laugh. Different. “Never let it be said you did anything the easy way,” Steve said. Even Max grinned.
I reveled for a moment in the fact that I had a sense of humor. Had I always? But Steve was clearly waiting for me to say something else, so I thought hard, for his sake. “I think I remember most of it, last night I mean. I remember being in the front room. I remember thinking we had everything we needed. I remember Claire leaving and you and Officer Hernandez at the door.” I stiffened, peering at her. “You came back.”
She nodded quickly, her eyes oddly bright. “I came back.”
Max nudged me. “What about the rest? You were kind of impressive.”
“Was I?” I considered that and felt the ache inside my belly again. I had been turned inside out, and while I was back to being whoever I really was, I didn’t know what that meant. Not really. And I wasn’t sure I even liked that girl, the bits and pieces of Delia who was left behind. There was no Rabbi Mordechai, not anymore. There would be no more Rabbi Ethan, I was pretty sure. He’d go back to his life and his people and his family, and I would go back to my duplex, with the Soos on the other side of the wall and Steve splitting his time between the work and the booze and the surviving.
“Yeah, you were.” Max pulled me out of the hole I was staring down. “You talked right to those—to whatever it was inside of Mom and Dad. You pulled them out just with your voice and hands.”
“And the holy water and sanctified objects.” I shook my head. “I didn’t have that much to do with it.”
“That’s not true. I couldn’t have held up those things and spoken that way, even if I had all the words.”
“You did, though. You, Steve, and Claire. Officer Hernandez too. You stood for all of them.”
“Only because of you. It was something you had, something you are.”
“Something you should still be,” Claire put in, a little forcefully. “Seriously and for real.”
I chuckled. “I think Rabbi Ethan would have a problem with that.”
“I don’t know.” Max shrugged. “He said you had been doing this too long, that you had watched Mordechai one too many times. That you’d learned how to do all of what he did and you believed, fiercely, in it.”
“That’s why you were successful,” Claire put in.
It was everything I could do not to stare at them. “He told you that?” I asked carefully. “Is that what he told Officer Hernandez, too?”
“That’s what he said.” Max leaned closer to me, so did Claire. Then Steve leaned in, too, smelling of orange juice and bourbon and something else—something hopeful. None of us looking at the other person. “But what I know is this. I know that I needed you. I needed you more than I needed anyone, anything, in my whole life. I needed you to believe in what I was saying and to actually take action. I’d gone to shrinks, Delia. A dozen of them. I’d gone to priests. Mordechai was the first rabbi I’d gone to, and by the time I reached him, he was gone too.”
I winced. “Well, that wasn’t really his fault,” I said quietly. Clearly, Rabbi Ethan hadn’t told these guys everything.
Max didn’t slow down, though. “Bottom line, coming out here was a risk. You knew it was a risk, that you might not be able to help, but you came out anyway. And you saved our lives.”
“And can do it again,” Claire said, never one to miss making her point.
“Claire…”
“I think she’s right,” Steve said abruptly, startling me. “Claire told me about your skin, the day you came to see her. That was the day you came to the club for me too.”
I grimaced. “Claire’s got a big mouth.”
She giggled. “Ialsotold both of them about Brad. About what you did, warning me.”
I blinked at her. “I wasn’t doing that to be nice, let me assure you.”
“But you still did it,” Max said. “It would have been crueler for you to let her relationship go on, knowing he was cheating on her, right?”
I hadn’t thought about that. “I guess.” I squinted at him. “Wait, she told you about that?”
“I told himeverything,” Claire said, with emphasis. “He’s aninvestor.”
