Shaking out the Dead by K M Cholewa

the page , and feel free to retain the self-righteousness that rises from victimhood. The pr e vailing knowledge is that forgiveness is really for your benefit and not that of your persecutors. Thus, I would recommend granting them mercy, r a ther than forgiveness. Mercy will tend to the real objective without suga r coating the crime.
    She hovered with her pen over the letter for a moment more. Then, she stood straight, tossed the pen across the desk, and unbuttoned her coat.
    Geneva turned and walked to her wall of music. First, she checked the turntable to see if Tatum or Paris had listened to anything while she was gone. But it was empty, as she’d left it. She checked the tape deck. The Louis Armstrong compilation she had been playing the morning she left still sat inside. It was a good collection of both early and more mature pieces, including a version of “When You’re Smiling” from 1929 with Tommy Dorsey sitting in on trombone.
    Geneva snapped the tape deck closed and scanned her album collection, honing in on the B ’s. She still wanted Beatles and pulled Hey Jude from the shelf. Her copy was an import from Uruguay, still in its plastic cover, purchased in 1978. Mint. The back was her favorite picture of the Beatles and the only picture she knew of where Ringo looked downright attractive. She placed the album on the turntable and dropped the needle. She plopped down in her old wingback. A deer hide covered the tattered upholstery where a long-dead cat, Madame Blavastsky, had scratched through to the foam.
    Two weeks, thousands of miles, and a couple of grand, she thought to herself while kicking off her leather boots, and I’m back where I started. Must all journeys be so damn metaphoric, she thought? She returned to the same self, the same dissatisfactions, she had been sick of when she left. It made Geneva miss her days of New Age zealotry when she knew that every situation, no matter what it was, was perfectly designed to teach her what she most needed to learn.
    I have no business being dissatisfied , she lectured herself inwardly, and began her rote and tired litany of things for which to be grateful. She was healthy. Though not rich, she didn’t need to worry about money. She liked her friends. She liked herself. She’d been loved.
    Geneva knew Ralph had loved her because she trusted Ralph. However, trusting that Ralph loved her and feeling loved were not one and the same.
    She let her head drop against the back of the chair. She knew people wouldn’t understand. Current wisdom had it that you should trust yourself. But she knew that voices in one’s head are as likely to be liars as messengers of the divine. Trust meant spinning the roulette wheel of life’s possibilities. The right answer, the winning number, the truth — make your bet. Ante up. Trust means turning your back to the ticking wheel. You’ve chosen your number. You believe. There’s no peeking over the shoulder. You live with the sounding of the ticking in the background and in the faith that you know where the wheel will stop.
    â€œHey Jude’s” big finish faded. Geneva heard the cat door flap and the soft padding of little paws. Then, “Old Brown Shoe.” Voodoo, cool and smelling of wood smoke, leapt into her lap.
    â€œHey there, sweetie,” she said, stroking his back straight through to his tail. He purred with gusto and touched his nose to hers.
    Holding Voodoo, Geneva rose from her chair and shuffled over to the turntable. She lifted the needle and skipped to the next song. The needle crackled in a blank groove, then Lennon sang, “Don’t Let Me Down.” She stepped back and watched the needle ride the vinyl, pressing the cat to her. Voodoo dug his claws into her bosom. A slow, deep sink. An expression of pleasure. Geneva winced but continued to stroke him.

6
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    It was early evening, and Tatum gripped the wheel with both hands. As Rachael