of Burlington in the other. The vast majority of the homes were lived in by single families—the town’s lawyers and doctors and college professors—but a few, such as the one in which Laurel and Talia resided, had been carved up into apartments. It was a fifteen-minute walk to the BEDS shelter in the city’s Old North End, or twelve to the Baptist church where Talia worked as the youth pastor. It was also close to the campus darkroom in which, once a week, Laurel was still printing her own photographs. When the two women first moved there, they were the youngest of the house’s tenants. No more. Now it was inhabited mostly by students in their very early twenties, and Laurel and Talia were the only two people who actually had full-time jobs.
Across the hall from them in the smaller apartment that comprised the final third of their floor lived a first-year student at the medical school, a slim young man from Amherst who seemed to have puppylike energy. He had delicate, almost girlish features, thin bay-colored hair that was already receding, and a glib sense of humor. He was an avid bicyclist—and his friends who came by all seemed to be enthusiastic bicyclists—and since he had moved into the house in July he had twice asked Laurel if she wanted to go for a ride. He actually owned two bicycles: a hybrid and a road bike. His name was Whitaker Nelson, but he said that everyone called him Whit. Clearly, he wanted to get to know Laurel better, but he had sensed instinctively that it would be difficult to simply (and obviously) suggest they go out.
The other tenants included three women and one man scattered above and below them in four single apartments. The most interesting among them, at least in Talia’s opinion, was actually the dog owned by an aspiring veterinarian named Gwen. The animal, Merlin, was a sweet-tempered mutt from the Humane Society that was part springer spaniel and part—based on its size—draft horse. It was gigantic and looked a bit like a Shetland pony. Sometimes when Gwen was away for the weekend, Talia would have the pleasure of trying to walk the beast. Usually, it simply walked her.
Faith in Talia’s family seemed to skip generations. Her grandfather—her father’s father—was an Episcopalian minister in Manhattan, and he actually officiated at her parents’ wedding. Talia’s father, however, always called the sanctuary the First Church of the Holy Brunch, and it angered him the way attendance dropped off in the summer as the congregation migrated east each weekend to the Hamptons. He had drifted away from the church by the time Talia was in kindergarten, and so she only set foot in the place when she was staying with her grandparents. And her mother? She had always been allergic to anything that resembled religion. Talia feared that when her mother died the woman was going to want show tunes sung at her service instead of hymns.
Talia had started to return to the church after Laurel had gone home to recover from the attack early into their sophomore year of college. Suddenly, she was living alone in their small suite at the school, and she was scared. That one small voice? She heard it. This was not a Pentecost talking-in-tongues sort of voice. It was instead a gentle and reassuring little murmur, and before Talia knew it, she was—much to the astonishment of both herself and her parents—taking comfort from the fellowship of a congregation on Sunday mornings. She shopped around and wound up at the Baptist church, because they seemed to be doing so much with the fringe people—the poor and the homeless and the drug-addicted—who populated the downtown. And there she started to pray for Laurel. And for the men who attacked her. It seemed to her that it was easier to pray for the change of heart of two evil people than it was to pray for the thousands who were their possible victims. It was, in her mind, all about statistics and probability and her sense that God had to be pretty
Across the hall from them in the smaller apartment that comprised the final third of their floor lived a first-year student at the medical school, a slim young man from Amherst who seemed to have puppylike energy. He had delicate, almost girlish features, thin bay-colored hair that was already receding, and a glib sense of humor. He was an avid bicyclist—and his friends who came by all seemed to be enthusiastic bicyclists—and since he had moved into the house in July he had twice asked Laurel if she wanted to go for a ride. He actually owned two bicycles: a hybrid and a road bike. His name was Whitaker Nelson, but he said that everyone called him Whit. Clearly, he wanted to get to know Laurel better, but he had sensed instinctively that it would be difficult to simply (and obviously) suggest they go out.
The other tenants included three women and one man scattered above and below them in four single apartments. The most interesting among them, at least in Talia’s opinion, was actually the dog owned by an aspiring veterinarian named Gwen. The animal, Merlin, was a sweet-tempered mutt from the Humane Society that was part springer spaniel and part—based on its size—draft horse. It was gigantic and looked a bit like a Shetland pony. Sometimes when Gwen was away for the weekend, Talia would have the pleasure of trying to walk the beast. Usually, it simply walked her.
Faith in Talia’s family seemed to skip generations. Her grandfather—her father’s father—was an Episcopalian minister in Manhattan, and he actually officiated at her parents’ wedding. Talia’s father, however, always called the sanctuary the First Church of the Holy Brunch, and it angered him the way attendance dropped off in the summer as the congregation migrated east each weekend to the Hamptons. He had drifted away from the church by the time Talia was in kindergarten, and so she only set foot in the place when she was staying with her grandparents. And her mother? She had always been allergic to anything that resembled religion. Talia feared that when her mother died the woman was going to want show tunes sung at her service instead of hymns.
Talia had started to return to the church after Laurel had gone home to recover from the attack early into their sophomore year of college. Suddenly, she was living alone in their small suite at the school, and she was scared. That one small voice? She heard it. This was not a Pentecost talking-in-tongues sort of voice. It was instead a gentle and reassuring little murmur, and before Talia knew it, she was—much to the astonishment of both herself and her parents—taking comfort from the fellowship of a congregation on Sunday mornings. She shopped around and wound up at the Baptist church, because they seemed to be doing so much with the fringe people—the poor and the homeless and the drug-addicted—who populated the downtown. And there she started to pray for Laurel. And for the men who attacked her. It seemed to her that it was easier to pray for the change of heart of two evil people than it was to pray for the thousands who were their possible victims. It was, in her mind, all about statistics and probability and her sense that God had to be pretty
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