For the Betterment of Sarah Williams - Chapter Two

Sarah entered the room where the meeting was going to take place. There were several people already there. Some people were talking to other people and some people were sitting quietly by themselves. Sarah found a seat by herself and sat down. She was very anxious. She didn’t really know what was about to happen to her and she wanted to get it over with as soon as possible.

After some time had passed, the moderator motioned for everybody to find a place to sit. As an introduction, the moderator went through the five stages of grief and stressed the importance of not missing a stage. Only after you go through all five stages can you recover from your loss. Sarah was only half paying attention. She just wanted to whole thing to be over. She just wanted her old life back. Her happy life, not this nightmare she had been sleep walking through for six months.

The speaker changed and Sarah looked around to see who was talking now. A couple were sitting close to Sarah and she identified them as the ones who were speaking. Sarah only caught parts of their story. They had lost a son when he was struck by a drunk driver. The Montgomery’s were in the anger stage. They were angry because their son had died and the drunk driver that killed their son survived. It wasn’t fair that the person that caused the accident should live while someone who was innocent had to die. The moderator encouraged them to express their anger and everyone expressed sympathy toward them. The moderator said it was normal for them to feel that way and gave them methods for coping with the anger they were feeling. Sarah felt all alone, but as other people also shared their stories, with each story Sarah started to feel like maybe she wasn’t by herself after all.

After what seemed like a long time, the moderator called on Sarah to share her story. Sarah told everyone that her husband went to work one day and that no one had seen him since. People who saw him get out of his car said that he was there one moment, and the next moment he was gone. They couldn’t explain what had happened to him and nobody saw him go anywhere. It was like he vanished off the face of the Earth, as the detectives put it. The moderator ask Sarah if she ever thought they would find him again. Since they never found a body he must be somewhere Sarah thought. Sarah said that if he is somewhere then there is a chance they would find him and bring him home.

Maybe the detectives were right, the moderator offered, Maybe Sarah’s husband did vanish into thin air. All the witnesses said that was the case, Sarah needed to accept that maybe he wasn’t coming back. But that was crazy, how someone could just vanish, Sarah protested. Magicians make people vanish. Sarah thought about that but rejected it, the person vanishing would have to be in on the act and there is no way her husband would abandon his family. There had to be another explanation.

When the meeting was over, Sarah felt very defensive. A woman in her late fifties approached her. She explained that she had gone through the same thing that Sarah was going through. When she was younger her husband disappeared unexpectedly. He was never found. She had to let him go and go on with her life. She told Sarah that even though it seemed impossible right now, Sarah would get to a place where she could go on with her life as well. The woman gave Sarah her number and told her that she could text her anytime she needed to talk to somebody. Sarah politely took the woman’s number and went home.