Sarah, the youngest of the three women, says, "Everyone's busy with chores right now. How about after lunch." She is slender, very pretty with short dark hair and dark eyes and a very nimble way with her hands. Maureen, now fully composed, looks up and says, "This has been so hard, for everyone." She has thick greying dark hair that frames her broad and friendly face, and even for the sadness she was expressing, her eyes seem to be smiling from behind her glasses. She seems both intellectual and maternal. Probably a librarian. "I was wondering if I could just say a few words about what has happened, just to provide everyone with a little bit of context, before we adjourn."
"Please do", says Carl.
"It is hard", she says, "To know just where to begin. And some of you must be wondering who we are and what we are doing here out in the middle of nowhere. Let me explain, please, if I may:
"The three of us, Sarah, Jennifer and I, came by this place by the most innocent means. You see, we all used to work at the Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch, downtown. That is how we know each other. I started there when they first opened in their new location in 1995. Jennifer, I think you started around the time of the Winter Olympics in 2010, and Sarah came about five years later, would that be correct Sarah?"
"Yes, I started just following Ascension Day of that year."
"I was their supervisor. And we all soon became friends, twice a week going for lunch together. We did share some interests in common. We were then, as now, all adherents to the Christian faith. I was Catholic, Jessica, Lutheran, and Sarah was our Anglican among us. And then one day, we were all living together, under the same roof. The house that my late husband had left me. A large, well appointed home in Kerrisdale..."
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