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Maybe some Sundays I’m just here to hold the space while it does its quiet work on somebody else. The crying woman. The open-handed man. The kid who walked in slouched and will leave a little straighter.

Everybody in this room came in carrying something I can’t see. Same as me.

That used to feel lonely.

This morning it feels like company.

The service ends and the room does what rooms do, breaking apart into a hundred small conversations at once.

Dottie gathers her purse. “You’re coming to lunch.”

It isn’t a question. Nothing Dottie says is a question.

“I’d like that.”

“Good. We’ll meet at Si Señor at twelve-thirty.” She stands, then pauses. “That’s after my class, though.”

“Your class?”

“Life group, during second hour.” She looks at me like this is common knowledge, which for everyone but me it apparently is. “Are you in a life group?”

I shake my head.

“Have you ever tried one?” she asks.

“I’ve been meaning to look into it,” I say. “After that sermon where Pastor Jack challenged us to find community.”

Dottie goes still, in a pleased sort of way. “For six months.”

“Yes. I’m trying.” I hear how small it sounds. “Giving it everything I’ve got for six months and seeing what happens.”

She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Come here.”

She walks me to a kiosk in the lobby, a tall touchscreen on a stand with the church logo drifting across it. She wakes it with one tap, like she’s done it a hundred times, and a directory of life groups fills the screen. You can scroll the whole list, filter it by age, by day, by season of life. Young moms. Empty nesters. One that just says MEN and nothing else. Married couples.

Widows and widowers, which I’d guess is hers, though she doesn’t say.

She scrolls a little, then taps one near the middle.

“Twenties and thirties. Singles. Meets right after second service.” She looks up at me, and there is nothing subtle happening on her face. “That one looks like the best one to me.”

Then she winks.

“Is that Luke’s group?” I ask.

“Couldn’t say.” She could. She absolutely could. “But I’d try that one, if I were you.”

I eye her suspiciously.

“Anyway.” She straightens, pleased with herself. “We’ll be at Si Señor at twelve-thirty. You do whatever you’d like with the next hour.”

And then she just leaves it. Picks up her purse, heads off toward her own class, and doesn’t look back to see what I’ll choose, which is somehow more effective than if she’d stood there waiting.

I stay at the screen and scroll. It’s oddly comforting, that there’s a slot for all seasons of life.

The twenties-and-thirties one is the obvious fit. Single. My age. And if that wink meant what I think it meant, Luke will be in that room the weeks he’s not on shift, which means maybe, eventually, I won’t have to do this part alone.

But there’s no next time yet. There’s only now, and an hour, and a room full of people I don’t know.