It might not have been a beautiful day. In her memory, the golden leaves of a ginkgo tree shimmered in poignant juxtaposition to the harrowing splatters of blood. But in reality, it could have been an ordinary maple tree. And the blood, though it had been shed, pooled indoors, beyond her field of vision.

Within moments of it happening, Imogen lost track of what was real, what was imagined. Had she heard screams? Or were those in her head too? Later, she could only tell the police her name, why she was there, what time she’d arrived, and other unhelpful details. When they asked what she saw, Imogen had shaken her head, distrustful of her awareness.

Unsure of her faith and skeptical of organized religion, she’d been going to the Etz Chayim synagogue for only a month or so. Growing up, her Jewish mother had insisted she was Jewish—it being a religion of maternal lineage—but as a family they hadn’t really practiced anything or discussed their beliefs. Imogen was the only one among her old school friends who hadn’t gone to Hebrew school or had a bat mitzvah. She’d tried telling people she was half Jewish and half Christian, but even at ten that hadn’t made sense. She’d never liked that empty space of not knowing where she belonged.

It wasn’t until Kazansky’s closed—the deli she’d relied on for matzoh ball soup and Reubens and kosher pickles—that Imogen even started thinking about the culture she didn’t know. The matzoh ball soup had satisfied an easy kind of hunger, and without it she wondered what else there was. The first book she read on Judaism made her blink as if she’d just awakened, emerging into sunlight after a long slumber beneath a dusty tarp. She’d never heard of a tree of life that mapped levels of reality, or the possibility that the soul might have five distinct planes. Judaism wasn’t opposed to the concept of God as a tree, or the universe; it didn’t exclude those who believed one thing in the morning, and another thing in the evening, and nothing the following day. The spirituality of it intrigued her.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Imogen didn’t die. But she hadn’t been the same since that October morning. She’d gotten in the habit of going early, as that was when a group of the older congregants arrived to socialize: men and women whose parents had gotten them out of Germany before it was too late; Pittsburgh-born seniors who reminded her of her grandparents, dead for over a decade. They were friendly and welcoming, happy that a “young lady” was rediscovering her heritage. Almost thirty-four, Imogen remained petite and youthful, with a smattering of delicate black tattoos (which she kept covered in the synagogue), and had been assumed younger than her actual age for much of her life. She enjoyed their attention and their eagerness to chat with her.

The shooting had started as she’d approached the glass front doors.

That was how she saw herself, in her memory of the morning. Her arm outstretched, her hand never quite making it to the door handle. Frozen.

It was her first time in the vicinity of a human slaughter but she instantly recognized the sound. As loud as a cannon. (An exaggeration.) Flesh ripped through with bullets meant for a battlefield. (Not an exaggeration.) She couldn’t decide if her fragile early-bird friends had looked surprised, mouths agape, dentures exposed in shock. Or had they, in their wisdom, always known it was coming.

A part of her had wanted to rush in, find the gunman, launch herself in front of his weapon or onto his back to tear out his hair, puncture his eyes. The part of her that lived in the real world scampered off to the side of the building to hide behind a bush.

She kept trying to call 911 but her hands were shaking too hard and she couldn’t even unlock her phone. It didn’t matter. The sirens came anyway. And more sirens. And more. And the SWAT team. And television crews. She was still hiding behind the bush when the news alert first broke on the internet and her neighborhood plunged into mourning.