Her face was pale as she stepped over the threshold of the church door; she felt Gaze's hand brush hers, and she caught it in her own hand, holding his thick fingers in her bony palm. The unpleasantly lukewarm air in the church smelled familiar; it was thick with the scent of holy water in corroding metal tins. It was burdened with dusty, pretentious handshakes and ignored wails from swaddled babies. It was hot with the sticky, sweaty presence of people. Gaze's hand moved, his fingers locking around Marion's small hand. His thumb stroked its surface, and his entire body seemed to move closer to her.
Marion blinked her eyes in the cavelike darkness of the church. They were in its vestibule. Marion exhaled and her breath crystallized before her in the stream of cold air from the door. Mass had begun and Marion could see through the thick, dusty glass of the church door. The parishioners stood in candlelight, complemented by the glow of dim electrical lamps. They were old women with limp hands and varicose veins, shawls pulled over the curls of their white hair, stiff with Aqua Net hair spray. They were lonely, overweight women, on the verge of middle-aged oblivion, with matted hair that extended down to their waists, wearing spandex leggings and big shirts with sickeningly stretched floral patterns. They were mums in starched dresses, daddies in loafers and polo shirts, little girls with snotty noses and ruffled dresses.
They were Marion's family. The choir voices rung out from the loft above; Marion shuddered, remembering the sweaty tights that prickled her legs and the hot Christmas dress with its sweat-collecting velvet fabric. Her shoes pinched her toes as she stood in the church, and her lungs were filled with choking incense. The minutes passed with Marion's tiny eyelids drooping; she felt her mind slipping into the smoke. She felt the bruise on her face, releasing her thin fingered grip on the missalette to touch it. She brought her fingers closer, closer, until the wound began to sting. The little girl gasped in silenced pain. But it was not with the voice of an eight year old child.
"Marion?" Gaze dipped his fingers into the silvered dish of holy water. He crossed himself slowly, left hand still holding Marion. The tears had begun to stream down her face, shining in the flicker of the candlelight in the church vestibule.
There they had been, so long ago, standing on the other side of the aisle, the man with his twin sons. Marion could see them in the haze of her mind, the man's already gnarled face, and the boys, dark-haired and well dressed. The twins' heads turned in unison, as though they could feel the ice blue eyes of the fidgety redheaded girl. And, then, one of the boys-the one on the left-flashed a cocky smile, accompanied by a wink.
But she felt Gaze's hand upon her, helping her through the door and into the heat of the church. Looking up, she saw the vaulted ceiling; it was cream colored, with a stained glass window at its termination; starlight alone cast a dim glow through the colored glass. Marion stumbled forward, bracing her weight against Gaze for support. They were walking past the people, past the middle aged women who had lost their husbands and grown old, who wore the same pastel shawls as the last generation. They were walking past those seemingly perfect families with their Sunday clothes and bruised children whose white tights and long pants hid their scabbed, skinned knees and bruised shoulders.
In her mind, Marion squeezed past Mum; her dress was starched and the color of egg yolks, with a yellowish belt that pinched her waist to an improbable proportion. She squeezed past the fat woman whose stomach, big and spongy like the firm pillows in Mum and Dad's bed, squished her against the stiff, shiny wood of the pew, and over the bony knees of the old lady on the aisle's end, tripping over her walker, stumbling embarrassedly into the aisle. And she stood, looking up at the altar, at the Priest in his robe. She turned and tiptoed to the back of the church. The bathroom was small and one-roomed, with a door that did not lock, and a sink that dripped. The headaches and stomachaches had seized her, and the little girl knelt and retched into the basin of the hissing porcelain toilet. The air was cold and damp. It smelled like metal and turds, like medication, constipation, and incontinence-like the old, bony lady with the walker.
Marion stood slowly, her head buzzing, her stomach still in pain. She looked in the mirror, at the face with the bruise, before she turned, slowly. The door to the bathroom was slowly swinging open. She could see the gnarled hand reaching around the light wood surface. And she wanted to scream, but could not and would not.
Breaking away from Gaze's support, Marion whipped around and walked back down the red carpeting of the aisle of the church, almost running past those lonely women with paunches that filled the entire pew, and the grandmotherly people whose relatives had abandoned them except for occasional random thoughts. We should really see that she's put into a rest home. Marion hastened past them, the people who'd come to thank God for their misery, to kneel on pained legs, to hide their torment in the dogma.
Marion stepped into the shadows, knowing that Gaze had followed her. The tears stung her eyes ...
