Under the Light - By Laura Whitcomb Page 0,34

had never been to church with her family. Now I trailed after mother and daughter into a back pew. Cathy didn’t admit to it, but I believe she made sure we arrived a little late to the church service so that she would not be stopped on the way in and have to answer questions about Jenny’s father leaving.

The sanctuary appeared to make Jenny uncomfortable. Her bones seemed to stiffen, her muscles to contract in a subtle way, as if she were preparing to be struck. Tolerantly she adjusted herself to Cathy’s nagging—pulled her skirt down closer to her knee, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

There were things about Jenny’s church that I found familiar—the iron chandeliers were so like the ones from my childhood church, only these were fitted with artificial candles and electric bulbs. The dark wooden pews, worn smooth where a thousand hands had rested, seemed familiar, as well. And the carpets and pew cushions, a maroon brocade made murky with years of wear, bothered me most. Even the most mundane memories, if drawn from a deep-enough well, can chill the heart. The baskets of flowers on either side of the altar in Jenny’s church were almost identical to those at my mother’s funeral—lilies in white wicker. And the carvings on the wooden gate leading up to the altar, they were exactly like ones from my youth. I was unprepared for recollections from my girlhood: candlelit Christmas services, sunny Easters, brooding autumn Sundays when thunder could be heard over the groan of the pump organ. The scents and emotions made me ache, but I cherished them too. I could almost taste the metal cup and feel the icy water of the well in the churchyard, smell the mint that grew below the well stones.

I moved closer to Jenny on the pew. I wanted to cover her like a blanket.

She looked pale, as if she’d been bleached into a faded version of herself. The organist was playing a prelude, a chain of old hymns slowed to a merciless dirge meant to stretch until the Judgment Day, it seemed. As the hymn “This Is My Father’s World” changed into “Leaning on the Everlasting Arm,” I began to see glimpses from my childhood acquaintances scattered through the congregation—a head of ash-colored hair to our left, broad shoulders in a black suit a few rows in front of us, a sharp jaw turning halfway toward me. But these were not my people. My people had been gone for decades, even the babies, grown, withered and cold, dead and in the ground fifty years back or more.

But I am still here, I thought. And Jenny is here.

The prelude had finally ceased and the pastor was greeting the congregation and making announcements. The pews were set with paper bulletins every few feet—Jenny took one and stared at the cover, a photograph of a field of gold wheat under a blue sky. Across the curved stalks of grain a line of Scripture was printed in slanted cursive:The fruit of the Spirit is love—Galatians 5:22.

As Jenny studied the picture, the pink began to return to her cheeks. Cathy was reading ahead in the order of service and must have expected the same of her daughter. “Jen,” she whispered.

But Jenny was rubbing the picture of a field with her thumb, tilting it toward the light as if she could not decipher its meaning.

CHAPTER 14

Jenny

MY MOTHER REACHED OVER AND FLIPPED my bulletin open for me. The organ started up again: “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing.”

I had the feeling that someone was standing in the aisle watching and waiting for me to move over and make room for him or her to sit, but when I looked, there was no one there.

I sat frozen, trying to hold the bulletin still, but it was vibrating. The picture of the empty field meant something—I just hadn’t figured out what it was yet. The picture was vibrating to the rhythm of my heart pounding. It was stupid to feel like someone watching me was unusual—I was in church, so of course people would look at me.

Then the page I held stopped shaking as if an invisible hand had gripped it. The tension pulling gently on the paper from the top was unmistakable. When my mother handed me the hymnal, it ruined the moment. Whatever was holding my bulletin let go.

“Wake up,” my mother whispered, and slipped the order of worship out of my fingers, setting it on the