Altarboy novel · Chapter 4 of 24
Chapter 4: Clipboard
The organ started, and Kaz walked out into the light with the processional cross held in both fists.
He did not look at the front pew.
He looked at the back wall, at the big man in the paint-flecked jacket who stood with his hands clasped and his eyes on the old priest's feet.
Father Cyril walked slowly down the aisle.
He was steady today.
The card was in the missal, and the old man opened it and read it at the foot of the altar without a flicker.
Kaz knelt at his elbow and breathed.
For the first twenty minutes, nothing went wrong.
The first reading went right.
The Gospel went right.
Father Cyril even made a joke in the homily about St. Hedwig's feast day, which was today, and the widows laughed in their little row.
Then came the Creed.
The old man began the Creed and stopped abruptly.
His mouth stayed open.
His eyes went to the ceiling.
Kaz heard a cough from the back of the church, short and dry, the cough everyone had learned.
It did not help.
Father Cyril looked at the congregation, lost, and Kaz felt thirty pairs of eyes sliding off the altar to the floor, politely, the way people look away from a stranger crying.
In the front pew, Halina Pelc wrote something on her clipboard.
Kaz leaned in and whispered, "We believe in one God."
"We believe in one God," Father Cyril said, loudly and cheerfully, and went on to the end without a stumble.
The widows did not look up.
Not one of them.
Mass ended on time.
Kaz carried the cross back to the sacristy and handed it to the wall rack, and his hands were wet.
When he came back to the nave for the candles, the congregation had thinned into small knots by the doors.
Halina Pelc stood in the center aisle with her clipboard against her chest.
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