Chapter 24: The Left Side

On Saturday morning the left side of St. Brendan's was full to the walls.

Nine men from the boat yard sat in their one good jacket each, with their wives and their kids.

My friend from the office sat in the front pew with a diaper bag she insisted on carrying.

The nurse and her husband came in together, and the doctor sat three rows behind them, in a plain suit.

Nobody had asked him to come.

I had not asked him to stay away.

The right side held a handful of Hamish's cousins and the neighbor with the casserole.

Alone in the last pew sat a woman in a gray cardigan.

Her hands lay in her lap.

She did not look up.

I stood at the rail, on the left, exactly where I had stood the first time.

Ivy held my right hand in a yellow dress with a ribbon at the waist.

On my left arm I held the baby in a white gown that Hamish's mother had sewn for her two sons.

Hamish stood on my other side.

He had signed the marriage paper at the courthouse the day before, with a clerk for a witness.

So had I, with a pen that skipped.

Today was only for the church.

It was only for us.

The pastor looked down at the child, and then at the two of us.

He did not look at the back pew at all.

"We're here to welcome a new life," he said, "and to bless the family who will raise him."

He took the baby into his arms, and the baby looked up at the ceiling with dark, serious eyes.

The pastor poured the water.

The baby squawked once, offended, and the whole left side of the church laughed, and then so did the right.

"I baptize you," the pastor said.

He said the name Hamish and I had chosen, which was his father's.

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