Seven Weeks Pregnant, until I Found His Secret Chat novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Pray for Her

On Saturday night every phone in the parish buzzed at once.

I did not see it, because I had turned mine off.

I learned about it on Sunday morning on the church steps, when the women stopped talking.

Renzo walked beside me up the stone stairs in a dark coat.

Two women in good hats turned their backs.

A man I had served lemon cake to at a christening looked at his shoes.

"What did she send?" I said.

Renzo had read it in the truck.

He did not want to say it, and I made him.

"A photograph of the discharge page from St. Mary's," he said. "Three years ago. She put a prayer under it, for our poor Casey."

I had thought nothing could still cut me.

I walked in through the doors anyway.

The church was full and warm and smelled of wax.

Adele sat in the front pew in her lilac coat, with the parish women packed in around her.

I took a pew in the middle with Renzo beside me, and the whispers moved down the rows ahead of us.

Nobody sat in the pew with us.

I kept my eyes on the altar through the readings, and I held my breath through the sermon.

When the priest finished, Adele rose.

She turned to the congregation with her hands clasped.

"Forgive me," she said, soft and clear. "Before we go. I would ask you all to keep my daughter-in-law in your prayers. She is unwell, and she has been for some time, and she will not let us help."

A murmur went through the pews.

A woman near me said "Poor thing" and meant it.

I stood up.

My knees were weak and I locked them.

"Please don't pray for me," I said, in English, and the church went silent. "Pray for her, if you like. She needs it more."

Adele smiled at me across the nave.

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