Chapter 21: The Church Again

Adaline's POV

St. Paul's was full by half past two on Christmas Eve.

I could hear it from the vestibule, the low hum of three hundred people in their furs.

Under it, the organ was playing something slow.

Harriet had dressed me herself.

The gown was ivory silk with a high lace collar, and my mother's pearls lay over it, three strands, heavy and cold.

I had not slept.

I had come in at dawn from Pearl Street in Langston's carriage, with my hood pulled over my face.

He had said only, "Is he well?"

"Yes."

"Good," said Langston, and looked out of the window.

Now I stood in the same vestibule, in a different dress, with the same arm through mine.

My father had not said a word since the carriage.

He wore his black morning coat and a white carnation, and he smelled of bay rum.

"You look very well," he said at last, to the door.

"Thank you, Father."

"Smile, Adaline. They are looking."

I smiled.

The vestibule doors stood open a hand's width, and through the gap I could see them all.

The Mission women sat in two rows on the left side.

The stout woman had a hymnal open that she was not reading.

The thin man from the Plain Dealer was in the aisle seat of the fifth pew with his notebook shut on his knee.

The white-bearded director sat with his wife.

In the third pew, on the aisle, a broad man in a plain brown coat had his hat on his knee.

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