They Called Me Barren. They Picked the Wrong Wife novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Sign of Peace
On the next Sunday I wore my grandmother's red wool coat into Grace Church for the second time.
Callum walked beside me, and Bev walked on my other side with her handbag held in front of her.
At the door, where Lorraine had stood every Sunday for twenty years with the bulletins in her hand, a stooped deacon stood instead.
He gave me a bulletin and could not look at me.
"Maggie," he said. "Welcome. We're so glad you came."
Heads turned all the way down the aisle.
I walked to the third pew, where the retired lab technician had stood up for me on Christmas morning, and she moved her purse so I could sit beside her.
"I told you it doesn't just go away," she whispered.
"You did."
"I didn't know how right I was."
The organ started.
Lorraine came in after the first hymn began.
She wore her navy suit and her pearls and her good smile, and she carried a covered dish for the fellowship hour.
She stopped inside the doors and looked at the empty place where her bulletin table had been.
A woman in the back row slid her coat over the end of the pew so there would be no room.
Lorraine stood a moment longer, and then she took a seat on the aisle at the very back, with the dish on her knees.
Nobody turned around.
The pastor came up to the pulpit when the hymn was over, and he did not open his Bible at first.
"The board met on Monday night," he said. "Mrs. Rowan has stepped down as deaconess, effective at once. She has also been asked to return the keys to the fellowship hall."
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