Section+2

Adele approached the old church the way one would approach a dentist’s office to get a cavity filled. She had been here before and knew it was going to be as unpleasant as always, yet she also knew it was in her best interest to get over it and suffer for a little bit. Upon stepping through the white-washed wooden doors, Adele was once again overwhelmed with the stiflingly oppressive wall of heat that she had come to associate with Sunday church services. Being in church was like wading through a vat of steaming molasses. The elderly congregation seemed to move with an agonizing slothfulness that comes from being weighed down with fifty years of repentance. It must be twenty degrees hotter in here than out in the fresh air, Adele thought. The heat rising from the guilty consciences of the sinners lining up for confession made the air boil. As Adele tried to maneuver her way to an open pew, her presence drew gazes from more than a few onlookers. It was uncommon to see such a young lady all alone on Sunday mornings. Church was an activity for the whole family and a single woman, absent a man, had the tendency to raise a few eyebrows. Adele’s father had stopped going to church after his younger sister had died in a car crash the year before, along with his nine-month old nephew and niece. It was not uncommon for people to take a period of grief following the death of a loved one. However, when Adele’s father made it publicly clear that he had to intention of returning to the church, people wondered if something was not quite right with the man. In his absence, they transposed their resentment onto Adele, who now sat isolated on a scuffed mahogany pew. From across the room, Adele spotted Moira Berouet, an aging widow who came from a long line of unspeakably wealthy oil drillers. The oil had dried up decades earlier, but the money still flowed as freely as sweat dripping down the back of Adele’s tanned neck. With polished cane and sterling silver eyeglass case in hand, Moira slowly made her way over to where a young mother was sitting with her newborn baby girl. Adele knew exactly what Moira was doing. She seemed innocent enough, just a kind old lady wanting to congratulate the young mother on her beautiful child. But Adele knew exactly what information Moira was after. Where was the father? Is he not a god-fearing Christian like the rest of us? Did she even know who the father was? Were they even married? In her youth, Moira had been a highly social debutante. There was not a single party, cotillion, wedding, or baby shower that she did not have some hand in planning. Now approaching her seventieth birthday, Moira kept tabs on every single person in Blue Ridge. Adele would have bet money that Moira was already sizing up the baby girl, wondering how her questionable stock of breeding would affect her chances of marriage. As far as Moira was concerned, Adele was a lost cause. It all started when her father, the young Harrison Sacriste, had married Adele’s mother. To Moira, even her //name// was low class. Rachel Malloy, from New York, New York. She was not old money, or new money, or any sort of money at all. She was a high-school drop-out who had moved to Blue Ridge to live with her aunt and uncle. For God-knows-what reason, Mr. Sacriste was very fond of Ms. Malloy, and their marriage was held a mere seven months after they had met. Only a woman with experienced eyes such as Moira’s could have detected the slightest of baby bumps growing under the white lace bodice of Rachel’s wedding dress. They had not been married for three weeks when Rachel’s aunt and uncle both suddenly passed away, having both contracted acute influenza. Six months later, Harrison was left holding baby Adele in his arms, alone, at the Sunday church service. Moira trotted over to him with the same mad thirst for gossip disguised as genuine concern that Adele was witnessing at that very moment. Moira, now satisfied, made her way to a pew several rows in front of Adele, and sat down. The service was long and boring. Adele swore she could hear big, fat sweat drops plunking onto the old, wooden floor. Father Peter’s voice was a dry drone as he delivered his sermon with the same gusto as a waitress listing today’s soup specials. Somewhere in the back of the church, a baby wailed. Adele looked down the aisle at a little boy sitting in between his parents. The child was swinging his chubby little legs over the edge of his seat, and thumbing through a large black bible. Adele caught herself subconsciously swinging her own legs into the pew in front her her, before the woman sitting there hacked pointedly. It wasn’t that Adele didn’t like God or religion. On the contrary, she was a very spiritual young woman. She simply felt God was more present in the dragonflies that buzzed around her ears when she laid down in the grassy meadow behind her house, than in the dusty voice box of an old preacher. Father Peter finished his sermon, and was bidding farewell to the congregation. Adele was only a few yards from the doors when Moira caught her by the back of her arm. “No confession today, Ms. Sacriste?” the old woman warbled. Adele had not been to confession since she was fourteen years old. Since she had had her meeting with Claude in her father’s horse stables. The problem was that Father Peter Berouet was Moira’s little brother. He had spent his entire life under his big sister’s thumb. She had been the one to convince him to join the seminary in the first place, when he had already been enrolled in medical school for two years. Nothing came before his sister. It was also a well-known fact that whatever was whispered through the confession window was later whispered into Moira’s eager ears. She would wait outside the booth, taking notes of the order of the people entering and leaving. That way, on the off chance that there was a voice or two her brother was not able to identify, Moira could figure out which sins went with which people. Knowing this, Adele had been dodging confession for years. She did not need another reason to bring disgrace to her family. Avoiding the Sunday morning ritual had become something of an art form for Adele. “I sure am sorry, Ms. Berouet, but my father is expectin’ me home any minute now. I got to help him with the cleanin’.” She spoke in the same tone a teacher would use while explaining the alphabet to her students, sweet yet firm. Without giving Moira a chance to say a word, Adele turned around and trotted back down the dirt road to her house.