It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 1: The Author

The Author had never been late in her life. It was a point of pride for her that she always arrived some twenty-five and a half minutes ahead of a scheduled meeting.

'You were always—what's the word? It begins with an 'f'?'

'Finicky?' offered her father, only half as engrossed in his crossword puzzle as he liked to pretend to be.

'No,' said her mother, in a dejected tone, mouthing all the words beginning with 'f' she could remember.

'Fuss budget?'

'No,' sighed the mother, and a momentary lull replaced the tense conversation. The father continued on with his crossword, while the mother, twisting the faded blue pill her daughter had forced into her hand, stared dully into space.

'Mama,' said the Author with tired impatience. The older they got, the more of a chore her parents had become. 'Mama! Take your pill before you forget.'

'Difficult!' suddenly spat the mother, glaring into her child's eyes. 'Oh, you were always difficult!'

'My darling,' called the father from the couch, 'difficult begins with a 'd'.'

The mother bristled and her dark eyes flashed. 'I know that,' she snapped, pulling herself up by the handles of her walker, only to putter out of the living room. It had become her custom whenever she was caught in a forgetful moment. Get angry, cover, and then hobble off in a huff. She'd been hobbling off more and more these days, but the huff never lasted long. Not like the old days when the Author and her sister had driven their mother grey with consternation. Then, the huff had was fabled and perpetual. But now...it quickly faded, like everything else in her mind.

Another lull came over the living room. The atmosphere was always quiet when father and daughter were alone. Not a malicious quiet, punctuated by some turbulent and vindictive history, but a peaceable one. Both preferred the company of their own—

'She's right, you know?'

The Author looked around. Her father hadn't raised his eyes from his crossword, and she wouldn't have been surprised if she'd imagined his voice. 'What?'

The father still wouldn't look up, but a faint smile caught the coroners of his withered face. 'I said: 'She's right.' You were always difficult.' The Author was so affronted by this comment that she made a point of shunning dear Papa for the rest of the afternoon.

And two days later, sitting in the stylishly glassy, modern, and obtrusively bland waiting room of her editor's office, some twenty-five and a half minutes ahead of their scheduled meeting, the Author still fumed. She wouldn't describe herself as difficult. In most instances of her life, she felt that she was an uncommonly agreeable person. Was she determined? Yes, she conceded, but determination should never be a fault. Too often people mistook her determination as some sinful defect of personality.

Maybe, she thought, if she'd been a little more determined in life, a little less agreeable, she wouldn't be stuck playing nanny to two octogenarians, who had more in common with spoiled toddlers than they did with the resolute parents that had raised her. Oh, where would she be if she'd been as determined as everyone seemed to think she was? What would she be doing? The places she'd have gone! The people she'd have met! Not interviewed and researched, but socialized with, befriended, fallen in love—made love with! The things they would have talked about and the places they would traveled, and they would all have been just like her: Determinedly free. 

Somebodies, with a capital 'S'!

'She's ready for you,' called the small, breathy voice of the office secretary. The Author looked up, jolted from her disheartening musings. The secretary, Janet or Janice, or something like that, smiled nervously from behind her curved desk, and pointed needlessly towards the closed, double-doors that, in the Author's mind, had more akin with the Gates of Hell than they did to any functional entryway.