Paint Me True: Sample Chapters

Twelve: At Church

That Sunday I went to church in the Oxford ward, which had its own building on Abingdon Road. It was all gray brick, with tall, two story windows that looked out onto the street like solemn, unblinking eyes.

A soft breeze pressed the hem of my dress to the backs of my calves and lifted my flounced short sleeves. I recognized some of the people filing in, but none were more than acquaintances. Several waved. When I got inside, I saw the chapel was about half full. A teenager with a shock of blond hair who moved with a dragging saunter came on over and gave me a program. “You new?” he asked.

“I’m visiting.”

“Want a ward directory?” He tugged one loose from the bottom of the stack of programs.

“Yes, that’d be great.”

He passed it over and sauntered on towards the door.

I resumed looking around. The Bishop was new. I didn’t see the tall, imposing man who’d presided over the meeting last time. The man who sat on the stand now was shorter with gray hair and a hooked nose that was at odds with his kindly smile.

“Right,” said a voice at my elbow. “Eliza is it?”

I looked and saw a whippet thin woman that I vaguely remembered from the last time I’d been to the ward. She was in a one piece red dress and had a pair of gloves folded in one hand, draped over a red clutch purse. “Oh, hi,” I said to her. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your-”

“How long you here for this time?”

“We’ll see. I’m looking after my aunt.”

“What did the doctors say about her?”

“I’m... sorry?” One thing I never got about the English, they could look so prim and proper and yet be rude, nosy, and impolite, and they did it with such abandon, it was as if they didn’t see the irony.

The woman clucked her tongue. “Never mind. She doesn’t want me and my meddling. I know her answer. Never mind that we have an ambulance shrieking its way through the neighborhood at eleven o’clock at night. No one’s business but her own, in her mind.”

“Have we met?”

“Name’s Louisa. I’m her sister-in-law.”

“Oh.” I looked at her again. She didn’t have a dark trench coat, this time. Her hair was medium brown, straight as a pin, and a little bit stringy, probably because she kept stroking it back from her face. Her makeup was austere, but her eyes bright with curiosity. She glared at me as if I’d been the one to come up and ask the demanding questions. Her gaze slid over me, the judgment clear in the furrows of her brow.

“You’ve heard of me, I take it?” she said.

“Not really. Just that you were Paul’s sister.”

“Still am, right? Death doesn’t dissolve a family bond.”

“I didn’t know you were Mormon.”

She narrowed her eyes as if I’d said something rude and she was debating whether or not to call me on it, though I didn’t understand how my comment could cause offense.

“Paul wasn’t Mormon, was he?”

At that she barked a laugh. “No, no. Nothing of the sort.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You haven’t told me how long you’ll be here.”

“Um, not sure, really. It’ll depend.”

“On?”

“How long Nora wants me to stay.”

“And we’re not to know anything about why she needs to fly you out from the States?”