Her hands hold the rosary closely, to her heart, like giving hugs to a close friend.
She sits at the back of the church, the pews meant for the noise-making youth and the women with crying babies. The ushers try to give her a better seat, but she refuses, here, she sees the Savior and He sees her, in all her tiredness and sadness. He is after all, closer to children than their parents.
She sighs as the priest begins the homily, he is talking about Love. She sighs again as she thinks about Love and all the complications that come with it. She doesn't understand Love and all the paraphernalia it carries along with itself, in her day, one married for security and decided if they'd love their spouse after the first child or two. Unlike Bertha and Agnes, her daughters. Well educated, she had wrecked her back carrying bags of corn to cook and sell at the expressway, so they could go to good schools, and now they were squirreling around with men who had no idea what hard work was, men who lived off them and ate their salaries like free plates of nkwobi. Bertha says she is old-fashioned and doesn't understand Love, Agnes is a bit wiser and hides how much she truly makes from Ikemefuna, the man that has promised her his last name.
She sighs again, the girls are repeating her mistakes and it hurts that they do not listen when she tries to tell them. She flinches in her seat, the couple beside her are arguing in low tones, they look like newlyweds and the man has his wife's hand in a bruising grip. The woman is hurting and as they rise to say the apostles' creed, she quickly wipes her eyes.
She sighs, unable to stand up, she is weakened by what she has seen and her hands tremble in remembrance. Her husband, Oke, tells his sons that women are to help their men and should be punished if they do not. He cites rejecting their meals and talking about and sleeping with other women as top tier, beating them is low tier and should be done in small increments as their stupidity increases. Of course, he calls her stupid, like the man and wife that are sitting beside her. He also called his wife stupid.
She, her name is Lovina, trembles as the priest unveils the Blessed Sacrament. What would the loving Savior say to this man that beats his wife, mentally and physically? What would he say to the wife, would he ask her to turn the other cheek? Or would he ask her to run for her life? She waves her hands as the priest raises the Blessed Sacrament, her adoration shines in the tears that roll down her cheeks. The saint Paul, said that Love covers a multitude of sins, surely her sins have been forgiven, haven't they? Surely, the Savior took in a tax collector and they were the scum of the earth in his time, and thus her sins are nothing before him? She walks forward slowly to receive Holy Communion, she needs Grace and the bodily presence of the Savior. The usher helps her back to her seat and she plucks her purse from its perch on the kneeler. It is time to go home.
She doesn't check her purse again, she keeps her money in her bra. She cooks dinner for her husband and on the evening news, she sees that the police have arrested a woman that slit her husband's throat with a knife as they drove home from Mass. Oke is outraged, she hides her smile beneath false murmurs of sympathy and takes away the dinner plates.
At least someone took her advice. Perhaps, Bertha and Agnes will learn from this one's story.
The End.
This story wasn't supposed to turn out like this, but it did. So, I'm leaving it alone.
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