Veronica Shore
Left Side
I stood with my mother on the left side of the church. Both our heads were covered by headscarves—we were wearing brown dresses. The building was covered in stained glass and icons, inside and out. There was a stained-glass skylight of Jesus Himself in the middle of the ceiling, looking at me. The priest was speaking but I couldn’t understand him because the whole service was in Russian.
A middle-aged woman sat against the wall. Her eyes were closed and she was counting the knots on her prayer rope. Her graying hair was covered by a black headscarf and a brown shawl rested on her shoulders. Her husband had died early that year and she was taking it with grace, everyone said. Not once was she bitter or rude—there she was every week, sitting and praying. She looked up at me and smiled.
When the service was over we all went to the basement for lunch. I went through the buffet line and I took a plate and fork but, as the food went, the options were limited. It was the Sunday before Pascha and we were fasting. No meat, dairy products, eggs, or sugar. We can’t drink caffeine or alcohol. There was a fruit salad, veggie stir-fry with brown rice, shrimp and scallops, cucumber sandwiches, and beans with rice. At the end of the table, there was a berry pie. I put beans with rice, fruit salad, on my plate and went to find my mother.
My mother was with an old woman. The woman had an orange dress and a floral headscarf on.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello.”
“Have you tried my pie? It’s the one at the end of the table,” she said. “There’s no dairy, added sugar, not even gluten. Just lots of love.”
I dragged my fork across my plate.
“How old are you?” The old woman said.
“Eleven,” I said.
“Good. I have a grandson for you.”
“Why don’t you get some of her pie?” my mother said.
My mother smiled at the older woman, but with eyes elsewhere, and I went to put my dirty plate away. In going up the stairs, I looked around the room. A prayer rope was hanging from a table, a brown shawl was covering a chair.
I couldn’t see her. I looked around the church.
“What are you doing?” the priest said.
“Praying.”
“Good. Why don’t you go around the room and blow out the candles?”
The priest leaned down and kissed the top of my head on his way out. I walked around the room blowing out candles, every candle saying, “Each candle is a prayer.”
A woman’s husband is T-boned on his drive home from work and she prays to God around his pieces for his soul.
A widow's only son has been diagnosed with leukemia and she prays to God for his frail and dependent body to be strong.
A small boy is sent to bed without dessert and he prays to God for something sweet: A berry pie.
I stood on the left side of the church. My head was covered by a headscarf and I was wearing a brown dress. The stained glass and icons were clouded from the smoke and incense rising and hovering. There was a stained-glass skylight of Jesus Himself in the middle of the ceiling. He was looking down on me. The priest was gone and so was the middle-aged woman—I, by myself, in the nave.
Veronica Shore lives in coastal Maine with her family. She is a student of creative writing and English literature; a dedicated thespian, having performed throughout New England; and the winner of Regional Fine Arts awards for fiction.
Malasaña | Hudson, NY| Cargo Collective | Portland, ME | 2021