Flags hung down from the ceiling on both sides. He looked up at them as he

passed by.

 

Then his eyes finally reached to the small altar.

 

All the memories overcame him once more like an enemy overrunning his position

on a battlefield.

 

He shut his eyes and let these images wash over him. Taking the seats in the

pew, his mother always between his brother and him.

 

They were little boys after all, and seated together they would have at some

point during the Mass gotten into trouble.

 

He could conjure the smell of her perfume, delicate and barely there. The rustle

of her skirt, the slight tap of her heel against the back of the pew in front of

them. The methodical turning of the hymnal pages.

 

Standing up to sing, to pray, listening to the homily. Rising again.

 

Genuflecting. Reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Walking up to receive communion,

Puller having qualified to do that only the year before his mother vanished.

 

Swallowing the host and wishing his mother would have allowed him to drink some