Repression
Chapter 1
“Dammit, Miranda, you look like a damn disgrace. This is a place of worship and you look like hell,” my mom snapped as she tried to smooth out my hair and pull down the skirt of my dress for the God only knows which number time this morning.
I shrugged indignantly. I didn’t know why she dragged me to church anyway. I didn’t know why she insisted on going every Sunday herself, considering whatever she does on Saturday nights is far from holy. I guess this is her idea of penance. I guess she still has a little bit of a conscience and she feels like she owes God something. I gave up on God a long time ago, though, so I have no real reason to be here. That’s why my Sunday dresses are always a little bit too short and my heels are little bit too high: so God knows I’ve given up on trying to please Him.
We entered the building and walked to the spot my mother had claimed as her own when she became a member of the church--middle column, eighth pew back, right side--to find a family of six already seated there. I tried to distance myself from my mother by observing the large stain-glass portrait of the Nativity located in the other direction because I knew she was going to confront this poor family and ask them to move, as was customary of all people who have been members of the church for a long time.
“Uh, hello. Excuse me, folks, but this is our spot. We would really like to sit here, if you don‘t mind,” my mother said in her most sugary sweet tone. It made me sick.
“Oh, we’re sorry. Of course. We’ll find somewhere else to sit,” responded the older male, who I assumed was the father.
“Guess that means we can just leave now,” suggested the only other male, who looked to be about my age and also apparently shared my disinterest in church.
“Son…” reproached the father.
The boy obediently shuffled out of the pew with the rest of his family, but not before I could catch his eyes and give him a smirk and an empathetic nod. He quickly looked away from me, but not before I noticed the sly smile crossing his lips at my gesture.
“Hey, new people usually sit in the back of the left column,” my sister Marissa chimed in with the same obnoxiously sweet tone that my mother used.
The father of the new family and nodded and my mother, Marissa, and I took our rightful, God-given spots in the middle column, eighth pew back, right side of Seaside Baptist Church. I rolled my eyes and hoped the people around us noticed.
The preacher came forward and began to speak, and instead of committing to my usual distraction of daydreaming or counting the number of people asleep, I decided to observe the family of six my mother drove away. The father and the boy had dark skin and dark eyes and dark hair, while the mother and the older daughter were pale with wavy brown hair and lighter eyes, and the younger daughters seemed like a mix of the two. The mother and father and three daughters were sitting up straight and listening very intuitively to the message and following along carefully with the Bibles open in their laps, but the boy was leaning forward with his elbows in his lap and his chin in his hands, casually observing his surroundings. I smiled at the sight of the boy, who, like myself, was the black sheep of his family; something about him made me proud.
(I know this chapter is hella slow and boring but I swear it gets better.)