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They were a plague of locusts—the women in black dresses and black stockings and black shoes. The women with their hair nested up in black nets kneeling before the Cross. Kneeling in silence on the carpet before the Cross before descending to their Sanctuary in the basement under the altar where they waited and chanted and gave Testimony.
He was eleven when he saw them come up out of Sanctuary into the sunlight, eyes blinking, arms raised, singing, then dropping to their knees on the church lawn as if the weight of the sun was too much for their frail bones to bear.. His heart raced because he had never seen Teresa like that—eyes wild and crazy—and he had been afraid of them because they were not speaking a language he knew.
He watched them now, on their knees, before the Cross and he ate the sacrament, while finding the body stale, and he drank the wine that was warm, and he did not feel God speaking to him when he watched the church daughters dresses like pink and white princesses eyeing him, eyeing the other priests of Aaron, sons of the rod, sons anointed with oil and sworn to eternity.
And when the Elders named the hymns, Ricky mouthed the words and he watched Teresa, his mother, at the organ, inspired, playing without the score as if the music came from inside her.
Seeing Teresa in ecstasy, he worried, but on the way home, late Sunday evening after last service, Ricky drove. Teresa said,
