'Sundays in Ordinary Time' by Michelle Hemstedt

Emily visits each table, carefully passing round the plates of dull biscuits that Deacon Tom’s wife, Christine, bought to go with the coffee after Mass.

“People don’t want anything fancy before their Sunday lunch,” Christine says, tearing open another packet of shortcake.

“Oh, I think everyone deserves a bit of a treat,” says Emily's mum. “On a Sunday.” She walks ahead of Emily across the parish hall, click-click-click in her red high-heeled shoes.

Emily’s favourite treat in the world is a chocolate chip cookie. She wonders if grown-ups are ever as greedy as children.

*

At the tables, conversations are like scattered pieces of jigsaw waiting to be made into pictures.

“...pregnant again, and Charlie working abroad...”

“…shouting at Father, you wouldn’t believe...”

“...my mother…spinning in her grave…”

Emily’s six year old brain doubts this is really possible. She puts down the plate and lies on the floor in the narrow space behind the door to the sacristy. With her arms pinned to her sides, she solemnly gives it a try. It is hard to pick up momentum.

Click-click-click. Emily holds her breath. She stops spinning and plays dead.

*

Christine hauls Emily to her feet and brushes imaginary dust from her dress and says, gruffly, “what nonsense” and “shush now” when Emily tries to tell her about the lady whose mother was spinning in her grave. She walks ahead of Emily across the parish hall, tap-tap-tap in her black low-heeled shoes.
Emily stops talking. Because she knows that Christine keeps chocolate chip cookies behind the first aid box in the kitchen, and she knows that they both know who Deacon Tom likes to kiss in the narrow space behind the door to the sacristy.

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‘Sundays in Ordinary Time’ was first published in Things Left and Found By The Side of The Road in 2018.