Immaculata
Summer stood at bay but for the blue and yellow rays cast from stained glass, falling in panicked swirls across the floor and mahogany benches repeating front to back.
She lit candles here every night from age seven. They shivered in her eyes, hiding in shadows across her face.
“Immaculata,” the voice would say when she mouthed again silently: “Protect me so I may fulfill my destiny.”
“I am always with you,” it would whisper, and blood retreated again from her face when she bowed her head and whispered softly, “Father.”
But this time a response came from outside, “Immaculata.”
Tears stopped the shivering candle.
“Immaculata, honey. You in there?”
“Go away, momma.”
The door creaked, filling the chapel with summer. Immaculata turned her back to the altar. “Go away, momma.”
“Now come on out of there Immaculata. Your daddy’s waitin’ for you in the car.”
“He ain’t my daddy.”
Her mother hesitated at the door, then tossed a cigarette back and advanced to face her daughter. “Well, he may not be your daddy in blood. But he loves you like you was his own.”
She crossed her arms. Leaned on one hip. “Come on. We’re goin’ on a road trip.”
“Where?”
“It don’t matter.”
She hesitated again. “I shouldn’t have let you come here anyway. Your daddy’s takin’ a job in New Orleans.”
She took her daughter’s hand and led her from the chapel, from the altar and the voice that gave her comfort. To the car filled with the stale smell of whisky. They drove to a city filled with sweaty nights and Daddy’s weight upon her body.
“Protect me father, so I may fulfill my destiny.”
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