It’s aconversation.
A continuation of a phone call that took place at midnight.
Which is a completely normal, acceptable time for friends to call one another.
I shake my head and exhale hard.
I can’t help but remember the last time I got ready for a dinner with Beckett. Mom helped me with my hair. We chose the white dress because it was pretty and classy without looking too over the top. Today, I try on a half dozen different dresses. Nothing seems right. I fuss with my hair. Can’t get it right, so I just brush it and decide to leave it down. I end up changing right before leaving the apartment, settling on a simple, black, spring dress, flats, and a jean jacket. Casual but not flouncy. Not too… I don’t know. Eager, I guess.
It’s worth noting that I donothave a tan. I look as pale as a ghost.
“You know,” my mom’s voice offers, “he’s probably nervous too.”
“About what? He’s getting married.”
“To the wrong person,” she says. Just nonchalantly, like it’s a fact and we all know it.
“Mom,” I whisper to the air.
“Sweetheart,” she counters.
That’s all she says. If she were here, she’d hug me. I would complain that I don’t want to go, and she’d tell me to be brave and promise me ice cream upon my return.
Everything is just wrong without her here.
I breathe.It’s fine.By this point, I’m used to being uncomfortable and alone, so this should be just another day.
When it’s half past six, I put my keys, phone, and wallet in a small purse and head out.
Forest Hills is an interesting neighborhood in Queens. I’ve lived here for almost all my life, but when I returned here after living in Brooklyn for that short stint, everything seemed smaller somehow. Like it all shrunk when I was gone. The area is—as advertised—all hills that run perpendicular to the straightaways of Queens Boulevard, Yellowstone Boulevard, and 108th Street. Past 108th Street, toward the high school where I work, there are these massive houses all on top of each other. Opulence and luxury packaged into tiny postage stamps of land with very little congruent style: McMansions at their worst. It wasn’t always that way, but that’s the trend now.
108th Street is lined with apartment buildings. Same with Yellowstone Boulevard, which is where I live. The buildings are anywhere between five and twelve stories high and were all built in the 1930s and 40s. There’s greenery, contrary to what you might expect. Not only are the streets lined with big, old oak trees, but the fronts of the red brick buildings are nicely landscaped with shrubbery and ornamental trees. The neighborhood has a playground called Yellowstone Park, where I spent many after-school hours as a little girl, and as I pass it now, I notice how eventhathas changed over time. Some things are still the same: the basketball courts are in the same spot; the big, wide steps that lead from the playground front of the park up to the picnic area open space up the hill are the same cracked cement from my youth. But it’s all different. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the different one.
I walk down Yellowstone Boulevard past all the buildings, noting in my brain that I’ve classified them by the people from my elementary school and junior high who lived in each one:oh, that’s Seth’s building, that’s Kate’s building, Jordana lived there,and so on. Of course, none of my classmates are around anymore. Some of their parents stayed behind. But most haveleft, retiring to warmer weather somewhere where the taxes are not so high. In many ways, it’s like walking through a cemetery, with the ghosts of people I used to know swirling through my mind.
Eventually, Yellowstone merges with Queens Boulevard and I take a left. Queens Boulevard is significantly more commercial, but the north side, where I walk, is still mostly residential buildings. I cross at 71st-Continental Avenue and then I’m near all of the bustle of Austin Street shoppers, but I continue plodding east, past the Midway theater, past the restaurants, delis, and banks, until I approach the huge church on the corner of Queens Boulevard and Ascan Avenue.
Our Lady Queen of Martyrs is a notorious fixture on the border of Forest Hills and Kew Gardens, and it’s directly across the street from Portofino Italian restaurant. The church is huge; its building, school, and rectory make up a campus that encompass an entire square block. I check my phone; I was walking pretty fast, and it’s 6:51. In an attempt not to seem too eager, I decide I’ll kill a few minutes doing something my mom and I used to do.
I open the heavy, wood door. The interior of the church is take-your-breath-away-magnificent. Stained-glass windows line the perimeter of the cavernous, stone building. A choir is practicing, so music from the pipe organ permeates the atmosphere, accompanying voices that remind me of angels. I quietly enter through the second set of glass doors, head to the left, and find what I’m looking for. There’s a small bank of red pillar candles, each in a glass cylinder. Some are lit, and they glow orange. Many have yet to be lit, though.
When I was young, occasionally my mom and I would visit this space and light a candle. We’d stuff a few dollars in the offering box, light a candle, and say a prayer.
We weren’t religious. We didn’t subscribe to any particular faith. But my mom always taught me that everything was a gift from a higherauthority: either God or nature or the universe. She believed that it was important to recognize that nothing we had—no talent or success—was ever really ours. So, taking time to offer thanks to the world and to declare our intentions, asking the powers that be to intercede, was integral to living the fullest human experience.
I remove one of the long, wooden matches from the container. I carefully dip it into the lit wick of someone else’s prayer and watch it catch fire. Then my hand guides the match to kiss an unlit candle. The flame catches, flickers, and begins to glow. I blow out the match and dispose of it in a jar half-filled with water. I close my eyes.
Please.
That’s all my mind can conjure up, just the one word. I don’t know what outcome I’m hoping for here. Everything that mattered to me has been stolen away: my beautiful mother, my writing career, my chance at true love. I don’t even know how to ask for intercession, which really feels like a new low. I can’t even invoke the words to pray for myself.
I fold a five-dollar bill and place it in the slot. I wordlessly watch my candle burn until the song ends, a hymn that I vaguely recognize, although all church music kind of sounds the same to me. I slip out of the sanctuary and walk across the street, noticing that the sky has suddenly become overcast with thick, brooding, gray clouds.
“Buonasera,” says an older Italian man at the host podium.
“Hi,” I reply with a polite smile. “I have a reservation for two. 7:00 p.m.”
“Name, miss?”
