The church had its own smell.
Sweet and musky.
The incense used at funerals was strong, and lingered always in the background, while the high sweet perfume worn by legions of old ladies seemed captured in the very grain of the pews. Candles glowed, and smelled like rain as they melted. The balsam of sacramental oils mixed with the sad scent of prayers trapped and beating against the rafters.
The windows leaked light, bled color onto whitewashed walls, thickened the air with their hues. I faced the great panel of stained glass behind the high altar, and when the sun hit just right, the window spilled its sapphire and scarlet into the church and everything was on fire. I stared at the window during Mass, imagining that if stained glass had a taste, it would be overripe plum, sweet and strong in my mouth.
The building’s exterior was tangled with ivy, its interior split into alcoves and domes ornamented with statues, thick pillars, and stations of the cross. The church was huge, high-ceilinged and heavy. An ark, really. Thick beams supported the plaster ceiling like the sturdy spine of a whale. I was Jonah, safe in the belly of a whale, I thought, as I leaned back and looked up at bats I pretended were doves flitting back and forth in the rafters.
I was comfortable there. Except for the joining of hands during the recitation of the Our Father, which made my hands so sticky that they adhered to whatever surface they touched. I tried my best to last out the prayer, and sometimes managed. But mostly, I fled. From the too-tight, too-loose holding of hands, the flaring of group prayer—the movement of everyday voices from apologetic mew to insistent boom. Hiding in the last pew, I waited for the chanting to end, then emerged for the payoff. I’d blow my hands dry, run out for the Kiss of Peace where, like a starved hummingbird, I’d flit from person to person, taking just a bit of sweet before moving on.