It was a small church and could seat a hundred during a normal service, but because it was nearly Christmas, the wooden, unpadded pews were squeezed full. The walls were painted a bright white, and each stained-glass window seemed to tell a story. I could feel the gaze of all the other people on us as we entered.

We stood when everyone else stood and sat when everyone else sat. We read the words when the cues came, and our voices melted in with all the others.

Why had we decided to go to church? Were we looking for something different in the world, something new?

Mary sat very close to me, holding my hand the entire time. I glanced over at her. We had been secretly married for four months, and I felt a growing connection with her, a sense that we belonged to each other. No, it wasn’t quite that—it was that we were becoming each other, that the lines separating what made up me from what made up her were blurring, and what made each of us, us, was mixing.

The rector finished his sermon, and then he and a bunch of other robed people began going through the motions of preparing us for communion. At least, that’s what I gathered from the program. Shirley occasionally leaned in and explained things when we had questions (which happened every minute or so). Even though she hadn’t grown up in the Episcopal church, she knew some of the terminology.

As the rector waved his hands over the bread and the wine, Mary’s grip on my hand turned into a vise. I leaned over to jokingly tell her to ease up a little, but when I saw her face, my heart sank. Her skin was nearly the color of the white walls, her lips a straight line.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

But she only shook her head. She didn’t let up on my hand.

The priest explained communion and invited up anyone who wanted to partake. I glanced at Tom and Shirley, and they shrugged. Why not? That didn’t surprise me—they were normally up for just about anything. Mary nodded too, but the fear was still in her eyes.

We stood when it was our turn and waited in the line that led to the front. Mary was in front of me at that point, her hand trailing behind so that she could still hold mine. I leaned forward. The scent of her was intoxicating—she smelled like vanilla and springtime.

I whispered in her ear, “What’s wrong?”

“She’s here.” She cast the words over her shoulder.

“Who?”

“That woman who was looking in our windows at the cabin.”

“Where?” Now my heart was racing.

“Up front. Behind the priest.”

There was no one behind the priest.

No one. Not a man, woman, or child.

I didn’t say anything else. We shifted our way to the front, knelt at the altar, and waited for the priest to press the bread into our hands (“The body of Christ”), then waited for one of the others to tip the cup of wine into our mouths (“The cup of salvation”). The knot never left my stomach, this sense that Mary was ill. She needed something, or someone, that I could never provide or be for her.