Cursed Be the Child by Mort Castle Page B

them before. Mom sang real nice, too. Mom seemed to know all the words to the hymns.
    The church was beautiful, too. Missy had somehow expected it to be dark and smelly, but it was all golden with polished wood, and the sun came in, lightly touching everything with a soft glow. The minister, whose name was Pastor Norton, was short and round and bald and cute, kind of like the Pillsbury Doughboy. What was cool about him was how he told silly jokes about the senior citizen group’s trip to the dinner theater, the men’s club’s next golf outing, and the women’s charity auction. Pastor Norton made everyone laugh. Missy hadn’t been too sure about the rules about laughing in the house of the Lord, but it had to be okay, with even the minister doing it.
    “The house of the Lord.” That’s what Mom had called it when they were getting ready this morning. Drinking a cup of coffee, Dad said, “Not only His house, but He doesn’t pay a thin dime in taxes.” Mom gave Dad a real angry look.
    Missy was certain you had to be on your best behavior in church—no squirming or scratching, no whispering with her friend Dorothy.
    Missy had asked, “Does the Lord punish you if you’re bad in His house?”
    Mom didn’t say anything for a second but looked like she was thinking hard. Dad said, “You’d better believe it, kiddo. He’ll smite you with a plague of locusts.” Mom gave him the look again, and he said something that sounded like “Superstitious bullshit,” but he said it with his mouth pretty much in the coffee cup so she couldn’t be sure that was what he really said.
    Mom told her, “The Lord loves everyone, Missy, and He’s glad to welcome them to His house. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to act, no matter where you are. You know that.”
    “Uh-huh,” Missy said seriously. “You mean good manners. I’ve got ’em.”
    “I know you do, Missy. And I know you’re going to be a real lady in church and make me proud of you.”
    Missy did feel like a real lady. She felt pretty and grown-up in a new white and gold dress and shiny new shoes, and she even had a purse. Usually her favorite outfit was jeans and her Rainbow Brite top, but today was special.
    This was what church was meant to be, Vicki thought, what religion was all about. It was a serene time-out from commonplace day to day living, with its minor frustrations and little victories. Sitting in a pew in the middle of the church, her daughter beside her, her friend Laura Morgan and her child, Dorothy, to her right, being here now in the house of the Lord with her neighbors was good.
    She couldn’t help compare this dignified and restrained service to the heavily emotional and uninhibited Holiness Union Church services of her childhood. Maybe that was right for some people, maybe it had even been right for her then, but this was right for her now.
    And, she decided, it would be right for her from now on—and for her little girl. She glanced at Missy, who’d been as good as gold and was still shining! She regretted that Melissa had never been baptized.
    Vicki’s thoughts were interrupted when Reverend Norton began his sermon. “This past week, my wife and I took a little trip. We shipped the kids off to their grandparents and went to visit another couple we hadn’t seen in years, friends from our college days.” Reverend Norton smiled. “You know the definition of college, I’m sure. That’s where you learn you already know everything and nobody else knows anything.”
    There were appreciative chuckles, but Missy wasn’t so sure she liked Pastor Norton’s joke, if that’s what it was. Was he making fun of college? Her dad taught college. He was a professor, and a professor was probably more important than a minister—at least as important.
    “Anyway,” Reverend Norton continued, “there were those awkward minutes you always have with people you haven’t seen in a long time, and then we relaxed and started talking about, what