Page 79 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

I was not that Enzo anymore.

Since I’d moved to America, my daily prayers had turned into weekly prayers. Then monthly prayers. Then I was only going to church on high holy days if at all. Somehow, somewhere, I had unconsciously separated myself from something that connected me to my family, history, and culture. And it had been so insignificant I hadn’t even noticed.

Until a building burned down.

And I found I didn’t care.

That night, for the first time in months, I stepped into a church. One I had never been to before. After several minutes of sitting in a pew at the back of the nearly empty church, I lowered myself to the kneeler.

I talked to God.

A prayer I’d said for many years echoed through my head:

Why?

I want to know why, God.

And I will ask every day in every prayer—in every language if I have to—I will learn every language to make sure you understand me if I have to—until I feel you have answered me.

I have always trusted in you, God.

But this I cannot trust.

I am a forgiving person, God.

But this I have not been able to abide.

And I will no longer try.

Please tell Mamie, Papa, Maman, Noe, and Ila that I love them and miss them every day.

Thank you for Peter. Please watch over him and guide him and surround him with your love.

In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

I still loved God.

But I loved myself more.

That night, I dreamt of my grandmother. I was entering Basilique Notre-Dame de Montreal, the stained-glass windows alight with the mid-morning sun. Brilliant sunbeams, the color of gems, shot through the church at odd angles, landing and forming puddles of glitter upon freshly waxed wood and brass fixtures. My feet, bare flesh slapping against the floor, sounded like a frog hopping from one lily pad to another, which made me smile.

Mamie was sitting in a pew, her back to me, though I recognized her immediately.

Wanting to race to her, I was somehow held back, forced to walk calmly down the aisle to stand beside her at the end of the pew. As though, even in dreams, the basilica required reverence. When I found myself beside her, looking down as I stood in the aisle, her head turned and she lifted her chin to meet my eyes. Her pendulous, glittering earrings caught the light, casting a halo around her face. Her cotton candy hair was coifed immaculately as always.

She smiled up at me.

“You know,” she said, gesturing for me to join her, so I slipped in and sat down in the pew next to her, “I don’t even think God is in this church.”

I wanted to say so many things to her. To ask how mother, father, Noe, and Ila were. To tell her I loved her. That I missed her.

“Oh?” I asked.

“No,” she said, pulling me so that I slumped happily against her, crooking my back so that I could lay my head on her shoulder.

In my dream, she smelled as she always had. Flowery, sweet, spicy, a touch of vanilla. Home. Memories of a home that no longer existed.