Ma and I were the only ones in church with the coming of winter. I hated her for it.

The walk was slushy, the building jarringly cold, the pews merciless. I wriggled my backside against it and whined to holy hell.

“I want to leave.”

“I know you do.” My mother’s voice was distant. She looked to the altar as though she saw something else entirely. She only ever wore her best clothes here; a white dress turned yellow at the armpits and hem, a woolen hat low over her ears, earrings her own mother had given her on her wedding day.

There was no one in the parish more religious than my mother, it seemed. Not even the pastor rose on Sundays while snow was falling. No one but her and I to light the candles and converse with Idia, or pretend to. In Scurry, there was not much religion to be had at all. I knew for a fact that Pastor David liked to take God’s name in vain. I heard it through the walls of our apartment when he visited Mrs. Flamshank in the night.

The other children of Scurry were not freezing on hard wood benches every week. They were under blankets in their beds, staving off the morning chill. They wouldn’t be back in church until the snow had melted and the Scurry ground was full of widow’s lace and wildflower.

“It’s cold.”

“Just a little longer.” She scooted me closer to her, so I was tucked under her arm. I went reluctantly, wanting to reproach her, but gravitating toward the warmth. “It’s important we come, even when we don’t want to.”

“But why?”

“Because it takes sufferin’ to have your wishes answered,” she said. “That’s what God wants. He wants to know we’ve earned it.”

“Is that why the seats hurt so bloody much?”

“Yeah. Don’t swear.”

I frowned at the little statue on the altar. Shorter than me, hollow-eyed, bone-white. Idia, frozen in her suffering. How much had she had to endure before God was finally satisfied?