Emilia burned the bread while rehearsing a prayer she did not believe she was allowed to say badly.
The rolls were for Thursday supper at the chapel. She scraped the black bottoms with a knife and arranged the good sides upward in a basket. There were forty-two rolls and forty-two people on the signup sheet. Pastor Len had told her that the visiting preacher might bring more. She could make soup stretch. She could not make bread rise again.
“They’ll eat it,” said Ada, who came in early to lay the tables. “Len once served us rice so hard it sounded like rain in a cup.”
Emilia laughed, then put the basket behind a stack of plates. She had been helping here since she was sixteen. At twenty-eight, she still felt like a child whenever the food was short.
The visiting preacher arrived with two suitcases and a white shirt folded over his arm. He shook every hand in the room. During the service he spoke about the Holy Spirit with the certainty of a man describing a country he had visited and expected everyone else to recognize. He told of prayer, fire, gifts, and healing. Emilia watched an old woman in the front pew close her eyes and lift her palms. She wanted whatever the woman had.
After the service, Len asked Emilia to stay. The visitor wanted to pray with volunteers. She put the soup pot to soak and went into the small room behind the sanctuary. The preacher took her hands, asked what she hoped for, and waited.
“I want to be useful,” she said.
“You already are.”
“I mean useful to God.”
He did not smile. He prayed. His hands were warm and dry. Emilia waited for something to happen inside her, something she could carry out to the supper table and set down where people would see it. What she felt was the ache in her feet.
On the walk home she passed Nora’s porch. Nora was sitting in a coat although the evening was mild, a folded appointment letter in her lap. She was Emilia’s neighbor and an expert in the thin-wall diplomacy of the apartment building: which pipes knocked before dawn, which tenant had a new baby, how long to hold the front door for a person with a cane without making a show of it.
“You look dressed for snow,” Emilia said.
“I was cold.” Nora held up the letter. “Can you take me across town tomorrow?”
Emilia said yes before asking when. Nora told her. Emilia put the time into her phone, then sat on the porch step because Nora had moved her feet to make room.
“Do you want Len to visit?” Emilia asked. “He can pray with you.”
“You can pray if you like.”
“The guest preacher—”
Nora lifted the letter. “I don’t want a room full of people hearing about this. I need a driver. I may need someone to wait.”
“Of course.”
Emilia stayed a few minutes longer. Nora told her the lift had broken again and that someone had been leaving oranges in the lobby without a note. She did not open the letter. Emilia did not ask.
The next morning the chapel group chat held fourteen messages. Len wanted a name for Sunday’s testimony circle. The visitor had heard about Nora from someone who had seen Emilia on the porch. He wrote that the congregation could gather around her in faith. Emilia typed She asked me for a ride. She deleted it. She typed Please ask her first. Then she sent that.
Len replied with a heart. The visitor replied, We will leave room for God to surprise us.
Emilia put the phone face down.
Nora was ready at eight with her letter in a plain envelope. She carried a book and a small bag of crackers. At the clinic she asked Emilia to wait in the public room, not beside the door. Emilia read the same notice about parking three times and watched a little boy arrange his toy cars by color. When Nora came back, she was tired but walking steadily.
“Home?” Emilia asked.
“Grocery first. If you have time.”
At the store Nora chose bread, apples, and a jar of olives. Emilia wanted to take the basket from her. Nora handed her the olives and kept the rest. In the car she said she might need another ride next week. Emilia said she would check her schedule. That answer cost her more than a promise would have, because she had to mean it.
At home Nora stood at her door with the grocery bag against her hip. “I know Len means well,” she said. “I know you do too. I will tell people what I want them to know.”
“I told him to ask you.”
“Good.” Nora looked at her for a moment. “Did he?”
Emilia had no answer. Nora went inside.
On Sunday, Emilia found Len by the coffee urn. He had printed the order of service. Under Stories of answered prayer was a blank line followed by Nora’s first name. He said he had planned to leave the details to Emilia.
“You can’t,” she said.
“She hasn’t said no to me.”
“She hasn’t said yes.”
The visiting preacher came over with his shirt cuffs unbuttoned. He asked whether there was a problem. Emilia showed him the page. He said the story could be told without naming an illness.
“It isn’t our story,” Emilia said.
“We would be thanking God for care.”
“Then thank God for care without using Nora.”
Len took the paper. He crossed out the name with the pen he used to mark hymn numbers. For a moment Emilia felt as if she had failed a test she had spent years studying for. Then Ada called from the kitchen. The coffee had gone cold, and somebody needed to find the other urn.
Emilia followed her. The second urn stood in the cupboard behind a box of candles. She carried it out, filled it, and plugged it in. She was angry at how little the task meant after the conversation, and grateful for something heavy enough to hold with both hands.
The service went on. The visitor preached about mercy. He did not mention Nora. Emilia listened, and some of his words still mattered to her. She did not know what to do with that. At the testimony circle, a man thanked the volunteers for bringing soup to his family when his mother died. Ada said she had been the one to drop it off, and he said he knew. People laughed. The sound had room in it for grief.
On Monday evening, Nora knocked on Emilia’s door. She carried a plate with two rolls under a cloth.
“Ada found these in her freezer,” she said. “She says you made them.”
Emilia lifted the cloth. The bottoms were black. “I made them worse than that.”
“Ada scraped them.” Nora came in and sat at the kitchen table. “I need to go back on Thursday. Can you take me?”
Emilia checked the calendar this time. She had an early shift and could leave at ten. Nora’s appointment was at eleven. It would be close. She called Ada, who could drive if work ran late. Nora listened while they made the arrangement and wrote both numbers on the back of her envelope.
When Emilia put down the phone, Nora had broken a roll in half. She offered a piece. It tasted smoky and slightly sweet. Emilia ate it without turning it over to inspect the crust.