Inklings Fall 2019

ribs
Shelby Rice
Anthony’s freshly-shone shoe pounded predictably against the wooden
pew in front of us. He’s young and tired, and a pneumonia outbreak
cancelled Sunday school. He’s far too young to glean anything from the
homily (I think this as though I am). So today, the thump-thump-thump
of old leather on cracked pine accompanied the priest’s monotone
rambling.
dressed in a polyester pantsuit glared sideways at me, as if to say, “You
dare cough in a house of God?” I glared right back; she turned away.
We reached the front of the queue, and Father Allgeier knelt down
to smile at me. “Hello, Marguerite,” the words parting his cracked,
chapped lips, parting to show a row of age-yellowed teeth. “We’re
looking for a new pianist. Maybe it’s time for you to join us at the
altar?” His breath stank of stale grapes, and I remembered my older
brother whispering that he’d seen the Father drinking the communion
wine once while attending to altar cleanup.
“Father, how do we know that woman was made of man?”
His smile froze. Pa’s sigh echoed loudly behind me.
Inklings Arts & Letters
Father Allgeier’s message about the creation of man engages only the
most pious. My father sits bolt-upright, hands clasped over the missal,
eyes glazed over. He’s thinking about Ma. She’s sitting on the other end
of the pew, eyes clamped shut, arms clutching her swollen stomach—I
have another brother on the way. She looks sick. I can’t blame her.
The three hundred people packed into the too-small nave make the
air uncomfortably sticky, and the kneeler can’t be comfortable on her
pregnancy-swollen knees.
I’m not listening to the homily, either. My mind is stuck on today’s
scripture: how Eve was crafted from Adam’s rib. I look over at my
mother. She’s pushed four humans out of her, and she’ll do it again in
February. I’ve never once seen her cry. She’s strong. On the other hand,
my eldest brother cried for three hours when I accidentally hit him with
my lacrosse stick. It barely bruised his forearm. Imagine if I’d taken a
rib out of him. It made no sense.
Father Allgeier stood at the door as the church began to empty. My
father herded his flock toward the door to be blessed. On the way, I
dipped my fingers into the holy water to cross myself. Forehead-chestshoulder-shoulder—my
hand hit the midpoint of my ribs on the way
down, and I frowned. It doesn’t add up.
“Well, the scripture says so, little one,” the priest said, his impatience
poorly disguised.
Pa’s look told me to drop the subject and accept my blessing, but I
pushed forward. “Look at Ma. She’s carrying a kid. It’s going to be
another boy.”
“Marguerite!” my mother hissed behind me, stark white. I can’t tell if
it’s from embarrassment or from being stuck in the stuffy, perfumed
vestibule. The infant calls the shots these days; smells like this make
her sick.
“Yes, man cometh of woman,” Father Allgeier answered, smile
stiffening.
“So, wouldn’t it make sense for Adam to be made of Eve’s ribs?”
The aging priest stood up, the cracking of his knees deafening in the
echoic room. “Marguerite, who is your patron saint?”
I frowned, thinking back to my confirmation. The sickening scent of
incense mixing with the pounding headache that I had that Sunday
made the memory a blur. “Er, Saint Therese of Lisieux?”
Fall 2019
Pa pushed me forward into the cloud of lingering incense. The smog
clogged my lungs; I coughed loudly, my ribs rattling. An elderly lady
The edge of his lips had cracked from the strain of smiling at a curious
fourteen-year-old girl, and little beads of blood trickled out of the tear
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