Faith Bible Church

The church my mother has attended since I was five. Stone and clapboard, set back from the road behind a row of dogwoods that are spectacular for two weeks in April and unremarkable the rest of the year. The fellowship hall is in the basement and smells faintly of coffee no matter when you go down.

I went there for years, every Sunday until I stopped. Whether I started again is a longer conversation. My mother goes still. She has gone every Sunday since the move, with a few weeks off when my father was in the hospital, and she will keep going.

The pastor changed twice in the last decade and the congregation thinned each time, the way it does. My mother knows everyone. When she calls me on a Tuesday and tells me about somebody from the church she is worried about, I have to ask her three follow-up questions before I can place who they are. Half of those people watched me grow up. That is a strange thing to think about while doing dishes.