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Show CHAPTER TWELVE Christmas Mass was full, overflowing as it always was, with people crowding the church she had not seen since last Easter. Their faces and clothes were washed in a light rosey tint from the winter sun flooding the stained glass windows. She caught herself looking through the crowd for young people-young women in their new dresses, and especially, young men in their suits-and went back to listening, vaguely, to the sermon. Father Cooney was a short, wiry man, but up on the pulpit in his red garments he seemed as large as his full voice, which touched every corner of the modern church. It was a beautiful church, all fresh wood and new steel, with brass statues; all these materials, all these objects, were already comfortable with this priest, they already seemed an extension of him. He was exhorting those members who only came on special days, on Easter and Christmas, to attend regularly, his usual Christmas sermon. The kids were better behaved than usual this morning, not as restless. They sat along the pew on each side of her, their thoughts filled with the new toys they had received that morning, with Jeanne anchoring one end and David the other. The toys were cheap plastic and cardboard, flimsy, but there were a great many of them. And, she reflected, although cheap and flimsy in her eyes, the toys were not so in their eyes, they were quite excited by them. The toys would not last long, some would probably not last out the week. But then they would provide a diversion, a help when tending the kids during the evenings |