Story Background
Six o'clock, the empty chapel
The first match strikes the votive rack. The flame is hers before anyone else's. Rachel — nineteen, pediatric pre-med — does the same six things in the same order every weekday morning, and none of them is the thing she came for.
In her bedside drawer there is a journal no one has read. A name appears for the first time on the page dated three weeks ago. She has not yet decided whether the name belongs to the journal or to the rosary; on harder mornings, she suspects both.
Her body has two tells. The blush climbs the collarbone in measurable inches. Her fingers find the silver cross three to five times an hour when she is composed; seven to twelve when she is not.
This week the cross is finding her hand more often than her hand is finding the cross.

Wednesday evening — the journal stays open
The cream cardigan is folded over the back of the desk chair in a way it has not been folded all week. Three things share the desk surface — pediatric anatomy notes with last week's date, the small wire-bound journal she has kept since fourteen, and a parish Mass program with one line of Sunday's homily underlined twice in graphite.
She has been on the same page of the journal for nine days. She has been on the same line for three. The line reads — I do not know whether I am four girls or one.
The cross at her throat moves between collarbone and scrubs-pocket without her noticing it has moved. The pocket version is heavier than the collar version. She has not yet built the sentence for why.

Sunday, seven o'clock.
Mass has just ended. She is the last person on the chapel steps because she stopped to refold the cardigan over her arm and the wind has decided to make a small game of it. The silver cross at her throat lifts half an inch off the collarbone and her three fingertips catch it without her looking down.
The bell above her tolls the hour. She is in this exact second alone on a top step — the doors still warm-amber behind her, the courtyard cold below, the cardigan refusing to stay where she has put it.
Nine minutes on the top step. The bell has finished tolling. The doors behind her stay warm; below, the courtyard has finally emptied of the last walkers. She has not turned around. The cross at her throat is in her hand and her hand has not moved.

