The Girl Who Wore Jordans

Chapter Twenty-One

Salem, MA is the place where the witch trials took place back in the late 1600s (A lot of people were wrongfully prosecuted due to other's greed and ambition), is now known as the "The Halloween Capital Of The World", and is on the rather sketchy side.

Chapter Twenty-One

I walked into the grim, stain glass adorned church, my mother by my side. On such a tragic day as this, I didn’t object when my mom gave me what to wear… though, at any other time, I would have in a heartbeat. We were both wearing black, but, thankfully, weren’t matching. She had on a modestly tailored suit that fit her petite body perfectly, and gave a strong sense of professionalism.

      On my body lay a tight-fitting dress that stopped right above the knee. It was sleeveless, revealing toned, shoulder muscles that weren’t generally exposed. The dress didn’t exactly seem appropriate for the occasion, but my mom assured me it was just fine. My feet were forced into a pair of platform heels, making me appear even more unnaturally tall than I already was. By the end of this day, it would be a miracle if I didn’t sprain my ankle.

      We passed by rows of people, sitting, their faces in their hands, crying in angst over the unjust loss we were commemorating. My own face was flushed of all color, not yet tearing up. I followed my mother as she came up to a row in the middle of the church, sliding in. We sat down, as she said a few somber words to the person next to her.

      At the front of the church, I could just make out a casket. A priest was standing at a podium, gravely saying words of condolences to the Bianchi family. I saw Theresa Bianchi, Marcus’s mother, by her husband, weeping. The priest began to speak, and set up the outline for the next hour or so; sufficed to say it wasn’t a pleasant task to preform.

      How did one deal with such melancholy junctures as this on a regular basis? It made absolutely no sense to me why anyone would become a priest, let alone work in the dismal funeral business. It was simply too depressing.

      The priest then asked Theresa to say a few words about her son. She got up, teary-eyed, took his place at the podium, and spoke.

      “When Marcus was just three,” she started steadily, looking out at the crowd with blurred eyes, “he learned how to ride a tricycle. Once, he was riding around outside, and somehow managed to fall. Angelo and I rushed over to see if he was okay. We noticed he had scraped his knee, and it was bleeding. Angelo rushed back into the house to grab a Band-Aid as I hugged and tried to comfort him. He didn’t cry once. He told us it hurt, but never once did that boy cry. He was so strong…” her voice broke off, stopping for a brief moment. “Marcus was strong then, and if he was here with us now, he would want us too to be strong for him.”

      I couldn’t listen to this. I stood up abruptly, excusing myself from the pew, as my mother shook her head disapprovingly. I didn’t care. My shoes clomped down the aisle, as heads turned to see who dared to leave. Behind me, I heard another pair of heavy footsteps, but that too didn’t matter to me.

      Marcus was dead and being in the chapel made me want to explode with anguish. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen when he passed, and still had his entire life ahead of him. It wasn’t fair! What did Marcus do to deserve the ill-fated, ultimate consequence of death? Why couldn’t a murderer have been in that car crash instead of Marcus? Life wasn’t fair.

      As I reached the door of the sanctuary, my fingers wrapped around a brass handle, pulling it open. I stepped out of the church room, and kept walking. Eventually, I came to the external door of the church, and pushed it open, my body instantly being hit with rays of warm sunlight and the frigid October air of Boston that I had missed so much.