She was on her knees, repeating her hail Maries over and over again, her fingers tangled in her rosary, clutching it so tight that crimson dripped freely down her palm. She rocked back and forth, sobbing and gasping as she prayed. The scene of her husband, dying with poison flickered through her mind... Her mother's face with that serene smile as she handed tea to her only daughter... oh, the pain! The loss of the ones she loved most in the world wrapped around her like a tightly fisted hand, grief choking at her just as she began to beg God to take her too... Take her to see her baby, to see her loving husband.

And then all at once, numbness surrounded her, and she sat despondent and silent for a time.

Oh, God, she thought, when would the pain of losing them go away??

She finally moved to sit in the pew, cleaning the blood from her palm with a cloth and stashing her bloodied beads away.

She ignored the priest as he made his way around, his words going in one ear and out the other, and then a look of pity when he recognized her grief for what it was. She heard him utter some kind of prayer but did not listen to the words...