TORN by CASEY HILL

Melanie scuttled around the kitchen – she was thirty-two years old, but could have passed for anything from twenty to forty. She wore a gray woolen skirt, pale blouse, baby-blue cardigan.  Her shoulder-length brown hair was scraped back in a tight ponytail, her thin face free of make-up.
    The kettle rattled as it boiled, and Melanie pulled two matching mugs from the cupboard, dropped the teabags in and poured the hot water, the steam rising up briefly to wreathe her face. ‘I’ve been thinking …’
    Chris looked at her carefully, knowing by her tone exactly what was coming. He folded his hands in front of him on the table. ‘You promised.’
    She reached for a tea towel, and began wringing the end of it fiercely between her hands, wrapping it tighter and tighter until her knuckles were white and stretched.
    Chris leaned forward, tried to make eye contact with her. ‘Mel, it’s been almost a year. The psychologist said—’
      ‘ I know!’ she snapped. She kept her back to him, ignoring his imploring looks. ‘And I will, I will …’
    ‘But not just yet,’ he finished softly.
    ‘Not just yet,’ Melanie repeated. She set the two mugs of tea on the table and finally turned to look at Chris. Then, in a flash, her face changed and her eyes brightened. ‘Oh, you bought me a packet of digestives!’ she beamed. ‘You’re so good to me, Chris. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
    Chris smiled, his heart automatically softening at the sight of the rare, but achingly familiar smile.
    Be patient, he told himself.  Give it time.  Just a little more time … 
     

     
     

 
Chapter 12
     
    Father Byrne never felt closer to God than at this time of day, and in this place. Just before dawn, when the cold gray of the early morning fog shrouded the area, he turned the key in the wrought-iron lock. The hinges on the heavy wooden door groaned as he opened it to enter the beautiful old country church.
    Such a shame to see it falling into decline, the priest thought, but with so few parishioners in the area and St Joseph’s only two miles away in Blessington, the parish couldn’t keep the building permanently open. The best they could do was morning communion once a week. There was no lighting, the electrics being decades old and in complete disrepair. And sadly, these days the numbers were dwindling, the faith of the flock sorely tested by revelation after revelation about dark moments in the Church’s past. 
    Father Byrne liked to get in early and make sure everything was in order before nine o’clock Mass. In truth, he enjoyed spending time in this wonderful old building. There were so few like it in Ireland these days, and he admired  its traditional features: rough stonework, mahogany carvings, and of course the awe-inspiring stained-glass windows above the altar.
    It was a calm, peaceful location; the opposite of the functional, purpose-built church in the town. The interior was small, the gray stone walls wearing a tired look. Ten rows of wooden pews ran up each side of the central aisle, cloaked in shadows.
    He walked down the aisle, marveling how, at this time of day, the colored glass caught the light and redistributed it throughout the interior in myriad rainbow s as though God Himself was sprinkling the room with His light and love.
    Heading into the vestry, Father Byrne hung up his robes. A movement outside caught his eye, and he moved towards the tiny window that looked out over the church’s expansive rear grounds.
    Magpies, circling the hawthorn tree.
    The birds were always plentiful around here, and he’d spied many of them on his way in. Yet this morning they seemed oddly … agitated. And there were so many; considerably more than was typical.
    For reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, Father Byrne felt compelled to investigate what was making the magpies so excitable. He had plenty of time; it was just before eight, and worshippers wouldn’t begin to arrive for another half-hour or