The door didn't creak when she pushed her way in from the rain-soaked street. This was unusual; she had always recalled that unique creak the old wooden door would offer up to the parishioners.
She took a seat near the front of the church; the same seat where she'd sat these last twenty-six years. It was in that seat that she had first held Luke's hand, and she had sat there during her mother's funeral service.
Today the pew was cold. Not cold like the dreary cobble lane she had walked tonight to get here. But empty, somehow. Cold, like the eyes of Father O'Dwyer as he told her Luke's helicopter had gone down.
Bible in hand, she turned to Matthew, chapter seven, and read the words: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find…
She slammed the heavy book closed. The echo cut the silence of the near-empty sanctuary without even whisper of penance. She flitted up to the altar and fell to her knees.
Where are you, God? the tiny voice in her head pleaded. "I'm seeking and seeking and still not finding!" Her words were starting to slip out of her mouth and into the dimly-light church.
And then, another voice was in her head -- very faint yet loud enough to catch her attention and settle her a bit. She tried desperately to discern the words, straining in vain for even a fragment of something firm, something familiar.
He's not there.
The voice was her own, she'd decided while she walked back home that night. It had always been her own but she was just now ready to admit it to herself. And even though that idea seemed scary now, it somehow comforted her at the same time.
She pushed the big wooden door open, and the creak with which it responded formed a smile on her face. The rain had stopped outside, and on the spring air, a fresh smell of wet lilacs accompanied her on her way.
But she couldn't completely smile until she had reached her home.
"Hi honey," Luke's warm voice greeted her.
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Comments: 1
I think it's interesting that only after she'd admitted to herself there was no god did the door creak, the rain stop, and her lover return. While I see this as an affirmation of her realization, others will say it's God showing himself to her.
Tiny personal notes: I'd like to suggest putting thoughts or internal dialogue in italics, since it clarifies when someone is speaking or thinking without putting "she thought" or "he thought" after every line, and leave the quotation marks for spoken dialogue.
If you decide to keep posting fiction (I noticed this is your first go at it) you may want to check out the Writer's Nook.