Disclaimer: These characters belong to Aaron Sorkin and the masterpiece that is the 2006 television series Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. I am not making any profit from this except for a little writing practice.
Harriet pulled the curtains open to reveal the Sunday morning sunlight streaming through the frosted glass windows of the church's quiet room.
All the children had been called up to the altar by Deacon Paul at the beginning of the service and had followed her into the room. There were about fourteen of them plus her own two, all primary school-aged. They weren't so much eager to pay attention to the half hour lesson on the loaves and fishes she had prepared and more interested in not having to sit through the talking part of the mass. Harriet supposed their eagerness also had a lot to do with parents pushing the children down the aisle to follow Harriet to the back of the church so they could have half an hour of free babysitting.
Harriet took a seat on the cushioned pew beneath the window. She didn't mind that most of the kids would prefer to colour in the picture she'd printed from the book of approved activities or do the word search or maze on the back of the piece of paper. She didn't even mind that she was missing the homily, or that she couldn't do the first reading, to do so. Harriet volunteered so that she could ask any of the questions the children asked.
She liked talking about her faith and couching it in simple terms to explain why she chose to belong to the church community. She had a lot of practice explaining it to her husband, after all.
Even if the small congregation of under twelves didn't ask anything, Harriet could count on two of them at least half-listening. Her children took after their father in that regard. Both had long patrician noses and glossy dark hair and neither particularly liked getting up early on a Sunday morning to go to mass, but her son had Matthew's watery blue eyes that shone with interest whenever Harriet spoke and her younger daughter beamed up at her whenever she heard Harriet's voice.
In recent weeks, something even better had happened, their boy had actually taken the reins and answered the questions one of his friends had posed to Harriet. She couldn't remember ever being prouder.
Until a moment later, when her daughter had decided she'd outgrown sitting at Harriet's feet in favour of standing up, approaching the new girl, and offering to share her favourite pink crayon with the daughter of the new parishioners.
Harriet laid out two corduroy pencil cases against the pew beside her and her colouring in sheets beside them. According to her volunteer guidelines, she only had to talk for about five minutes, outlining the story of the Gospel for the week. This week it was a parable about seeds and candles but Harriet had decided she was only going to talk about the shortest part of the verse "Nobody having lit a candle covers it or hides it. They set it on a candlestick so that all may see the light."
She wasn't too sure on how far she'd have to simplify its message, but Harriet figured she could as a few questions: Who has candles in their home? And would you hide that beneath a bowl? What would happen if you did? What do you think the light represents?
A lot of these children were regulars and had fairly devout parents, so she expected most of them would understand and participate in the short discussion before she let them come up single file and grab the candlestick colouring sheet. The children leaned on the wooden floor as they all sat crosslegged in a weirdly casual version of three lines like in a classroom, almost as though they were used to sitting in straight lines in school and couldn't quite fathom that they didn't have to because this wasn't school.
The children were fairly well behaved, used to the fact they needed to talk in hushed tones lest the churchgoers hear them. It took a lot of Harriet's self-control not to inquire further about the schoolyard stories some of them were telling. But she turned her attention to looking out the window across from her to gauge where the priest was up to in the service.
The kids had been fairly good about volunteering to take up the offertory, picking Kyle who hadn't done it before, and Stephanie who was confident she could show the boy how to do it properly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Harriet saw a shadow in the doorway and turned her attention to the figure.
She rolled her eyes.
Her husband was completely predictable and contradictory. He refused to let Harriet take the kids to church herself, didn't want anyone to get the idea that he didn't wholly support their faith, but he could only sit still through a service on a couple of key religious dates - Palm Sunday, Easter, the Sundays of Advent. Harriet wouldn't have minded if that was all Matt put up with. She wouldn't have minded if he attended less, the fact that they sent their children to a Christian school was enough for her. But not her husband. Matt drove them to Sunday mass and then volunteered with a couple of the other fathers - Harriet wasn't sure if it was more of a boys club or an anti-religious one - who counted the money from the collections during the service. It took the entire hour, or thereabout, and she and the kids always came out of the service at ten a.m. to find Matt waiting for them in the sunshine of the carpark with a couple of the other dads and they'd drive on to the beach or to Jordan and Danny's, or some other activity they'd planned as a family.
Briefly, Harriet wondered why Matt had poked his head in, but he was very much like their son, thoroughly curious about everything and oddly attracted to the idea of her teaching.
Harriet corralled the textas and crayons back into the pencil cases up at the front where she sat and ushered all the children towards the door, Simon and Vanessa at the front so she could give them the objects for the offertory, the others nodding when she told them they could make their way back to their parents in silence as long as they didn't run. Most of the little ones had tight lips and grave expressions, overly serious as if they were vowing to be as quiet as a mouse just like she has asked. All except Alex, the freckled boy with the mischievous grin.
She watched as Matt backed out of the doorway into the church's lobby to make room for the kids, lifting their daughter into a hug the moment she approached him. Their ten-year-old raced back to the front of the church to sit with his friend from school and Harriet's bag with a quick wave to his father.
Harriet moved with her group, waving back at Alex who, despite appearances and some horror stories from his parents, really was the sweetest.
"Alright," she whispered to Kyle. "Now this is the bread. And Steph, here's the water. Careful," she made sure the girl's little fingers were grasping the glass gingerly. "It's heavy. Do you remember what you're doing?"
Kyle nodded. "We walk up together and bow at the steps."
"Perfect," Harriet grinned, timed perfectly with the first few bars of the processional hymn, and sent the children up the aisle before sidling up to Matt.
"You know you can come in, Matthew," Harriet stroked her right hand down Matthew's arm. "Everyone is welcome."
Matthew blinked, his smile slowly growing to a borderline patronising smirk. He looked like he was about to begin a debate with her about membership and competing faiths but remembering the five-year-old in his arms stopped him from doing so.
Nearly a decade ago, Harriet had thought Matt was a natural uncle to little Rebecca Tripp. Those were the days when a relationship, but not necessarily marriage, had been on the cards for the pair of them. A little while later, she had thought that having a son suited Matthew Albie perfectly, a little boy who mimicked everything his father did, someone who loved kicking a ball with him and singing goofy shopping songs from that kiddie CD in the car. But Matthew with a daughter was something else. The man had always been overly affectionate and loved hugging and playing and spoiling their children, a sucker for whimpering bottom lips and big, sad eyes, but he had absolutely no willpower when it came to their daughter. He claimed it was because she was the spitting image of Harriet but Harriet suspected it had more to do with the fact their daughter knew just when to play the sweet and innocent card to wrap her father around her finger.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
"Got out early," he smiled as though that explained everything. "Wanted to say 'hi.'"
"Hi," Harriet chuckled. "What are you really doing?"
Matthew's cheeks turned red at his cheekbones. "I like it when the kids call you Mrs Albie."
She giggled, sharing the sentiment. In the ten years since she'd taken it, her married name had always inspired awe in her. Not many people called her by it because her maiden name was still her name in the Screen Actors Guild.
"You also like learning about this stuff," she coaxed. "Admit it."
Matt shook his head, his greying hair flopping at his temples. "Only from you."
He bent down to deposit their daughter on her feet, stroking a hand down her perfectly zig-zagged pigtails and pressed his lips against Harriet's cheek.
"Now get in there, you'll miss the big finale."
"It's mass, Matt," Harriet laughed, readying herself to return to her seat with one last smile at her husband. "IIt'snot a production. It doesn't have a big finale."
He muttered something Harriet couldn't quite hear but she looked over her shoulder back at him, bathed in golden sunlight. He was smiling but he'd probably said something snide. Whatever it was, she couldn't wait to debate it with him.