Gemini Rain Read Online Free Page B

friend’s eyes but she also didn’t w ant to push her too much. Gentle persuasion she hoped was the call for today.
    Lauren’s mother Patricia then arrived with a tray of coffee, toast and cigarettes. ‘Sit and eat,’ was her stern greeting, ‘We can’t have you collapsing half way through the morning, can we?’
    Debbie ’s head turned sharply to Patricia but then she felt Lauren’s ha nd resting on her arm making Debbie’s anger go into hibernation one more time, perhaps for the hundredth time in the past three days. ‘ How these two women could be related, ’ Debbie shook her head as she retraced her steps towards the kitchen.
    Not wanting to acknowledge the continuing presence of her mother Lauren quietly sat down picking up the coffee cup then reaching for the cigarettes. The children, never ones to miss the chance of nourishment ate the toast, silently watching cartoons until the car arrived. Emma quickly side-glanced her Mammy as she lit her cigarette, ‘ she never smoked in the house before ,’ she thought, ‘ I don’t like the smell and Keith said so too.  When will she start going outside again I wonder, when will she ever stop again, I don’t like her smoking ,’ Emma decided to talk to Auntie Debbie later to see if they could make a plan to save Mammy.
    The drive to St. Canice’s church was familiar with the limousine smoothly moving through the mixture of large private semi red-brick and small Dublin Corporation grey housing estates, then past the girl ’ s primary school stuck between the houses and the main shopping areas. It didn’t take long before the entourage glided silently up the hilly drive to the large imposing granite church.
    Thinking it was strategically built there with the church overlooking the different housing estates to remind its minions that thi s was what Ireland was built on, Lauren felt that domination was now just bricks and mortar as more and more people were choosing rather than fearing. As one of her atheist friends put it, ‘like any dictator or powerful institution, the Catholic Church is leaving behind its beautiful buildings and statues – monuments to a power that was.’
    Even though Lauren believed this to be partly true , she also had her own ideals ensuring her children attend weekly services, carrying out the normal traditions of a Catholic family. ‘When they grow up, like me they’ll make their own choice,’ she would argue, ‘to inflict my own opinions on them would be exactly what the C atholic C hurch and many other faiths did for years.’   
    Once inside the church Lauren fe lt like she was watching a play - an act floating above the larger than expected congregation. ‘ Yes, I am dreaming, this just doesn’t feel like the real thing ’ , she thought. After the hour-long service people came forward to shake her hand, the ir faces passing quickly with everyone re minding her of the past near 11 years, of events both happy and sad she shared with Peter. Well el e ve n and a half years if you include our brief courtship, Lauren smiled at the memory. Looking around the church ‘I got married in this church, what a happy, exciting day that was ’ , but then she realised ‘my life is in this church - m y own christening, communion, confirmation, marriage and even my children’s christening and now my husband’s funeral - Shite, what a way to sum up your existence!’ It gave her some slight self-assurance that maybe, just maybe her decision for the future was the right one, f or herself and more importantly now for her children.
    The stream of people was never-ending with some either patting or rubbing the top of Emma and Keith heads. Emma who was getting ever so slightly miffed because people were messing up her hair, held up her hand as high as their chests so they would get the hint. Lauren couldn’t help but smile at the vanity of her seven -year-old daughter, she was becom ing so grown up and concerned about her looks already ,