When you walk into the nave, everything opens up and the inside seems even bigger than the outside, somehow. “Everybody in this neighborhood does.” I didn’t get the joke then, but now I do. “More likely they ran out of money,” she had answered, touching the back of my head as we walked up toward the gray stone castle. When I told my ma that, I remember her laughing, a certain low and gently rueful laugh she’s had her whole life, which I’m sure was appreciated by the Cathedral priests and anyone else who has ever needed to hear a laugh perfect for when things are so hopeless that they’re also a little bit funny. You can almost feel a strange sort of tension and possibility in the air above, as if at any moment a spire still might fall magically from the sky to fill the emptiness. Instead, there is a big tower stretching up into the sky until it suddenly stops short and squares off, like a partially completed homework assignment. My ma had told me that the cathedral was supposed to have a grand spire.
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