body of her Son. Around me, shutters clicked, lights flashed, film whirred. I could feel a palpable kind of energy as people pushed and shoved their way to the front, but I expected their excitement was fueled less from the idea that they were staring at the marble masterpiece than by the fact that this seemed to be the only statue in the whole basilica that could fit inside the frame of a thirty-five-millimeter camera.
I whipped my Elph up to my eye and zoomed in. I poised my finger on the shutter button.
"There you are, Emily." I froze at the sound of my mother's voice behind me. "Have you seen your grandmother? I've been telling her to stay close by me so I can protect her from being crushed to death by the crowd, but she keeps disappearing. I'm afraid this can only mean one thing." She let out a woeful sigh. "Her hearing's gone. First thing when we get back home, I'm calling the Miracle Ear people."
My mom stood an inch over five feet and was as soft and round as a pigeon -- kind of like a Midwestern version of Bette Midler. She had a moon face, round blue eyes that crinkled at the corners, a cap of wavy salt-and-pepper hair, and a fanny pack that bulged at her waist like an Igloo cooler. I looked nothing like my mom. I was taller and thinner, with an unruly mop of shoulder-length dark brown hair, cheekbones you could actually see, and enough fashion sense never to allow a fanny pack anywhere near my waist. Neither Mom nor I had inherited Nana's bulbous nose or Alfred E. Newman ears. Sometimes you just luck out.
Mom glanced beyond me, riveting her attention on the glassed-in altar. "Oh, my goodness, Michelangelo's Pieta. Did you know I have a photo of this very statue from the 1964 New York World's Fair? You have to get a picture of that, Em. Here. Give me your bag so you can maneuver a little better." She grabbed my shoulder strap with one hand, gave it a tug, and let out a surprised gasp when it broke loose from her fingers and fell to the floor with an echoing thunk. I stooped down to grab it.
So did she.
"You must feel so bogged down toting this thing around, Em." She gave the breathable nylon fiber a possessive pat. "Why don't you let me carry it for you?"
I manacled my hand around the strap. "You're sweet to offer, but I can manage. Besides, it's too heavy for you."
"Heavy? This little bag of yours? Really, Emily, it's light as a feather."
Sure it was. That's why it was sitting on the floor.
"Think how much nicer it would be for you if I carried it," she continued. "Imagine the wonderful things you could do if your hands were freed up."
I gave her an expectant look. "Like...?"
"Well...you...you..." She shot a quick look around her. "You could bless yourself. And with Vatican holy water! I bet the water here is much holier than it is back home."
This was so like my mom. It was bred in her bones to want to make everyone's life better, to be generous to a fault, to be responsible for everyone's happiness. But she always ended up going overboard, like putting whole heads of lettuce on a sandwich when a single leaf would do, or arranging the cold medications in your bathroom in alphabetical order during the commercial breaks of TV shows. She'd been on a tear about alphabetizing stuff ever since she'd started volunteering at the local library. Dad was doing his best to keep her away from alphabet soup, but it was a constant worry for him.
"Here's the scoop, Mom," I reasoned, trying to "out-nice" her. "You want to show Dad what the inside of the basilica looks like, don't you? If you're saddled with my bag, you won't be able to take pictures yourself."
She crooked her mouth slightly and spoke in an undertone. "Maybe you haven't noticed, Em, but most of the statues around here are the size of forage silos. Who can take pictures? Besides, I read an article in The Catholic Herald that hinted it might be sacrilegious to take photographs in places as holy as this." She gave my arm an encouraging squeeze. "But don't let that stop you. If you didn't read the article, it probably won't count as a sin for you."