One Thin Dime

The heavy doors at the entrance were wedged open. Paul's father was looking out into the rain. In the wooden seats to Paul's right, his mother was chewing her lip. He hoped she'd stay sitting down. Luckily not many had come, after all. There were only eight of them altogether. Paul's father whispered to the man next to him. He was rubbing his hands on his hair, trying to flatten it. Then he wiped them on his soutane, or whatever Anglicans called it. Paul had wanted something civil. Lee had been insistent; 'it's the nearest thing to Episcopalian. The best we can do. How would I tell the family back home?' Paul had acquiesced, why not? It was a small thing.

His watch showed 11.15. The clergyman caught his eye, raised his eyebrows and his shoulders. Paul held up five fingers. His mum tutted, loud in the quiet of the church. Paul felt an elbow in his ribs. His brother smirked at him, took the ring box out. Paul felt in his pocket for the small coin. "10 cents, keep it in your pocket, you'll always have 10 cents, I do, for luck," Lee had said, in the morning, afterwards. Lee would always have 10 cents and that million dollar smile.

'Don't worry, it'll be okay,' his brother said.

Paul still hoped it might be.

His dad and the vicar shut the heavy doors and walked together up the aisle, heads close, whispering.

'I'm sorry, Paul...' the Vicar began.

There was a loud knocking on the oak doors. Paul and his brother looked at each other. Paul ran for the doors and swung them open.

There was no one there. Just the word 'Sorry' spray-painted on the step. A man's shoe lay next to it. One thin dime sat inside the shoe, glistening in the rain.