Sermon on the Rocks

It always began when Mommy suddenly stood, her upper-middle-aged body rising from the sofa to hover above me, distant as the ceiling of a Gothic cathedral. The nave we called our living room would be rocked by seismic forces: the waves of noon sunlight that defied the ever-closed draperies, instantly calcifying into particles that collided with my retinas and temples like the stones that slew the martyrs.

Another Sermon on the Rocks.

At five, I couldn’t understand that Mommy’s slurred shards of moral insight weren’t gleaned from the Bible, but from Norman Vincent Peale. From Adam Smith or Barry Goldwater.

“God helps those who help themselves.”

Or from Sandra Dee in the movie Tammy.

“Que será, será. Whatever will be, will be,” always the hymn of choice.

Mommy would end each of her exhortations with an emphatic, “Truly, truly,” accompanied by her bouncing index finger aimed straight at my heart.

Waggy, waggy.

I could just envision Mary Mother of God rising to heaven on my own mommy’s rocking digit of a cloud. Jolted by turbulence, as nauseous as if still pregnant, the Virgin and her posse of winged bodyguards were surely ascending and descending from this improvised Jacob’s Ladder.

And I knew that, too soon, Mommy would communicate the last of the prophecies distilled from that morning’s vermouth.

A bona fide terrorist threat.

“I won’t be here forever, you know. Truly.” Waggy.

“Truly.” Wag, wag.

The anointing lifted, Mommy would be translated to the sofa, where she would fold the imperfect body Daddy so loathed into fetal position; smaller, smaller still, like human origami.

She was our household oracle.

I, her true believer.

Vicki Nyman studied writing in Hamline University’s MFA program. Her essays have been accepted by journals including Relief, PressPausePress, and Caveat Lector. Originally from Chicago, Vicki now happily lives in Minneapolis after two interminably long decades in rural Minnesota. She loves Chopin, Chapo Trap House and her near-omnipotent Irish Wolfhound.