“Yes,” she sighed, “it’s my real name.” Mary Meaux dejectedly signed her name to the ticket that the server offered before setting it back down on the table amidst the remains of their Mexican dinner. Her husband, Beau – “Yes, that’s really his name, too,” she all too often had to say – was working late, and so she had the entire brood to herself. Shuttling five children to and from the nursery/daycare, then getting them all fed, then back home to begin the ordeal of getting them showered, homework done (in theory, at least), and then finally to bed… it wasn’t exactly easy. Doing this with a husband who claimed to be working late far too often and bringing home far too little money for doing so made life a living hell.

“…in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Mary sighed as she put her ornately worked rosary back into its velvet bag. Each of its beads were beautifully polished to a shine – as much from their constant use as from their original quality craftsmanship. Truthfully, it was her most prized possession, the only thing of any kind of quality that she owned in her small, entirely overcrowded house. Her faith, really, was the only thing that kept her going. It was a product of her troubled first pregnancy (more…)