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The sound of drawers opening and closing, light sock-wearing footsteps falling on the floor, and muttered curses slowly roused Emma from her sleep. She blinked a few times, adjusting to the soft light filtering in through the curtains she’d hung on the windows, then glanced around their loft apartment to find Spinner staring at himself in the mirror near their bed, fiddling with a necktie.
Her eyes lazily floated to the clock on the bedside table. It was nine in the morning, which wasn’t an unreasonable hour to be awake except for the fact it was Sunday. And Spinner didn’t even have to work today. He should have been in bed, sleeping in with her until at least noon, when they’d wake up and make a vegetarian Sunday brunch and watch old horror movies together.
“What are you doing?” she rasped.
Spinner jumped slightly. “I didn’t know you were awake. Did I wake you?”
“Kinda,” said Emma, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Sorry. I’m getting ready for church.”
“Huh?” Emma blurted. “You what?”
“Yeah. I haven’t been in ages. I kind of dabbled in religion when I dated Darcy back in high school and I dunno. Kind of fell out of it, I guess.” He shrugged, straightening his tie. He must have decided that it still didn’t look right, as he huffed and untied it to try again.
“I didn’t know you considered yourself a Christian.” She shook her head. Marrying someone on a whim sure meant finding out a lot of surprises.
“I don’t think I do, but maybe I’ll get back into it,” he said, as if Christianity were a hobby. “I mean, the main thing is that Christians are always going on about premarital sex, which was a major bummer before. But,” Spinner gestured between them, “I’m married now, so sex is cool with them.”
Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. “What about the sexism and homophobia?”
Spinner scoffed. “Kinda judgey. Not all churches are like that, you know?”
“Do you really think they’ll accept you when they find out you got married while you were black out drunk?” she continued.
“Look, I’m just going to one church service. It’s not that serious.” He threw the tie off, giving up on it altogether. “It’s not like I asked you to come with me.”
“Why not?” Emma asked, getting out of bed. “Don’t you think going to church is a family thing?”
“I didn’t wanna pressure you to go if you weren’t into it.”
“I never want anyone to accuse me of being close-minded.” Emma pulled one of her more modest dresses from their closet; it hung just above her knees. Realizing it was sleeveless, she grabbed a cardigan to throw on with it. “I’ll come, too.”
“Cool,” said Spinner, with his lopsided, puppy dog smile.
Emma felt uncomfortable. Spike hadn’t really raised her to be religious; she didn’t even necessarily believe in God. She knew that the Christian kids at school always annoyed her. Yeah, Emma might ride on a high horse of her own, but at least she was progressive. When they entered the sanctuary of the church nearest their apartment, she pulled Spinner to a seat in the back.
“Shy?” he teased as his butt hit the pew.
“I want to be able to make a quick getaway if they start talking about wives submitting to their husbands.”
“I don’t know if I should take offense to that or…”
Emma shoved Spinner’s arm playfully as the pipe organ started up. Everyone around them stood and started singing the words projected on the screens.
“Do we stand even if we don’t know the song?” Emma asked.
Spinner stood up and tried to sing along, but none of the notes were right. Emma smiled at his efforts, deciding not to sing herself but still stand in solidarity with him. He glanced at her and smiled.
After the singing, they passed a tithe plate around, which Spinner dropped a fiver in. “They gotta keep the lights on,” he whispered.
Emma rolled her eyes. If money was so corrupting, why did they ask for it? But she supposed Spinner was right. They surely have expenses to keep up with.
The sermon was about the incarnation of Jesus, which Emma didn’t really understand. Nevertheless, it was intellectually stimulating enough and they didn’t talk about gays or patriarchy or anything fire and brimstone, so it wasn’t too awful.
After that, they sang another song and then prayed a prayer. Emma kept her eyes open and looked around the room. Honestly, she was surprised by the diversity. There were old people, of course, but young people, too. She thought she might recognize someone from her literature class. There were white people, Asian people, black people. Some people wore suits. Some people wore jeans and t-shirts. She was going to mention this to Spinner, but she saw that he had his eyes clamped shut along with everyone else, so she stayed quiet until the pastor said “Amen” and the congregants started milling around again.
“What did you think?” Spinner asked.
“It wasn’t so bad,” Emma replied, picking up her bag. “I didn’t understand a word of the message, though.”
“Jesus is God and man,” Spinner summarized.
“How does that work?” Emma asked.
“It is a mystery,” a middle aged man interjected with a mustachioed grin. “Hi, I’m Robert. I haven’t seen you two here before.”
“I’m Gavin Mason,” said Spinner. “And this is my wife, Emma Nelson.”
“But everyone calls him Spinner,” Emma said uncomfortably.
“You two are married?” the man asked with his eyebrow raised.
Emma sighed. Since she and Spinner had gotten married a few months ago, she’d had to explain herself and their decision so many times. She was tired of defending it.
“That’s great!” Robert said. “It’s nice to see young people getting married.”
“You don’t think we’re too young?” Spinner asked. Clearly, he’d had the same thing on his mind as Emma.
“Of course not,” said Robert. “I married my high school sweetheart twenty five years ago the day after graduation. Best decision of my life. There she is, over there.” He pointed a few pews over to a rather stout, red headed woman who was laughing with an older lady with silvery blue hair. He looked back at them. “As long as you’re seriously committed to making things work, there’s no reason you two can’t go the distance, right?”
“Totally!” Emma agreed.
“Well, I’ll let you both go. It was nice meeting you, and I hope we see you here again.” Robert waved and left.
“That was nice,” Spinner said. “I feel like he’s the first adult since we got married who didn’t question us.”
“I know,” Emma agreed. “Still, he might change his tune if he knew how drunk we were.”
Spinner laughed. “Come on, let’s go get something to eat before the Baptist Church lets out and the restaurants are packed.”
Emma took Spinner’s hand as they left the church together. She never would have darkened the door of the place if they hadn’t gotten married. She wondered what other new experiences he would drag her into. At least this one wasn’t as bad as she worried it would be.