Free Heaven Is Paved with Oreos by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

the church bigger and fancier, even in the Middle Ages. Then, in 1823, a workman accidentally burned the building down. It was a huge tragedy.
    Miss Hesselgrave visited after they rebuilt it, and she said the new church is “beneath contempt”—those are her exact words. I have to admit the outside doesn’t have the tingly feeling of some of the other churches I’ve seen in Rome. Maybe that’s why Z remembers it, because it is so untingly. This church could be a library in Minneapolis. There were hardly any people either, just some parked tour buses that I didn’t pay attention to because you see tour buses in Rome wherever the streets are big enough for buses.
    But Z did look at the buses, and then she stared at them, and she grabbed my arm and pointed. Some of the buses had red crosses painted on their sides and wheelchair ramps. One of the buses had its door open, so you could see inside. The bus didn’t have any seats. It only had beds—beds and IV poles. Because the people riding that bus were too sick to sit up.
    Seeing that gave me goose bumps. Already I had goose bumps.
    Then we went inside.
    Like I said, there was almost no one there. But you could still hear people singing. The singers weren’t a choir in robes like you’d have in Wisconsin, but normal people who were marching down the center of the church—normal touristy people, only some of them had crutches and leg braces, and a lot of them were in wheelchairs. One man was playing a guitar as they walked. Even though I couldn’t understand the words, it was the saddest, most beautiful song I have ever heard in my life.
    They were pilgrims. Real pilgrims, not interested-in-art pilgrims like us, or bossy sort-of pilgrims like Miss Hesselgrave. They weren’t wearing brown or carrying walking sticks or hiking to Rome from the freezing Alps, but that didn’t matter. They were pilgrims who had traveled to this church because they had faith that St. Paul could help them.
    When the pilgrims got to the main altar of the church, they all knelt down—even the people in wheelchairs who could kneel—and they prayed in another language, and then they sang some more.
    By this time we were near the altar as well, sitting off to the side. I wished Paul was with us. He would really appreciate this music.
    I looked over at Z. She was crying. I thought she was crying because the music was so beautiful and sad, and maybe she was. But she looked so depressed—she looked even sadder than music can make someone look.
    I wanted to say,
Isn’t it beautiful?
or
You’re on a pilgrimage: it’s okay!
or
Remember the Oreos.
But I couldn’t, because at that moment all I could think about was Dad’s broken arm and how Z had not been there for him. So I didn’t say anything. Then we rode the subway back to our hotel and went to a little restaurant for supper.
    We didn’t say much. Z had pasta with smelly cheese, and I had pizza that came with an egg on it. A poached egg, right in the middle. But I didn’t eat the egg, because that’s disgusting.
    I feel like Z has a lot on her mind that she’s not talking about. I have a lot on my mind too, but I think Z has more. I keep getting the feeling that something bad is going to happen.
    I did not ask if she saw pilgrims the last time she was at St. Paul Outside the Walls. I didn’t feel like talking about them at all—I felt like bringing up pilgrims would be disrespectful.
    I would write Curtis a pretend postcard, but I don’t even know what to pretend-say.
    Â 
Dear Curtis:
    Â 
I feel extremely quiet.
Sarah
    Â 
    I am not sure I would say even that.
    Â 
    Â 
Sunday, July 14
    Today Z turns sixty-four years old. I sang her “Happy Birthday” as soon as I woke up, and I gave her a card that I had carried all the way from Red Bend. She was tremendously pleased.
    Today is also the birthday of the country of France. At