While the words did not seem to parse, there was a delayed but nonetheless deeper frown at her apparent son’s annoyed tone.

She looked at his hands and smiled, though looked like she was on the brink of tears.

“Oh, Claude,” she said fondly. “It’s no trouble. My soul’s already dirty.”

She sagged against the pew, pulling her knees clumsily to her chest with her arms.

“Don’t kill a man,” she mumbled. “Not even a Ward. Not worth it. Leave that to your mom.”

Then she looked up suddenly, like a deer that just heard a threat.

“And get married! Soon as you start having lustful thoughts! God will smite you down otherwise, and you’ll go to Hell like Noah.”

She oozed back against the pew with a glassy, miserable look up to the steepled ceiling.

“I don’t want him to go to Hell,” she moaned miserably, to her presumed other son.