Rachel and I would take our places, one on each side of the dividing center aisle: back of the church, bodies just beneath the last pew, young tummies to the rough, red carpet.
Not red like the blood of Christ.
No, no. This carpet was Wolfpack red.
Our pastor was a huge State fan.
Toward the front of the church, the persistent sound of vacuuming traveled from one side of the white and wood paneled sanctuary to the other as my grandmother served her church family -- a family that never reciprocated that love.
But the race, that was all that mattered then.
It was a weekly occurrence.
At 7- years-old, our tiny frames were still small and lithe enough to squeeze into places my grown body misses -- the underside of coffee tables, the farthest reaches of the closet beneath the staircase, the sweet, sheltered inside of the azalea bush in grandma's front yard -- and the ankle level view of the sanctuary suddenly became an ordered jungle of beautiful, brown wood. Hymnals became mile markers, and those church pews posed both as obstacles and protection, ensuring that our race could never be cheapened by those who needed even the slightest bit more of head room.
We'd wait for it all service long, two southern sweethearts with slow drawls and entirely too much energy, heels kicking, mother's shhshing us as we whispered behind our hands, with all of our hearts.
"I bet I win today. I've been practicing!"
"Oh yeah? Just wait til later. I'll show you!"
There's nothing quite like a little friendly competition.
And Grandma, she always understood.
In a sanctuary most children were forced to behave in, she loved to watch us run down the aisles, barefoot and laughing as we tumbled and pranced, from the altar, down the middle aisle, up the side stairs to the classrooms, and back.
If she hadn't been in that wreck all those years back, that wreck that took her agility, I know she would have joined us.
And then the moment came.
Our legs were crooked ever so slightly, bare knees pressed to the floor, toes braced in the course carpet. Our summer attire left our limbs exposed, and later, scratched, but that was just part of the experience. Rug burn was the price to pay for this race of redemption.
Heads down, arms ahead, we'd take turns shouting out:
"Ready, set, GO!"
We would scurry then, frantic, grasping with tiny hands to pull ourselves forward, ever forward, beneath the seats of so many sinners, beneath the hymnals full of amazing grace and notes most modern singers can't reach, toward the end of the pews, the end of the jungle of order and restraint, toward their absence, the openness, the freedom.
And victory.
And really, I rarely won.
I was taller, lankier, more awkward.
I was also the heaviest of the two.
But God, did I try.
I rolled and I panted and I kicked and I pulled.
Each scrape against that red, red surface was a second gained, an advantage taken.
And regardless of how far ahead she was, I never gave it up, not til I had made it.
Rachel lives in Arizona now, on a military base with her husband and their dog.
We talk once or twice a year, but I forgot to call her on her birthday.
She remembered mine.
And Grandma just hasn't been the same since Grandpa died.
But laying there, flush-faced children panting into the carpet, rolling onto our backs and staring at the simple white ceiling of the building we learned to love, to need, and eventually, to leave, nothing mattered.
Because we had a winner.
And it wasn't me --
but I'd never let it lie.
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