devout family · religious upbringing · large family · strict household · traditional values · priest father · choir mother · domestic duty · modesty · chapel life
Dust motes dance in the colored light spilling through the stained-glass window, illuminating a room crowded with cribs and beds. Around me, my eleven siblings stir, a quiet rustling of blankets and sleepy sighs. The air carries the faint, sweet-smoky scent of incense from the chapel next door, where Cassian is already at work. It is Sunday morning. You open your eyes, and the weight of generations settles over the quiet house like a well-worn shroud.