He called after her, “Malini, this is important. It’s considered a mortal sin.”
She waved him off and sat next to her friend, belting herself into the seat, while Max was relegated to his table for the landing.
After the plane touched down, Malini dodged Max until he had to get off the plane. She obviously didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He thought he had her phone number, so he could text her a more coherent explanation later.
After Maxence got off the plane and cleared Nepali customs at the airport, he was met by Father Xavier Kocherry, a tall priest with skin the color and texture of worn mahogany leather, whom Maxence had known from a previous project in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. He heartily shook the man’s hand and then hugged him while they laughed.
Maxence hoisted his rucksack onto his back, while Father Xavier picked up the wide cardboard box filled with supplies Maxence had carried off the plane. He said, “Sorry, I could only find one jar of peanut butter in Paris.”
Father Xavier laughed. “I am very glad for the one jar of peanut butter. Next time you come to Nepal, plan ahead and make sure to bring two.”
Maxence asked him, “Is there Mass this evening?”
Father Xavier shook his head. “There is one tomorrow morning over at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. We will attend that one, but I am then called away to minister in other parts of the city for the week and will be staying at the rectory there. Sadly, we do not have much time together.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to need to be reconciled before Mass tomorrow morning.”
“You,Deacon Father? I’m shocked.”
Father Xavier’s absolute earnestness as he said that shamed Maxence even more. Father Xavier had never heard one of Maxence’s confessions after he’d gotten back from Europe. “I’m afraid so, and it’s probably good that I should have sufficient time to do penance before Mass tomorrow morning.”
Father Xavier’s honest confusion forced Max to look away because he could not meet the priest’s eyes. Father Xavier asked, “Have you been having doubts about your vocation? You have wanted to take Holy Orders for years. I would have thought that you would have received that sacrament by now.”
“It’s complicated.”
“God is not complicated. The Divine is not complicated. There is only love.”
Despair left Max’s body with his next breath. “Father Xavier, that was exactly what I needed to hear today. I brought some of the butter crackers you like, too. Let’s go to the rectory and demolish the crackers and peanut butter before I unburden my soul.”
He grinned. “I was hoping very much you would say that.”
As a significant amount of peanut butter was smeared on crackers and Father Xavier rightfully fretted about sodium-sensitive hypertension and his hypothesized, impending stroke, they talked about the project that Maxence would be leading over the next few months.
“A team of five laypeople,” Father Xavier said. “This will be such a blessing, and it is so desperately needed.”
“I received the names in an email this morning,” Maxence told him while scraping a thin layer of peanut butter on his third cracker. He would probably stop after this one, and he reminded himself to send more of Father Xavier’s favorite snack foods once he returned to Europe or the US. “The medical doctor who was slated for this trip dropped out. His mother had a stroke, so he withdrew. Luckily, a nurse practitioner volunteered at the last minute to fill the slot. He’ll be arriving in a few hours. I assume it’s all right if he stays at the rectory tonight?”
“Of course, of course. He can have my room because I’ll stay over at Perpetual Help. Do we know him?”
“I’ve never met him before, but he comes highly recommended by Father Thomas Aquinas at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the United States. He’s recommended a number of laypeople for projects like this whom I have found to be excellent. Tom is very persuasive at convincing his parishioners and acquaintances to volunteer for missions.”
Father Xavier chuckled. “Yes, we don’t know anyone like that.”
Maxence declined to reply. Yes, he had a knack at persuading people, which was why two of Max’s friends from his exclusive childhood boarding school had “volunteered” their time and resources for this very worthy charitable project.
One of Max’s school friends, Alfonso, had committed a large amount of money and resources to build NICU micro-clinics all across the hinterlands of Nepal, a surprising move. The charity had approved the project while Maxence had been sitting by his uncle’s hospital bed, watching him slowly die, so Max hadn’t been available to consult on it. Undoubtedly, the charity’s board had properly vetted it. They always did.
The other guy, Isaak, was a good man who pretended he wasn’t. He was the diametric opposite of Maxence in so many ways, which was probably why they got along so well.
The whole team would arrive the next morning, the day before the mission officially began.
After Father Xavier had decimated the crackers and peanut butter, he indulgently looped the stole he wore during confession around his neck and, with a crooked smile on his face, asked Maxence what mortal sins he had committed since his last confession.
Maxence couldn’t look at the man’s dark eyes as he stated that it had been five days since his last confession and he had committed an untold number of sins of a sexual nature with a woman as acts of fornication, at least fifteen acts, impure thoughts, wrath, and an act of violence that was in self-defense.
Father Xavier stared at the swollen knuckles of his hands folded in his lap and was silent for a long moment. His black eyebrows twitched, and he breathed to say something at least once, but caught himself and bit his lip instead.
His dismay and disappointment were palpable in the small room in the rear of the rectory.
