SIX
Tressa
A mushroom cloud of dust rose up around me as I plopped a half-full box of files on an old card table.
I was perched in the attic of the rectory of St. Michael’s, dozens of boxes of holiness stacked along the walls. I flipped the lid on the box, my mind pulling me from the present into a wildly aroused fantasy where Father Bastien’s hands trailed across my body, causing a riot of raw sensation to surge…
My mind shifted when my gaze focused on the Polaroid that sat atop the pile of old photos I’d uncovered.
A dark smattering of five-o’clock shadow, broad shoulders, and softly defined lips curved into the slightest smile.
If I didn’t know better, it looked like it could be Bastien, only a decade or more before, in what looked like Cuba, sweeping fields of green as far as the landscape spanned.
I flipped the photo in my hand, searching for a name or a date, and found neither. I set the photo aside, digging deeper into the box and finding more photos of what looked like Bastien at seminary, black cassock and snow-white collar kissing his throat.
Digging down deeper, I found more albums, a quick perusal revealing what looked to be older pictures of a family, warm cocoa skin and striking dark eyes that resonated in just the same way as someone else I knew.
This must be Bastien’s box of family things.
I thought of him now, probably sitting diligently behind the office desk downstairs, accounting papers strewn across the top. He was the hardest working and most determined man I’d ever known. When he wasn’t writing liturgies or catechisms or studying passages that might appeal to his flock, he was doing his best to get the business side of things at St. Michael’s in better shape than it had been.
Apparently, Father Martin, the priest who’d come before, hadn’t kept up with paperwork as he was supposed to, leaving a stack of documents dating back years that hadn’t been properly filed.
I ran a fingertip along the edge of the faded photo, a faint smile trailing my lips as I thought of a younger Bastien, tight rebel smile pulling at the corners of his lips as he learned to devote his life to something far bigger than himself. Noble to the core. I didn’t know how he did it, my independent streak running far too deep to allow me to commit to anything much beyond an upcoming semester of classes.
And even that hadn’t been working out so well lately.
I shuddered, memories rolling back to the moment the dean of the department had informed me that cutbacks meant the annual scholarship awarded to lower-income students who excelled within their chosen field would be cut.
Cut.
My scholarship cut.
My education pulled out from under me.
My future extinguished.
I hadn’t cried on the walk back to my tiny apartment, the one I definitely would not be able to afford to pay for without the quarterly check that should have been coming next month.
The one that would no longer be dropped in the mail for me.
I’d refused to cry.
I’d just pushed forward and began packing up the few things in my apartment that very night. Luckily, I’d managed to save up enough of my scholarship money over the semesters to buy a cheap car, one that got me only where I needed to go and did not provide a warm or comfortable place to sleep. One night in the car at a rest area was as close as I’d come to homelessness, just the thought of that time sending a chill through every vein.
A tremor of fear had run through me when I thought of staying at a local shelter. I’d tried, but the line of downturned faces, wool blankets wrapped around their shoulders as a light snow fell, was a visible reminder of all the broken souls in need of a roof over their heads and warm food.
The second and third shelters were at capacity.
The fourth worse and without running water.
With so many of my options snatched away, I’d made a single call that night that changed my destiny.
Reality shaking my senses, I rifled through a few more pictures, coming across a stash from the church’s more recent past, my eyes watering only a little when I thought of all the time this old building had stood in as my home.
A familiar flash of polka-dotted purple high tops caught my eye, and I pulled a photo out of the box that featured me and Father Martin, the man who’d been here all the years I’d grown up. His heavy hand draped across my shoulder blades, my pastel dress turned bright white in the spring sun.
Even then, the weathered planes of his gentle face warmed something deep inside.
