A way that reminded me that things like stolen touches and forbidden tangles between the sheets weren’t the real world.
This was.
The world where kids went hungry and politicians worked for the greater good of themselves, not their citizens.
Ms. Carmelita and Santiago and all the people of Iglesia de Santa Maria had been my port in a stormy sea, the only thing left when my world was pulled out from beneath my feet.
The memory of my last few months at St. Mike’s had grown hazy at best, and by choice.
My time as a young seminarian with the Jesuits had taught me much, one of the most significant gifts, an unmatched ability for aloneness.
All that solitary time left my brain well versed in cataloging and compartmentalizing the details of my past.
If it was something that served me, which usually meant the greater good of those around me, it was worthy of my time.
If it left me feeling worse—sad or angry or resentful or with a pressing ache I felt like I might never relieve as long as I existed without her—then it was shoved into the back corner. It would be a terribly long and lonely life if I let missing her haunt me all my days, and even with all memories of her locked away, she still stole most of my sleepless nights.
The media onslaught following the day Casey Maniscalco left three backpacks on the steps of St. Mike’s was like nothing I’d seen with my own eyes before. Media crews flew in from not only other cities, but around the world, camping out on the steps and begging for any reaction at all. By the time the cardinal walked into my rectory two days later to inform me of my reassignment, effective immediately, the burden had grown greater.
But I still wasn’t sure if it was worse than opening morning Mass every day to throngs of rubbernecking newcomers.
The cardinal had no doubt known what he was doing when he assigned me to this tiny parish, two hours outside of Havana and a million miles away from modern technology.
Rural living had proven itself more fruitful than my life after that day in Philadelphia ever could have been.
I’d found deeper meaning in my calling in Cuba, a place where I could be of more use.
A place that needed me as much as I needed it.
A place where Tressa didn’t exist.
