TWENTY-FOUR
Bastien
“You one of those pretend priests like the rest of them up at the monastery?” An old man eagle-eyed me from his seat at Ms. Carmelita’s table, back hunched over like he’d plowed a few too many fields in his very long lifetime.
“Shh, Padre.” Carmelita set a cracked bowl of arroz con pollo in front of him and continued to chastise as he took his first bite. “Never you mind about the boys up at the monastery. They do good things for this area, all of them.”
I chuckled to myself, thinking how he wasn’t wrong in his assumption. Secretive societies attracted people with secrets, and he was right to question me, at least in his world. Carmelita was still poking at the old man, but he wasn’t even listening to her anymore, his focus on the first heaping spoonful of rice and chicken. “Liberal bastards.”
She clucked at him once before scooping another heaping spoonful out of the pot on the rusted double-burner stovetop.
The aroma of the familiar dish of my childhood warmed up my insides, making me instantly glad I’d taken Ms. Carmelita up on her offer of lunch on Wednesday. My rounds usually brought me to the Martinez family home on Mondays only, but the smell of this traditional meal brought me back.
I’d spent all of my four years of free time at Iglesia de Santa Maria in devout prayer. Knees kissing the bare floor with my eyes pressed to God, I begged for eternal forgiveness on a daily loop. My prayer the same. My heart still heavy.
I hadn’t even thought about arroz con pollo since Tressa had confessed to making it for the firemen if they chipped in at the St. Mike’s winter festival.
It felt like a lifetime ago, and still, the pain weighed on me.
“Sit, sit.” Ms. Carmelita gestured to one of the mismatched chairs strewn haphazardly around the round table.
“Anything inappropriate happen up at the monastery? I haven’t been up there in a while, but you can just see a face hiding secrets, eh, Padre?” He crinkled his old eyes with amusement. He was trying to rattle me, there was no doubt.
“I’m not sure I do know what you mean.” I nodded my thanks at Carmelita when she set the bowl of rice and chicken in front of me.
The smell overwhelmed me, mixing with my memories of her, a jackhammer of pain pounding its way into my brain as I squeezed my eyes closed and I willed her ghost away.
“The look of a hunter, eyes on his prey.” His old man eyebrows waggled.
Carmelita tossed a rag at his bald head, and he cracked into a loud laugh. “He’s not up at the monastery, you dirty old thing, you. This is Father Castaneda from Santa Maria’s.”
“Santa Maria’s?” His eyebrows shot up, seriousness lacing his usually amused features. “What’d you do to get yourself sent there?”
“Pardon?” I asked.
He shrugged, digging back into his bowl and continuing on through a mouthful of rice. “Only reason the diocese sends anyone to Santa Maria’s is for penance.” Another bite. “What’d you do wrong?”
“Oh, shut up, would you? He didn’t do a thing wrong, and you know it. Stop giving him the runaround and tell me, how’s the chicken?”
The old man’s face lit up with a grin as wide as I’d seen out of him, casting her a sideways look and bringing both of his fingertips to his lips. “It’s simply magnificent, my darling. Is that what you want to hear?”
He must have whispered something under his breath I couldn’t make out because her blush deepened to crimson, one hand at her ample bosom before she turned away almost coquettishly, a grin spreading her cheeks even wider.
Santiago chose that moment to burst through the front door, the sheets that’d been hung to dry when I’d come in now wrapped around his little body as he shrieked through the room, a tiny rat terrier jumping and running after him the entire way.
“Santi!” Carmelita bellowed, but it was too late. The boy and his dog were already long gone down the hallway and bursting out the back door of the small house. “That boy’s gonna give me a heart attack someday.”
“You spoil him.” The old man waved a hand at her, cleaning up the last spoonful of his food as he did.
“He’s my youngest boy. What am I supposed to do? No father to help me keep control of him, he runs around like an animal.”
Hearing their good-natured banter warmed my soul, the only time I’d had that in my own life, with Tressa.
I pushed her stubborn memory from my mind, forcing myself to dial in to this moment.
“A good strong hand, that’s what he needs.”
“So how about you come over and help me raise him more, Padre?”
