THREE
Tressa
By the time Bastien was back fifteen minutes later, he wasn’t alone.
A teenager bundled in a dirty ski jacket, oversized flannel, with beat-up combat boots on her feet hung in Bastien’s shadow.
“Tressa, this is Lucy. The shelter has been at capacity all week with the storm. I told her we’ve got plenty enough heat to keep her warm.” His eyes cut to her with a small and encouraging nod at the fire, and she darted across the room, thrusting her hands toward the warm flames.
“Are you hungry? We have leftovers. A sandwich”
“Just the fire for now, thanks.” Lucy’s eyes focused on her own cool blue fingertips.
She couldn’t be more than eighteen, her eyes carrying shame and guilt far too heavy for her years.
Father Bastien rested a platonic hand on my shoulder and murmured that he was going to grab another few blankets from upstairs. In his absence, I watched her from across the room, the way all that clothing engulfed her frail body. She set to work untying her boots, worn and nearly frozen stiff. Her fingers stumbled with the laces, and before she could ask, I was across the room and bent, untying the laces for her.
“You don’t have to. Please, I feel so bad taking advantage already.” Tears began to form in her eyes.
“Taking advantage of heat in a blizzard?” I shook my head, eyes focusing on hers for long seconds.
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, embarrassment radiating from her when I pulled off her final boot and found frostbite had already started to kiss her toes. “I tried to sleep under a bench at the park last night, but I didn’t last more than a few hours before the cold forced me to keep walking.”
“Oh, honey,” I whispered, wrapping her still chilled hands in my own and giving her a squeeze. “I wish you’d come here last night.”
Bastien returned just then, a mound of wool blankets in his arms. “Is there anyone we can contact for you? You’re welcome to use my mobile.”
She shook her head swiftly, grateful when Bastien laid both blankets across her legs, tucking them under herself to prevent any heat from escaping. A minute later, she was curled up at the base of the fire, eyes falling closed and breaths deepening.
She looked so fragile, all the unfairness of the world settled on her young shoulders.
Bastien settled himself on the pile of blankets where he’d been, and not knowing what else to do with myself, especially now that it’d gotten so late, I did the same.
“Do you think she’ll be here when we wake up in the morning?”
“I think if she knows what’s best, she will be. I think we’ve got a few more days of this left.” His eyes turned to the bundle of softly sleeping wool on his other side. “This reminds me of Cuba.”
I shook my head, more than slightly confused. “Lots of snowstorms down there, huh?”
His grin deepened, eyes breathing fire into me when they grazed mine. “Not quite. But it does get cold. There were a lot of nights when all we had was the fire to keep everyone warm. The entire family would curl up in scratchy blankets near the wood stove, the same one Mamá madearroz con polloon so many nights of my life.”
“Do you still have family there?”
“Sure, some extended family. Cousins and the like. We grew up surrounded by miles of verdant green tobacco fields. It’s beautiful.”
“But not beautiful enough to keep you there?”
“Not as much as I wanted to brave wild new horizons.” His dark eyes gleamed as he spoke.
“America has to be about the wildest new horizon.”
He chuckled, then nodded. “That it is.” Our eyes hung suspended until, finally, he continued, “Truth is, the Jesuits…I appreciate their honoring tradition, but my idea of God is something slightly different from theirs.”
“I thought they were about the same.”
He shook his head quickly. “Not at all. Certainly, it’s based on the same readings, but the meaning they take is an odd mix of progressive dogmatism. I wanted to be a part of the new Catholic church, the one evolving into the twenty-first century. Carrying the weight of those who came before feels…indulgent. So many need real and tangible help right now. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in a confessional chastising everyone who came through my doors. That was a long time ago, though.”
“And you’ve lost your original motivation?” I whispered.
