THIRTY-SIX
Bastien
“Come. Let me bless you, child. I see many babies in the future for you. A woman must protect her fertility.” Carmelita waggled her thick eyebrows at Tressa, who stood in Carmelita’s kitchen, a baby on her hip.
Santiago’s youngest cousin.
We were surrounded by the infectious Martinez family, and while they were gathered to honor the passing of a man so well loved in this community, he meant something extra special to this one.
I’d once wondered if the rest of Carmelita’s children were Padre Juan’s, but no longer did I have to. Just as Tressa had known, it became clearer to me too after spending the last few days with the extended family, very often assisting them into the wee hours, Tressa at my side, tucking children into bed and feeding babies with a bottle.
It struck me two days in that, while Tressa may not have had much of a family life growing up, she settled into it with great ease. A complete natural.
“I don’t think there are kids in my future,” Tressa finally replied. “I have my godson, Luca. Hopefully, I can bring him down to meet Santiago someday.” She ruffled the boy’s wavy hair with a smile.
“Does he speak Spanish?” the little boy inquired.
“Nope, he doesn’t yet, but I bet you’d be great at teaching him.” She spoke to Santiago in her own softly accented Spanish, something she’d obviously picked up since I’d last seen her four years ago. She’d had a passable understanding as I recalled, but since she’d set foot on this island, she’d slipped into my native tongue almost flawlessly. The way her tongue wrapped around some of the words made my dick throb. She was a gust of fresh air, the thought of living even a minute without her by my side already unbearable.
“Nonsense! You’ll have many, many good Catholic babies.” Carmelita worked an herb paste of lord knows what into a shallow dish and mixed it with some various ground powders before taking one spoonful and dumping it into a glass of red juice. “A little rain and tobacco water, a few herbs and ground plantain leaves, the white of one small egg from my prized Cubalaya chicken, and just a drop of holy water. Drink up. This helps awaken up the womb.”
Tressa’s eyes nearly burst out of her head as Carmelita pushed the concoction up to her lips, forcing Tressa to drink.
She did, swallowing it all as I watched from across the room, stifling my laugh.
“Ai, Mamá. Enough with that voodoo shit. She’ll be able to fly back to Santa Maria’s for as long as you steep that tobacco water. Leave Padre and Tressa alone.” Margarita swept through the room, backpack on her shoulder as she kissed her mother on both cheeks. “Tressa is coming to Havana to see me soon. I’m going to give her the real Cuban experience.” Margarita winked at Tressa. “How can I show her all the wonderful rum-soaked ways of our people if she’s growing one anyway?”
“The ways of our people.” Carmelita tapped Margarita on the cheek. “You’re too much for me.”
I stifled a laugh, wondering just when Tressa had planned on telling me she was hitting the streets of Havana with Margarita.
“Sisterhood.” Margarita shot a mischievous wink at Tressa, a look I could undoubtedly say I’d seen from Tressa on more than one occasion.
“Hush,niña.”
“It’s written all over the angles of her face, Mamá. Padre was a dirty old man long before he came to Cuba.”
Carmelita’s eyes watered with mourning. “Sí,but he was mine.”
Margaritakissed her mother again before wiping at her own set of tears. Once she’d composed herself, she turned and thanked us before quietly exiting the tiny little home, bustling with so much life, even amid sadness.
Tressa was still swirling the remnants of her juice glass around, eyes worried.I’d explained early on that Carmelita practiced a sort of hybrid form of Cuban Catholicism called Santería, a blend of African rituals and dance with holy Catholic saints and traditional prayers. Tressa’s eyes had grown wide, and she’d promptly spent the next few hours Googling everything she could about it. She had such a keen interest in culture and people that I imagined she was soaking up Carmelita’s little fertility recipe regardless of the consequences.
Tressa had already offered to watch a few of the kids in the village to give their parents a much-needed break, a notion many of them hadn’t really had the chance to consider before. I imagined the church would soon be overrun with rug rats, just like St. Mike’s had become with a little of her special brand of TLC. She’d also started taking a lot of photos and videos, sharing the side of Cuba many tourists never got to see and uploading to a new social media travel blog she’d started with the hopes of organizing humanitarian missions to countries in need, especially those hit by environmental hardship or suffering a depletion in natural resources.
Always ambitious and never at a loss for ideas, a rebel warrior, my girl was. She inspired me every day.
And that’s what I’d begun to think love was all about.
Finding inspiration in the world around you, tapping into it, cultivating a universe of good with the set of God-given gifts you’d been given. My view of God hadn’t wavered much in nearly forty years, but a few short weeks with her, and the very notion of love and religion itself was turned on its head.
And it was exhilarating.
Being with her had also brought me to the conclusion that a good relationship required each person to face honesty head on, in themselves and others. Without the individual growth born out of the ashes of our relationship, she and I would have carried on running from all the problems our fragile human hearts feared most. There wasn’t dishonor in vulnerability; there was power and courage in its admittance. Honor in direct confrontation of weakness. She brought out the crusader for humanity and truth that’d slept dormant inside me.
I’d found my sense of purpose right here, at this little table, in this tiny village, helping those with my hands dirty and my heart open. I’d been cautiously avoiding what the future looked like for Tressa and me. Could we do as Carmelita and Padre Juan had done? The same half commitment Tressa’s own mother had suffered through, only to end this life alone with a dream never fully realized?
If Tressa and I chose that path, these people would embrace us. And that sense of unconditional love brought me calm in the chaotic storm.
