THIRTY-SEVEN
Bastien
By the time we left Carmelita’s, long after the sun had set the evening of Padre Juan Martin’s funeral, I’d come to some decisions. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t briefly considered a life with her hidden up in the mountains just like my Jesuit brothers. Secluded areas had a way of keeping secrets close. But that life would only be a dishonor to her, never good enough, considering she was destined for the moon and stars.
But as far as I could tell, that left me with one last option.
Leaving.
I’d joined this order at the age of seventeen after my mother passed and the very roof over our heads was taken. I’d cried the day I packed up the iron crosses and priceless relics my family, generations of priests and holy men throughout the centuries, had collected and protected. Our pride in this faith was strong, something passed down and just as cherished as the relics I held in my hands.
Having a holy title attached to the Castaneda name felt natural.
And still, the nature of my time here felt iffy at best. From the receipts I’d presented to the cardinal in Philadelphia, evidence there was perhaps a history of negligence and abuse at St. Mike’s in some form, had rattled me so very much that I’d gone to the lengths to install an alarm especially for the children to use. It was a small step but just one of the things I could think of that offered a sense of safety and spirituality to grow long after I’d made my exit.
And perhaps it’d only been a few days since I’d made my formal complaint about Padre Juan’s actions, but I hadn’t heard a word from any of the officials I’d copied on that message.
To say my time with organized religion had caused a case of harsh spiritual disillusionment was putting a positive spin on the matter. In truth, I’d found more God in loving Tressa than decades spent on my knees in prayer.
With her, I sought God in life. In nature and people and compassion and community and family.
Family.
For the first time in my life, family was on my mind. She filled me up with so much love, my cup overfloweth, the generosity of it suddenly big enough to feed an entire army. Or heal a whole country. Loving a wild, reckless, rebel heart of a woman was the very best decision I’d ever made.
The notion of a family with Tressa shook me to my very core, and like a revelation, a quote paraphrased from the book of Esther entered my mind.
Perhaps this is the moment for which you have been created.
Esther, displaced from her homeland, found solace in service and courage, in an unwavering love for her people. I’d always believed that God provided each of us divine moments to alter circumstances. It was our responsibility to be ready—or he would find someone else. Four years ago, I couldn’t be the man she needed, a chipped shell trying to hide the many cracks in my belief. Yet now that we were side by side, the desire to build a world of love around us, to treat religion as a verb, and act through a lens of compassion and kindness, had become my new mission.
I’d been feeling for a long time like my religion had been hijacked.
But somehow, through her, I’d found transcendence.
I could be a steward of God by her side. I could be the shepherd and the wolf—and maybe even a husband.
“Penny for your thoughts, Padre?” Tressa’s soothing Spanish lulled me.
“Been saving that in your back pocket, huh?” I traced the pad of my thumb down the center of her bare breastbone, goose bumps erupting in a riot.
Dawn split over the mountains, filtering light through the window and creating a halo effect around her head. I closed my eyes a beat, saving this moment to memory.
“You know I have. Now spill it, Father,” she giggled in English, rolling herself onto my hips, straddling me with her hair falling in a curtain around both of us. She was mystery and mysticism and white-hot magic, and she was solely responsible for showing me how to believe again.
“I was just thinking about faith and how you make me question all of it.” I caught her lips in a slow kiss.
She moaned, hips working softly as her hands trailed up to cup my face. “The Jesuits didn’t warn you about faithless girls with daddy issues tempting you to the dark side?”
I kissed her again, landing a soft smack on her behind as I did. “You’re far from faithless, sweet dove. Your faith just looks different from mine. Faith carried you here, across an ocean, back into my arms. Faith walked along with you when you stood strong against the injustice you hate so much. When you stumbled, when you triumphed, when you loved, and when you worked to help others.” I traced the fine features of her face with my warm gaze. “Love is an act of faith, and we do it better together.”
My lips swallowed any chance of a reply in the well of love she overflowed with. Everything about what transpired between us felt right, even if the timing wasn’t. We’d weathered many seasons apart, grown and rooted to ourselves in deeper and more profound ways, and that seemed to be the very thing to make all the difference.
Her hips hit just the right angle, and she slipped me fully inside of her. “You wanna know what I believe?”
My hands tangled up in her hair, lips trailing down the line of her neck as we rocked together. “Always.”
“It’s not as fancy as what you said, but the one common thread that runs through all major religions is compassion, so…I choose that.” She nipped my ear, taunting and teasing with perfect precision. “Compassion is my religion, Father.”
My hands melded to her body, already warmed by heat and the morning light. “Good answer, sweet dove.” My lips hovered over hers. “I love you with far greater depth and breadth than I knew was possible.”
Her hands cupping my neck, our foreheads pressed together, she murmured, “I love you back,Padre.”
