EPILOGUE
Tressa
I worked feverishly over the keys, composing a final email to another set of volunteers in Portugal who were set to start a mission next week. Someone had canceled unexpectedly, so I’d taken it upon myself to browse the wait list to handpick a replacement.
I’d had to cancel my trip when I found out we were expecting again. Lucy and Luca had taken my place at camp, but there was still so much to be done, even remotely.
I pressed a hand to my back and stretched, sunlight flooding in through the wide, expansive windows and lighting up the hand-painted Spanish tile under my feet.
I wiggled my toes, feet too swollen for just about anything other than bare feet at this stage.
Pregnancy.
God’s last laugh for women everywhere.
I rubbed at my belly, standing to take in the view. The window overlooked a bold ocean cliff that erupted from the landscape after untold volcanic landslides left steep debris fields in its wake. Verdant green and dark rock and the azure ocean beyond dominated my vision. When Bastien had said his Spanish ancestors had come through the Canary Islands, I hadn’t thought that one day I’d find myself here, a woman on a mission to heal the forgotten people in the farthest reaches of the world.
I traced the ancient stone of the chapel we now called home with my fingertips, gratitude filling all the chambers of my heart. The old, battered copy ofThe Alchemistfrom the man on the bus that day held pride of place on the tiny shelf beside the window.
I smiled, incredulous that a decade later, this book could have such an effect on both Bastien’s and my life. That our sons would read it, that the quiet wisdom contained within its covers would bring us here, across the world to the land where the story unfolded. Epic inspiration sprinkled on so few pages.
We’d moved to the Canary Islands just over a year ago, right into the tiny little church Bastien suspected his own ancestor had once offered communion at. To say it was a full circle moment for him to walk through these narrow hallways was an understatement. The way his eyes lit up at the sheer, holy ancientness of it filled me up in a way I hadn’t expected. Watching Bastien follow his bliss fueled mine.
And with the fact that our youngest son would be born here, an emotion unlike anything else filled me entirely. Ms. Carmelita’s Santería fertility tea had worked miracles.
While my husband devoted his entire life to his family and others, in his free time, Bastien had begun researching his own ancestry, convinced that he came from an ancient line of holy people, maybe even dating back to The Knights Templar and the Holy Crusades. I loved that when he threw himself into something, he went there all the way. We’d already spent countless weekends hiking the mountains around our new home, searching for clues of former spiritual rituals or buildings or artifacts. The boys thought of it as some sort of modern treasure hunt, and seeing them engaged with the world their people came from lent entirely new meaning to the feeling of wholeness.
Searching for Bastien’s ancestors filled up my husband in a way nothing else could.
Bringing our kids along for the journey, biological and adopted, brought him to life in a new way. Watching him discover his past was a gift for me to witness, along with growing our newest little addition.
“Feeling good, mama?” Bastien walked through the rounded archway of my small office, light cutting across all of the right angles of his face and drawing me to him, a moth to a flame, just like always.
“Feeling amazing,” I whispered when he kissed me on the forehead, both palms cradling my tummy tenderly.
And because life had a way of taking me by storm like that, my life’s greatest work and born from the hardest rain appeared out of the clear blue sky.
“Did you know Spain is called the land of the setting sun?” Our oldest son, Javi, walked in behind Bastien, thick book of Spanish history propped open in his palms.
“Really?” I tipped my head, admiring the way the dark slash of eyebrows and the wild waves of uncontrollable brown hair reminded me so much of his dad.
It was funny how many times I’d thought of my own father in the decade since I’d last seen him. I still kept the stubbed-out cigar, thinking maybe I could send it in for a DNA test, or perhaps give it to Luce for Luca someday. It could provide closure and answer questions about his—and his father’s—paternity.
Casey Maniscalco. The boy with the backpack. The St. Mike's Bomber.My brother.
Knowing that I likely shared blood with Casey softened my opinion of him, though to this day, I couldn’t understand or excuse his actions, no matter how unfair the hand he felt life dealt him. I wondered if Father Martin had stayed, if Casey’s life would have been better. If the Church had been open about priests who dealt with these issues, maybe there would be fewer broken homes and fewer…well,I wasn’t sure what. Bastien was fond of reminding me that the more answers I got, the more questions I had, and that sometimes instead of answers, maybe a better aim was peace.
But from time to time, I still pulled the stub out of the little cigar box I’d tucked it into before we left Cuba for the Canarys.
I wasn’t sure why I even took the time to open the box and inhale the stale tobacco scent. I never even saw Padre Juan smoke, but somehow, all the potential of what my father could have been was locked in the years of old smoke and memories tucked inside of its four corners.
Bastien’s soothing palms worked at my shoulders then, pulling me back into my very beautiful reality.
“We should go to Spain for a weekend. Did you know the Nazis had an escape route through the mountains, hiding out at rural churches and protected buildings until they could make it to the coast and sail to Argentina? And there’s a cathedral just over the border that might have some Templar art. Worth checking out, I think,” Javi rattled off, as if it were normal for a nine-year-old to care about those sorts of things.
“Oh?” Bastien’s amused eyebrows rose, suddenly intrigued.
I had to stifle my laugh. “Can you go call your little brothers in to wash up for lunch?”
