It was an odd feeling, orchestrating an exit while trying to leave someone none the wiser. I felt like a double agent, decades of Catholic guilt sweeping through my bones in an instant. Too ashamed to even glance into his friendly, penetrating gaze.
“I can’t wait for you to hear this morning’s liturgy.” His grin quirked to one side, my heartbeat leaping erratically along with it. “I think you’ll approve.”
“Yeah?”
I hardly heard his words, the tears clawing at my throat as if I’d just swallowed rusted nails.
If he were any kinder, I couldn’t stand it.
I’d have to stay.
I’d break down at his feet and beg him to…what?
Leave his God for me?
Bastien’s steps slowed, as if sensing my unease. His little finger caught mine, fireworks exploding through my veins when he leaned so close, his breath ghosted the shell of my ear. “Consider it my love letter.”
A near-audible moan slipped past my lips.
My lungs gave out as I willed the forces of the universe to halt everything right at that second and drop us into another world. A world where we could share each other, explore what existed without shame or guilt or fear of life-altering upheaval and utter disgrace.
If God was real and he was here, how the hell did he explain this?
“I’ll look forward to your thoughts.” The pad of his thumb brushed my lip, a tornado of ravaged emotion spiraling through my center, before I took another breath and he was gone.
My Bastien.
Father Castaneda.
The holy man I was fighting so hard to unlove, one and the same.
I lifted my head defiantly, pushing through the last set of doors before finding my place alongside Lucy in the last pew.
“I’m gonna need to know everything about whatever that was, mama.”
I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t have the heart to.
“It was goodbye.”
Her eyes grew wide, mouth opening and closing like a sad little fish as she contemplated my meaning.
Bastien appeared from the small alcove behind the pulpit then, his eyes traveling over the small crowd until they locked with mine. He cleared his throat, nodded once, and then began to read from the scripture.
Twenty minutes into Mass and I still couldn’t discern why Bastien had thought I’d find it so interesting. It wasn’t until he tied the teaching together with his homily that my blood began to bubble and burn beneath my skin.
“Rebels play an important part in our history,” he began. “For example, this church. Right on this very soil, one son of God decided to go against tradition, to eschew dogma, in order to be on the right side of history. Some of you may know that St. Michael’s, leading up to and during the Civil War, was a stop on the Underground Railroad for dozens and dozens of former enslaved men, women, and children. Many of them went on to bigger cities like New York or Detroit, some even as far as Montreal, but for one brief moment, they were comforted with open arms and love right here. Many of you also know I was born in a country with revolution woven into its history, and my ancestors fled or fought persecution in their homelands. Some of them fought to colonize other nations, while others fought colonial oppression. Some days, I can’t help but take a step back and wonder what side of history I would find myself on if my circumstances had been different. What would be my belief if I were born German in Germany in 1930? Or Italian in a Rome ruled by Mussolini? We all hope that, by the strength of our own moral fortitude, we would make the right decision. But what exactly constitutes right? Genocide is evil incarnate on earth, but what of God’s morality and judgment in a situation with murkier underpinnings?”
I shifted in my seat, the wooden pew biting into my back and causing ants to crawl through my bloodstream.
Or was that his words causing the discomfort?
My head began a slow pound, splashes of light filtering through the elegant stained-glass windows like an awful strobe light out of my worst nightmare.
I did my best to tune him out, thinking about the application I’d dropped off this morning and of the three jobs I’d applied to that I most wanted, but his voice… That gravelly cadence pulled me back into his web, wrapping me up in his silky words.
“Love”—his voice deepened—“is the purest of all emotions. Love is love even if it is not understood by others—like a light in the darkness, it remains.” His voice rattled me right between my thighs. “God doesn’t sit in judgment of us—not now, not ever—so long as we live with love in our hearts, the purest of all intentions. Sometimes it’s impossible to determine the greater moral good for all from afar. We can only look within and know the nature of our own true hearts to discern what is right and wrong. This is a moral contract you’ve already made with God, but also with yourself. Why are brave souls able to stand on the right side of history when the tidal wave beats them back again and again? Because true knowing of self is true knowing of God. They are one and the same.”
Bastien’s dark gaze brushed up to the highest peak of the ceiling, where I imagined Christ hung from the iron cross atop the steeple, piercing the heavens. Tears pricked my eyes as I watched him standing all alone, the center of an entire universe of hope, surrounded by a halo of love.
