The aroma of the familiar dish of my childhood warmed up my insides, making me instantly glad I’d taken Ms. Carmelita up on her offer of lunch on Wednesday. My rounds usually brought me to the Martinez family home on Mondays only, but the smell of this traditional meal brought me back.
I’d spent most of my free time at Iglesia de Santa Maria in devout prayer. Knees kissing the bare floor with my eyes pressed to God, I begged for eternal forgiveness on a daily loop. My prayer the same. My heart still heavy.
I hadn’t even thought about arroz con pollo since Tressa had confessed to making it for the firemen if they chipped in at the St. Mike’s winter festival.
It felt like a lifetime ago, and still, the pain weighed on me.
I’d taken a few weeks off after leaving my parish in Philadelphia and went to Brooklyn to spend time with Cruz and his mom before coming to Cuba. In reality—it was perfect timing. He was growing increasingly worried over the health of his mother—my sister—and his girlfriend. Both were suffering and both needed him, but unable to be in two places at once and continue his college education at the university, he’d started to suffer his own breakdown.
Thankfully, I’d been able to spend time with my sister and relieve his burden simultaneously, and we’d spent long nights together talking about our childhood in Cuba, and even more about the nights leading up to our departure from the island. Her circumstances had been dire, and staying in our traditional family became impossible when she’d found herself pregnant out of wedlock with my nephew, Cruz.And only I knew the true circumstances surrounding Cruz’s conception. I think we’d both long forgotten that night by choice, but now that that sweet boy was grown himself, he had a lot of questions about his past. And I’d struggled to stay true to my vow to my sister before I’d finally caved and told him everything I knew on a pew in All Saints Catholic Church in Brooklyn one night.
And I’d felt every single one of my regrets even more deeply that night as he’d cried on my shoulder for pain inflicted long before his birth.
On many occasions over the years I’d requested the diocese send me into the city so I could be closer to help them out—his life without a father figure on the streets of Brooklyn was harder than it should have been—but our lives had taken different paths and the church had never posted me anywhere near them. He’d grown into a strong young man in all of those years, but that didn’t change the fact that church had taken yet another thing from me.
I’d asked her if she wanted to come back to the island with me, but she’d only smiled and patted my hand with a shake of her head. She’d never leave her son, she’d smiled and said.
She passed unexpectedly weeks later, just after my return to Cuba.
My heart had cracked wide, especially when my request to return to the States so soon was denied and I’d had to leave Cruz to bury his mother alone.
One of my many regrets.
“Sit, sit.” Ms. Carmelita gestured to one of the mismatched chairs strewn haphazardly around the round table, yanking me into the present moment.
“Anything inappropriate happen up at the monastery? I haven’t been up there in a while, but you can just see a face hiding secrets, eh, Padre?” He crinkled his old eyes with amusement. He was trying to rattle me, there was no doubt.
“I’m not sure I do know what you mean.” I nodded my thanks at Carmelita when she set the bowl of rice and chicken in front of me.
The smell overwhelmed me, mixing with my memories of her, a jackhammer of pain pounding its way into my brain as I squeezed my eyes closed and I willed her ghost away.
“The look of a hunter, eyes on his prey.” His old man eyebrows waggled.
Carmelita tossed a rag at his bald head, and he cracked into a loud laugh. “He’s not up at the monastery, you dirty old thing, you. This is Father Castaneda from Santa Maria’s.”
“Santa Maria’s?” His eyebrows shot up, seriousness lacing his usually amused features. “What’d you do to get yourself sent there?”
“Pardon?” I asked.
He shrugged, digging back into his bowl and continuing on through a mouthful of rice. “Only reason the diocese sends anyone to Santa Maria’s is for penance.” Another bite. “What’d you do wrong?”
“Oh, shut up, would you? He didn’t do a thing wrong, and you know it. Stop giving him the runaround and tell me, how’s the chicken?”
The old man’s face lit up with a grin as wide as I’d seen out of him, casting her a sideways look and bringing both of his fingertips to his lips. “It’s simply magnificent, my darling. Is that what you want to hear?”
He must have whispered something under his breath I couldn’t make out because her blush deepened to crimson, one hand at her ample bosom before she turned away almost coquettishly, a grin spreading her cheeks even wider.
Santiago chose that moment to burst through the front door, the sheets that’d been hung to dry when I’d come in now wrapped around his little body as he shrieked through the room, a tiny rat terrier jumping and running after him the entire way.
“Santi!” Carmelita bellowed, but it was too late. The boy and his dog were already long gone down the hallway and bursting out the back door of the small house. “That boy’s gonna give me a heart attack someday.”
“You spoil him.” The old man waved a hand at her, cleaning up the last spoonful of his food as he did.
“He’s my youngest boy. What am I supposed to do? No father to help me keep control of him, he runs around like an animal.”
Hearing their good-natured banter warmed my soul, the only time I’d had that in my own life, with Tressa.
I pushed her stubborn memory from my mind, forcing myself to dial in to this moment.
