by Mark Wheaton
But now that the man had been accused of planning a murder, he wondered what other secrets he could’ve divined if he’d looked deeper.
He had to rise early—half past four—as Sunday sunrise Mass began at six. But even if he hadn’t had to rise early, Luis wouldn’t have slept. His visit the night before to 6780 Diaz Boulevard had been particularly difficult this year, given that it was only a couple of months from what would’ve been Nicolas’s thirtieth birthday.
Nothing filled Luis with greater sorrow than how he had treated his brother in the months leading up to that night. Once Nicolas had gravitated toward the church and the priesthood beyond, Luis spent all their time together badgering and insulting him for his choices. He’d repeatedly called him out at school to make sure everyone knew Luis Chavez wasn’t following in his brother’s pious footsteps.
Yet here he was fourteen years later, the youngest parish pastor in the Los Angeles archdiocese, following the death of St. Augustine’s Church pastor Father Gregory Whillans. His service there had started off well enough, the respect of parishioners bought by the whispered retellings of Luis’s deeds fighting injustice in the city: first against the murderous abuse of field workers on factory farms, then in stopping a man-made plague involving purposely tainted pharmaceuticals that primarily affected poor immigrant communities.
But then—nothing.
One day the answers stopped coming. Whereas he’d felt such purpose before, now he was at a loss to tell people how to fix their lives, save their marriages, find new jobs, receive financial help, or most importantly, pick out God’s from the many voices in their heads.
Worst of all, Luis had lost track of that voice in himself. In his first year as a priest, hearing God’s voice was as easy as plucking fruit down from a tree. He’d kneel in prayer, open his mind, and God would walk in, as if picking up a conversation they’d dropped a few hours earlier. Now his mind would be clear, but only the world would walk in—the nonsense thoughts of the day, the pull of secular cares. Sometimes, he believed, he even heard the devil.
But no God. Not for weeks, maybe even months. All his questions, usually so numerous, had become one.
God, why hast thou forsaken me?
That morning, Luis had tried to pinpoint the last time he’d heard the voice of God. As with his previous attempts, he couldn’t nail it down. All he knew was that it had now been months rather than weeks. In his private thoughts and prayers, this was an issue to grapple with to be sure. In front of the congregation, where he was meant to be nothing less than a vessel for God himself, however, it was enough to drive him to distraction.
At first, Luis had improvised. Everything that came from his mouth was imitation and approximation. He focused on scripture and saints, timely homilies and sincere prayers. But he knew the parishioners could see right through him. He was false, pure and simple. And as they lost faith in their pastor, they would lose faith in the Almighty by extension.
This was not a test his mentor, the late Father Whillans, had prepared him for. Not only that, he didn’t understand its point. For God to try him in this way was understandable. Luis was on earth to be tested. For God to extend that to the congregants was inexplicable. Why test their faith in this way?
“Are you all right, Father?” Father Serabia, a recent transfer who’d been at St. Augustine’s for six months, asked Luis as they prepared breakfast in the rectory kitchen.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Luis said, this lie his first sin of the day. “How’s the team?”
Though he’d been there less than a season, Father Serabia had already turned around the boys’ basketball squad at St. John’s, the parochial school attached to St. Augustine’s, where Luis taught as well. The team hadn’t lost a game yet. Sports reporters had even begun writing about the surprise winning streak.
“Going well. They care about each other. It’s not a victory unless everyone was allowed to contribute. Did have a request from one of the boys, though. Do you know Humberto de la Loza?”
Luis did. Humberto, fifteen, was in one of Luis’s classes. Smart if not necessarily studious.
“What about him?”
“His brother, Ruben, is due to be sentenced next week. Their mother wanted to know if someone from the parish could attend.”
Luis thought about this. “Does Ruben come to Mass?”
“No, he hasn’t. But she assures us that he will.”
“What are the charges?”
“Possession of narcotics. Intent to distribute.”
Luis shook his head. “Let him take the first step to us. Otherwise, we’re being used.”
Father Serabia nodded and went back to his preparations.
Luis felt guilty over his response. His vanity made him worry that Father Serabia and, by extension, the de la Loza family would find him less than charitable. This hurt his pride, too. He second-guessed himself, wanting to reverse his decision and go to the sentencing himself, then changed his mind again. His head spun. He excused himself and returned to his room.
Once there he tried to imagine what Whillans’s counsel would be. He formulated what he’d say to the older priest and waited to hear the old man’s voice come back. When there was nothing, Luis sank onto his bed, feeling more and more like he’d been left with an unearned inheritance. Without God guiding his actions, he felt like someone who was all book learning and no real experience in the field. His approach could only be academic.
He was about to leave for the chapel but hesitated. He knelt and prayed, asking for guidance. Then he asked for nothing. Then he listened.
There was nothing.
He rejected the instinct to curse the darkness and recited lines from Saint John of the Cross’s immortal Dark Night of the Soul.
For no one saw me,
Nor did I look at anything,
With no other light or guide
Than the one that burned in my heart.
Even Mother Teresa, it had been revealed in recent years, had endured long periods where she felt outside the light of God. She’d bemoaned her own personal abandonment by God to a German priest in several letters but continued her good works regardless.
Twenty minutes later, now outfitted in his alb and chasuble, Luis led the procession of St. Augustine’s priests up the aisle as the small choir sang. After the opening prayers had been read from the sacramentary, Luis moved to stand in front of the early-morning congregation and raised his hands.
“Good morning,” he said to the six hundred or so assembled before him. “Peace be with you.”
“And also with you,” they responded in an ocean of murmurs.
As per the norm he went on autopilot. The ritualized nature of Mass and the Eucharist made it easy to do so. Opening prayer, prayer over the sacraments, communion, prayer after communion, gospel reading, scripture reading, hymns. Maybe it was the visit to Diaz Avenue, maybe it was Nicolas’s birthday approaching, or maybe he was beginning to lose hope that God’s absence might be temporary the more days he lived outside of him, but performing the sacraments was particularly difficult today. Looking at the parishioners, he felt as if it were written on his face: Fraud.
I’m lying to you. And you know I’m lying to you.
He was lost.
When communion was finished, Luis felt like turning on his heel and walking back to the sacristy. If he locked himself in long enough, everyone in the building would eventually leave and he’d be able to excuse himself without further embarrassment. He could then return to his search for God in private.
As quickly as these thoughts formed, however, he banished them.
More pride, more selfishness, he chided, unable to hide his sins from himself.
He saw a familiar face in one of the front pews, a priest. For a moment he couldn’t place the man, remembering only that Pastor Whillans hadn’t liked him for whatever reason. Then the name came to him: Father Uli Belbenoit. Whether Whillans’s disdain came from something Father Belbenoit had done or if it was b
ecause he was the assistant to Bishop Emeritus Eduardo Osorio, Luis didn’t know.
Bishop Osorio, then only Father Osorio and still a few years from retirement, had overseen Luis’s initial path to the priesthood, a thread Luis had taken up at his mother’s insistence after the death of his brother. That Luis was immediately enraptured by it and found a new life there was as much a surprise to him as it was to Osorio.
Osorio couldn’t be thinking of Nicolas, too, could he?
Now distracted, Luis sailed through the liturgy and communion feeling barely present. As he consecrated and administered the sacrament for each parishioner, he felt their eyes searching him, needing him to be more than he was, but to no avail.
At the end of Mass he stood by the chapel doors, bidding the congregants a good week, but found fewer returned his greeting. It wasn’t only that. Fewer confided in him, fewer asked for blessings, fewer asked to be kept in his prayers. He was sending them away, their spirits still hungry.
“Father Chavez?”
The crowd thinned out. Father Belbenoit now approached, his hands wrapped around a small book. He smiled in greeting to Luis, who shook his hand.
“Thank you for coming, Father,” Luis said. “How is the bishop?”
“He sends his regards,” Belbenoit said placidly, his English faintly accented by the French inflections of his youth. “He has been ill or would’ve come himself.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Luis replied. “I’ll say a prayer for him.”
“No need, no need,” Father Belbenoit said. “It’s his arthritis. It makes it hard for him to walk. But there’s nothing to do for it. His Excellency takes it as a reminder that his earthly form isn’t long for this world and he will soon be with God. I haven’t seen him this relaxed in some time. He’s beginning to let go, and there’s some relief in that.”
“I’ll pray that his pain is lessened,” Luis replied, “and nothing more.”
Father Belbenoit smiled, then seemed to remember why he was there. “The bishop wanted to reach out to you when Father Whillans passed but wanted to do so in person. He knew what this loss would mean to you. Only, the illness has prevented this from happening. He was hoping, thereby, you might come to him.”
Luis studied the priest before him. He was probably ten years older than Luis but still seemed a pup. He was losing his hair. A preemptive comb-over matted what was left to his pate.
“Please thank His Excellency for his kind thoughts,” Luis said. “I will make it a priority to see him in the next few weeks.”
“You mistake me, Father Chavez,” Father Belbenoit said. “He hoped you could see him today.”
“On a Sunday?” Luis said, realizing too late how incredulous he sounded. “Please understand I mean no disrespect, but the parish is in a state of upheaval since I’ve been put in charge. I don’t have time for social calls, unfortunately.”
Luis hadn’t meant for any animosity he felt toward Bishop Osorio to come across so nakedly. To his mind, Osorio had grown into a busybody who used his connections within the archdiocese to stick his nose in the business of others. But did that make him such a bad person, particularly given the debt Luis owed him? Or was this another game in which he wanted to see if Luis would come when called?
“Oh, it’s not a social call,” Father Belbenoit said. “He was recently reacquainted with someone and was looking to arrange a meeting between the two of you.”
Judge not, that ye be not judged, Luis thought, chastising himself for allowing such uncharitable thoughts into his head.
“I’m sorry,” Luis said. “It’s not my parish. It’s me. I haven’t been myself lately.”
“That’s what we’ve heard,” Father Belbenoit said lightly. “The bishop wanted you to know you’re not alone. That this is something we all know. But that God always finds a way to let you know he is a constant. To that, the bishop asked that I give you this book. His wish is to see you put together with its owner. I have met him, and his desire to see you is genuine. It is his greatest wish in the world. The bishop feels as if he’s been tasked with making it come true.”
Luis took the proffered book. Father Belbenoit, his mission completed, put his hands together and bowed before stepping away. The book was an old nondescript Bible. If the bishop had meant it as a riddle, Luis would have to investigate it later. He had to prepare for the eight-o’clock Mass.
As he pocketed the book, however, he realized the texture of its soft, aged cover was familiar to his fingertips. He had held this book before.
He flipped it open to the title page. The Holy Bible in King James Version, Translated out of the Original Tongues and with Previous Translations Diligently Compared and Revised. Gift and Award Bible. Self-pronouncing Words of Christ in Red.
Below it all was a small book plate announcing that this Bible was presented on this date, in good faith, to Sebastian Chavez.
His father.
III
Standing behind her desk at the San Gabriel auto dealership that bore her name, Helen Story could barely contain her enthusiasm.
“It worked!” Helen said into the phone. “The paperwork’s signed. The first auto hauler will arrive on Tuesday.”
Though it was still early on a Sunday morning and he’d gone to bed only hours before, she appreciated that her boyfriend, Oscar de Icaza, tried to match her exhilaration.
“That’s amazing,” he replied groggily. “He’s taking all the inventory?”
“Every last car.”
“Wow. I’m proud of you, babe.”
Helen beamed. When she’d opened the lot with backing from elements of the Los Angeles triad, an arrangement that had come out of Oscar and his gang’s own involvement with the organization, she knew there’d be strings. When unwanted inventory appeared on her lot from triad-affiliated dealerships all over the Southland, she realized there was enough to hang her. The difference between a sale and a used car that never moved could be as little as a few hundred extra miles on the odometer or the wrong color interior. She’d inherited a stockpile of misfit cars. Rather than be cowed, however, she’d gone to work. It had taken months, but she’d finally made inroads with a dealer who had six lots around the Bakersfield–San Bernardino area. He needed inventory at fleet prices. She needed turnover. They’d agreed to terms over the phone, then signed a contract that morning. She could still feel the satisfying bite of the celebratory champagne she’d allowed herself on her tongue.
“Now I can reach out to the manufacturer, start bringing in the cars people actually want,” Helen said. “Then we break ground on the next lot and begin scouting locations for a third.”
Oscar chuckled. Helen waited for him to say something meant to subtly check her ambition. Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? Putting the cart before the horse?
“Do you have any idea how much it turns me on to hear you talk like that?” Oscar replied. “You’re going to take over this town, Helen. Top to bottom.”
Helen closed her eyes. When Oscar said he was proud of her, he was. This was in stark contrast to her ex, Michael, who regarded her successes as detracting from his own. She conditioned herself to play down her victories in order to keep things on an even keel. To be subservient and the sole provider of emotional support in the marriage no matter the personal cost. Realizing all this didn’t make her hate Michael so much as herself for letting it come to that.
With Oscar, she was slowly returning to her true self. And with every step, he loved her, desired her, made her laugh, and even proved to be easy with her kids. While she wasn’t so crazy as to believe a career criminal was a sure bet, she loved him and was in love with him.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the fast-walking approach of one of her sales associates, Miles, whom she’d only hired a month earlier. “There’s some crazy homeless guy out there punching windshields,” he said. “We tried to talk to him, but he’s belligerent. He might’ve broken his hand.”
“I’m going to have to call you back,
” Helen whispered into the phone.
“I heard,” Oscar replied. “Want me to come over and take care of him?”
Helen laughed. “I’m on a roll this morning. Pretty sure I can handle it.”
“Cool. Congratulations again on your deal. You earned it.”
Helen hung up and turned to Miles. “Did you call the police?”
“Julie’s calling now.”
“Where is he?”
Miles pointed out the window. Helen took one look at the disheveled, clearly inebriated man crumpled between two Volkswagen Tiguans, cradling his bloody knuckles, and sobered.
“Hang up the phone,” she called across the sales floor to Julie. When the young woman had, Helen sighed, unable to avoid an explanation. “It’s my ex-husband.”
She was barely out the door when she heard her employees tearing into this new piece of gossip like meat tossed to a pack of jackals. They knew their boss’s ex was a chief deputy district attorney. How this would affect her authority was anyone’s guess.
Why today, Michael? she wondered. Couldn’t you have waited for a Tuesday, when we’re half-staffed?
Maybe she should’ve taken Oscar up on his offer.
Helen stepped quickly across the lot, heels clicking imperiously on the asphalt as she walked. She wasn’t going to put up with any of Michael’s crap today. When she saw him up close, saw how bad off he was, she grew angrier. What if he’d turned up at the house looking like this? How could the kids, who were thankfully up the coast in Morro Bay with their aunt and uncle for the weekend, have looked at their father the same way again?
“Michael? What are you doing here?” she demanded. “We’ve called the police. You can’t be here. Please leave.”
“Where’s Oscar?” Michael bellowed, his words slurring. Helen had never seen him so drunk. “I need to see him.”
“Are you crazy?” she asked. “You didn’t drive here like this, did you? You can’t go off the deep end whenever you want to, Michael. You have three children.”
