“It feels like I was fed a bunch of bullshit for my entire life. I understand that love happens, and maybe he’s good at getting women to take care of him. Carmelita seems perfectly enamored.”
This was true; I’d never seen someone as devoted.
“But I don’t understand why Mom felt she couldn’t tell me the truth. I spent so many nights asking. So many questions about the man who fathered me. I understand now why her answers were always so vague.” She shook her head, stabbing at the ground again.
“What was life like for you and her when you were a teenager?” I inquired.
“Horrible,” she spat.
“And when you went to college?”
“Even more horrible. I avoided her at all costs.”
I nodded. “And then?”
Tressa frowned, casting a weary glance at me. “And then I was stupid and let the head of the department put his hand down my pants. I had some stuff I was dealing with, whatever. She still should have told me about my father.”
“Perhaps she thought she had time.”
Tressa let my words land silently on the bougainvillea-scented breeze. The tiny footpath that led up to the old stone church of Iglesia de Santa Maria’s was bordered on one side by a wall of the deep-pink vines that bloomed year-round.
Walking up the path each evening always made me think of Tressa. Funny now that she was here, sharing my bed, my life.
“I don’t like that she kept me in a bubble.”
“What would life have looked like out of the bubble?”
“Do you have a rhetorical question hidden under that white collar for everything?”
I adjusted said white collar at my neck just to irritate her.
She narrowed her eyes and shook her head, glossy dark hair bouncing in a riot. “If you weren’t a holy man…”
I didn’t think, only crossed the space between us, gathering her in my arms, hidden behind the pink blooms. I kissed her slowly but with force, expressing in every nonverbal way how very much I loved having her.
“Being without you felt like an exorcism of the soul. Your absence in my life left me a shell of a man.” Our foreheads touched. “And this place isn’t for the fainthearted.”
“It is rather devoid of anyone between the ages of fifteen and fifty.” Her hands dipped below my waist, pinching at the cheeks of my backside through the dark fabric of my clerical blacks.
“Mostly.” I pulled away when I heard voices in the distance. Tressa went back to digging in the ground, and I waited, not surprised to see a few Jesuit boys from the monastery teasing and laughing, long, dark cassocks dusted with red dirt at the hems. I waved openly, and they waved back, probably on their way to the village market.
“Once in a while, some young’uns come around.” For the first time in a long while, I was consciously aware of the age difference that spanned Tressa and me. Twelve years, not that I’d spent time counting. “Carmelita’s daughter came down from Havana for a few days. She was a delight.”
“Oh?”
“A spitfire, not unlike someone else I know. Which…” I stumbled over the next part. “I guess that would make sense. If Juan is Santiago’s father and yours…perhaps it’s not unlikely he would also be…”
Tressa’s hands froze, shoulders tense before she dropped the spade and stood. “You think I might have a sister?”
My eyebrows rose.
“What am I supposed to do with this, Padre?” She spun, stomping off up the tiny hill to the doors of the chapel.
I dropped my shovel, hot on her heels and closing the intricately carved doors of Santa Maria’s behind me.
“You’re not exactly innocent in this either.” She leveled me with a fiery glare.
“No need to tell me that. I’ve done my fair share of confessing.”
“Well, add this to your list—accomplice to a church cover-up.” She stood only feet away from where I gave my homily each Mass. The apse gleamed with precious relics behind her, all carried here by explorers from Spain and other far reaches of the holy world. The carefully sculpted chancel arch bounced light around the room from the stained-glass windows, creating an enchanting halo of rainbow light around her.
“Perhaps we can do this in a less…public place.”
“Now you have discretion? Last I knew you, it was the very last thing on your list of concerns.”
“Tressa,” I sighed, shoving a hand in my hair before stalking up the aisle after her. “What’s with the display?”
“No display, Bastien.” She shrugged out of my grip at her elbow. “But maybe you’re the one who should report this old guy for, oh, I dunno, spreading his semen among unsuspecting women?”
“Unsuspecting women?” I nearly laughed, hoping all of this was sarcasm. “I hardly think these women were naïve.”
“But you don’t know. What about Casey’s mom? Whatever happened there was seriously fucking traumatic. Pain like that can’t be brushed under the rug, and that’s why he targeted St. Mike’s all those years later, triggered by an unresolved past and willing to take all of us down with him.”
Her eyes tore up and down the nave, shaking her head when her gaze landed on the Stations of the Cross. “Forgive me, Father, but haven’t we all sinned? Where does the church get off covering up for these people who take advantage of other humans? Wouldn’t it be better to be open and honest, seek proper justice and treatment, and show what true redemption and honesty look like?”
There was that passion for justice I knew simmered just below the surface and motivated her in all things she did.
“Casey nearly killed Luce and her baby that day, two people’s lives would have been snuffed out, a string of tragedies set into motion due to how many bad decisions by Father Martin. He upended our lives decades later like phantom shrapnel. I don’t care if he’s my father. That’s not something I can hide when other innocent people are involved.”
I pressed both my palms over my face, all of her statements as true and valid as if God Himself had spoken them.
“You’re right,” I whispered, our eyes equally raw with emotion. “I’ll report him.”
Tressa nodded once, reservation still staining her features.
“But I don’t know if it will make a difference,” I added solemnly.
THIRTY-FIVE
Bastien
I did for Tressa what I promised I would.
I submitted the report that very night and even went to the extra lengths of carbon-copying the cardinal and bishop from St. Michael’s and those from my local diocese now. A paper trail might incite them to action.
Once I hit send on the emails, that was it.
Just like that, the tension seemed to work itself out of our lives.
Until the following Monday.
Tressa had already decided she wouldn’t be doing my rounds with me this week, and I’d thought it was better that way anyway. While those in my flock were all respectful and hadn’t even asked a thing about her last week, I also didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to her and me.
I wasn’t even sure what our future held, exactly.
I knew only two things.
I loved being with her.
I hated myself without her.
Surely, church or no church, that accounted for something.
And it was with those thoughts in my head that I set off down the dusty road a week later, walking the short distance to Carmelita’s house.
By the time I’d arrived a few minutes later, I knew something was amiss.
Santiago sat on the brightly painted porch, head in his hands, puppy between his knees.
“Padre Juan is sick,” he said dejectedly upon my approach.
“Is he inside?”
Santiago shook his head, tears welling. “Mamá took him to the hospital this morning. She says it’s not so good if Padre Juan has to go to the hospital.”
I frowned, setting the basket of items on the porch and then taking Santiago by the hand. “What d
o you say we pay the hospital a visit and see what we can find out?”
His dark chestnut eyes rounded as he popped up, tucking his hand in mine with a smile. “And can we stop for ice cream too? The last time Mamá took me to the hospital was when Abuela was there. She got me an ice cream cone after to cheer me up.”
I nodded, chest aching. I thought of this little boy living the rest of his life without his father, even if he hadn’t known it was him to begin with.
With the scent of bougainvillea surrounding us, I replied, “Sure thing, kiddo.”
* * *
Two mornings later, we were walking the same route. Only this time, Carmelita was on my arm, sniffling into a tissue as she mourned the death of her companion, Padre Juan Martin.
Tressa walked just behind us, tiny Santiago’s hand wrapped in hers, head bent as she silently mourned the passing of her father. I hadn’t even expected to tackle this hurdle, most especially not in quite this way, but here we were. Within weeks of her arrival to my island, Tressa had both found her father and lost him to this life.
All of his secrets, destined to die with him.
THIRTY-SIX
Bastien
“Come. Let me bless you, child. I see many babies in the future for you. A woman must protect her fertility.” Carmelita waggled her thick eyebrows at Tressa, who stood in Carmelita’s kitchen, a baby on her hip.
Santiago’s youngest cousin.
We were surrounded by the infectious Martinez family, and while they were gathered to honor the passing of a man so well loved in this community, he meant something extra special to this one.
I’d once wondered if the rest of Carmelita’s children were Padre Juan’s, but no longer did I have to. Just as Tressa had known, it became clearer to me too after spending the last few days with the extended family, very often assisting them into the wee hours, Tressa at my side, tucking children into bed and feeding babies with a bottle.
It struck me two days in that, while Tressa may not have had much of a family life growing up, she settled into it with great ease. A complete natural.
“I don’t think there are kids in my future,” Tressa finally replied. “I have my godson, Luca. Hopefully, I can bring him down to meet Santiago someday.” She ruffled the boy’s wavy hair with a smile.
“Does he speak Spanish?” the little boy inquired.
“Nope, he doesn’t yet, but I bet you’d be great at teaching him.” She spoke to Santiago in her own softly accented Spanish, something she’d obviously picked up since I’d last seen her four years ago. She’d had a passable understanding as I recalled, but since she’d set foot on this island, she’d slipped into my native tongue almost flawlessly. The way her tongue wrapped around some of the words made my dick throb. She was a gust of fresh air, the thought of living even a minute without her by my side already unbearable.
“Nonsense! You’ll have many, many good Catholic babies.” Carmelita worked an herb paste of lord knows what into a shallow dish and mixed it with some various ground powders before taking one spoonful and dumping it into a glass of red juice. “A little rain and tobacco water, a few herbs and ground plantain leaves, the white of one small egg from my prized Cubalaya chicken, and just a drop of holy water. Drink up. This helps awaken up the womb.”
Tressa’s eyes nearly burst out of her head as Carmelita pushed the concoction up to her lips, forcing Tressa to drink.
She did, swallowing it all as I watched from across the room, stifling my laugh.
“Ai, Mamá. Enough with that voodoo shit. She’ll be able to fly back to Santa Maria’s for as long as you steep that tobacco water. Leave Padre and Tressa alone.” Margarita swept through the room, backpack on her shoulder as she kissed her mother on both cheeks. “Tressa is coming to Havana to see me soon. I’m going to give her the real Cuban experience.” Margarita winked at Tressa. “How can I show her all the wonderful rum-soaked ways of our people if she’s growing one anyway?”
“The ways of our people.” Carmelita tapped Margarita on the cheek. “You’re too much for me.”
I stifled a laugh, wondering just when Tressa had planned on telling me she was hitting the streets of Havana with Margarita.
“Sisterhood.” Margarita shot a mischievous wink at Tressa, a look I could undoubtedly say I’d seen from Tressa on more than one occasion.
“Hush, niña.”
“It’s written all over the angles of her face, Mamá. Padre was a dirty old man long before he came to Cuba.”
Carmelita’s eyes watered with mourning. “Sí, but he was mine.”
Margarita kissed her mother again before wiping at her own set of tears. Once she’d composed herself, she turned and thanked us before quietly exiting the tiny little home, bustling with so much life, even amid sadness.
Tressa was still swirling the remnants of her juice glass around, eyes worried. I’d explained early on that Carmelita practiced a sort of hybrid form of Cuban Catholicism called Santería, a blend of African rituals and dance with holy Catholic saints and traditional prayers. Tressa’s eyes had grown wide, and she’d promptly spent the next few hours Googling everything she could about it. She had such a keen interest in culture and people that I imagined she was soaking up Carmelita’s little fertility recipe regardless of the consequences.
Tressa had already offered to watch a few of the kids in the village to give their parents a much-needed break, a notion many of them hadn’t really had the chance to consider before. I imagined the church would soon be overrun with rug rats, just like St. Mike’s had become with a little of her special brand of TLC. She’d also started taking a lot of photos and videos, sharing the side of Cuba many tourists never got to see and uploading to a new social media travel blog she’d started with the hopes of organizing humanitarian missions to countries in need, especially those hit by environmental hardship or suffering a depletion in natural resources.
Always ambitious and never at a loss for ideas, a rebel warrior, my girl was. She inspired me every day.
And that’s what I’d begun to think love was all about.
Finding inspiration in the world around you, tapping into it, cultivating a universe of good with the set of God-given gifts you’d been given. My view of God hadn’t wavered much in nearly forty years, but a few short weeks with her, and the very notion of love and religion itself was turned on its head.
And it was exhilarating.
Being with her had also brought me to the conclusion that a good relationship required each person to face honesty head on, in themselves and others. Without the individual growth born out of the ashes of our relationship, she and I would have carried on running from all the problems our fragile human hearts feared most. There wasn’t dishonor in vulnerability; there was power and courage in its admittance. Honor in direct confrontation of weakness. She brought out the crusader for humanity and truth that’d slept dormant inside me.
I’d found my sense of purpose right here, at this little table, in this tiny village, helping those with my hands dirty and my heart open. I’d been cautiously avoiding what the future looked like for Tressa and me. Could we do as Carmelita and Padre Juan had done? The same half commitment Tressa’s own mother had suffered through, only to end this life alone with a dream never fully realized?
If Tressa and I chose that path, these people would embrace us. And that sense of unconditional love brought me calm in the chaotic storm.
But I knew that life would never be good enough for Tressa.
I would never allow it to be.
Taking the easy road wasn’t something I was interested in as much as I might have been four years ago. Our lives had changed, motivations altered, souls shifted into a new gear. My priorities were different now; that was the unavoidable truth.
The fact that, overall, this tradition had burned more than redeemed both of us was an unavoidable truth too.
“Mamá!” Santiago sang, pulling me into the present moment. “Look what I found from Papi!”
<
br /> Tressa’s gaze flew to mine, the knowledge that Santiago knew Padre Juan was his father rocking both of us more than a little bit.
Carmelita rounded the table, taking the small tin can filled to the brim with old, hand-rolled cigar stubs and an empty bottle of rum from the little boy’s hands.
A soft smile lit her cheeks as she shook her head. “Ah, mi padre.”
Tears brimmed so heavily, she set both items down on the table and rushed from the room, soft rag drying the edges of her eyes as she went.
Santiago shrugged, smiling brightly at us before turning on his heel and hustling out the door, little dog hot behind him.
“Kids are the best,” Tressa whispered, eyes hovering on the bright yellow door he’d left swinging in his wake.
My own eyes shifted to the can of cigar stubs, an idea dawning. “If you had a question about your paternity,” I said the next words, unsure of how they’d land, “I think now would be the time to take action.”
Tressa’s gaze followed mine down to the tin, realization lighting her dark irises. “I should take one.”
I nodded, swiping a napkin from the table and waiting.
She sucked her lips between her teeth, working her fingers back and forth before quickly plucking one of the charred stubs from the tin and plopping it on the napkin. I rolled it gently and tucked it into the pocket of my jacket.
“That could answer a lot of questions,” she murmured.
“It could generate a lot of them too.”
She hummed, standing with the now softly sleeping baby in her arms. She walked the chubby baby across the room and nestled it in a pile of hand-woven afghans on the old couch. Carmelita breezed back into the room then, face fresh as ever, smile stretching both cheeks.
“Sit, sit, sweetheart. That tea needs a few more minutes for full effect.” She waved Tressa back to the kitchen.
“No, no, thank you. I’m not feeling so well. I think I just need to go to bed early tonight.”
REBEL SAINT Page 17
