Part III

So, I’m not done with this.  Part III is supposed to end with the end of the day, but it hasn’t quite arrived.  Neither has the conversation that is in mid-dialogue at the end of what follows.  But, hey, I’m making progress…

 

Part III

 

I could float no more.  I stood up and turned towards the beach.  There, standing next to the small mound created by my shoes, socks and shirt, were Isabella and her little boy.  As soon as I saw them, the boy pointed at me and began to smile and then to laugh.  He tugged on Isabella’s hand and looked up at her to make sure she also saw what he saw.  A sunburnt white man in saggy boxers rising out of the ocean.  I suppose it was better than the boy shrieking in fear.  If I had been in his shoes, I probably would have been laughing, too.

 

I walked towards the dry sand, trying the best I could to protect what little dignity I had left.  Before I left the water, Isabella shouted, “Señor!  Padre Santos,” followed by Spanish I couldn’t comprehend.  When she was done, I did the only thing I could think to do.  “Huh?” I said with a shrug.

 

Apparently, “huh” is a universal word because she repeated herself, only much more slowly this time, while pointing towards the church.

 

“I don’t understand.  No comprende?”

 

Isabella looked at me more closely.  I got lost in her eyes until she brought me back.  “Señor?”  I pulled away from her eyes.  She bent down and picked up my shorts.  “Por favor.”

 

“Oh, yeah.  Right.”  I took the last few steps towards her and grabbed the shorts.

 

“Por favor,” she said again, once I had slipped the shorts on.  She motioned with her hand for me to follow her and began to walk up the beach towards the village and the church behind it.  She held her little boy’s hand and tugged him along while he stumbled to keep up and looked back at me with a smile on his face.  His round eyes and that smile showed such simple joy for life.  I felt like an old woman, feeling an irresistible urge to run to him and squeeze his cheeks.  I wanted to hear him laugh and giggle.

 

I put my shirt on, picked up my shoes and followed.  At first, I hung back to be able to watch Isabella walk ahead of me.  She had wavy brown hair that reached just below her shoulders.  Her narrow waist flared out to hips that begged to be touched.  Catching my breath and pushing that thought out of my head, I walked faster to catch up.  When I reached Isabella, I walked with her for a few seconds before I tapped her on her shoulder to stop her.  When she looked at me, I pointed at her and asked, “Isabella?”  She nodded her head slightly.  I pointed at myself.  “Kel.”

 

“Kel,” she repeated quietly.  I pointed at her son and shrugged my shoulders.  Her eyes lit up then and she smiled for the first time since I had met her.  “Llamas es Ivan.”    (need to make sure I’ve got this right.)  More rapid-fire Spanish that I couldn’t understand streamed from her mouth.  I shrugged again.  This time helplessly.

 

“Si.  Si.  No comprende,” she giggled.  Isabella picked Ivan up and he looked at me with another smile as he rested his head on his mother’s shoulder.  “Por favor, señor.  Padre Santos.”  Isabella pointed again beyond the village towards the church.

“Si,” I sighed with another shrug.   She laughed again at my limited use of Spanish. 

 

We walked, side by side, around the village and up the path towards the church.  I stole glances at her, admiring her profile.  I kept being drawn to her hips, wishing I could put my hands on them.  As we approached the church, I pushed the thought from my mind.  There was no chance I’d have that opportunity, but it was certainly a nice thought while it lasted.

 

“Señor?”  We had reached the entrance to the church.  I turned to face Isabella as she pointed first at me and then at herself.  Finally, she made a walking motion with her fingers and looked at me.  When she was sure she had my attention, she said, “Gracias,” before dipping her head down, turning away from me and practically running back down the hill, with little Ivan once again looking over her shoulder at me with a huge smile on his face.

I turned and walked into the church.  Father Santos sat in one of the pews at the front, looking up at the crucifixion scene that was depicted behind the altar.  Every few minutes he crossed himself.  I sat down in a pew in the back and allowed him to finish his prayers. 

 

“Señor Rockwell.  Isabella found you.  Bueño,” he said, when he finally rose and turned to leave the church.  Father Santos pointed his elbow out to me.  “My legs are tired today.  Help an old man.”  I reached out to hold the twigs wrapped in the fabric of his shirt and steadied him while we walked down the hill to the village.

 

“I need to pay a visit to Señora Contreras.  If you will come with me, when we are done, I would ask you to tell me what you see.  But, until then, please no talk.”

 

“Father Santos.  I don’t understand,” I began.

 

Before I could continue, he interrupted me.  “Señor, if you listen to me and show some patience, you will.  You do not need to understand before.  No?”

 

“I guess,” I mumbled, resigning myself to another of Father Santos’ mysterious messages.

 

“As you did at lunch when you opened your heart to speak, now open your heart to see.”

 

We began to walk slowly through the village.  Father Santos shuffled along on my right, his feet scraping the surface of the road and pushing up small clouds of dust with each step.  As we progressed down the road, he began to lean more and more on my hand that was wrapped around his elbow.  Once or twice, I tried to speak, but each time, he quieted me, “Ssssh.  See.  No speak.  You really must begin to learn how to experience the world.  Are all Americans so impatient?”  I shrugged my shoulders in reply, afraid to break his order of silence.

 

I walked with the old Father Santos as we made our way through the small heart of Santo Cielo.  Slowly and yet more slowly, we walked through the village.  Children played and ran through the village’s few streets.  Once or twice, one of the children, weaving through the homes, darted out in front of us, almost upending Father Santos.  Each time, he laughed at the child and said something I didn’t understand.  The child when this occurred, paused briefly, bowed their heads at their priest and then darted off again to rejoin his or her playmates.

 

Women poked their heads out of doors and windows and yelled to each other.  Folding laundry from lines strung between homes and playfully swatting at children as they ran by, the women displayed a sense of ease with each other and with the children, regardless of whether the kids were theirs or somebody else’s.  In front of one house, a group of men sat in a circle.  Sipping from bottles of beer, they leaned back in their chairs.  Not knowing their language, I had no idea what stories they told each other, but I could tell that they enjoyed each other’s company.

 

Towards the edge of the village, Father Santos interrupted my observations, “It is here.  Please wait for me.”  He slipped from my grip and made his way even more slowly up to a small shack.  Knocking quietly on the door, he announced his presence and let himself in.  I waited outside.  And waited some more as the sun descended in the western sky.  The silence in the house was broken by an occasional sob and wail.

 

“Señor Rockwell.  Let us go.”  He shook my shoulder and woke me from the spot where I had sat down and leaned against Señora Contreras’ home.  I shook the sleep from my head and rose slowly to my feet.  I could feel the work of the day in my muscles and joints, as well as the pain of my sunburn as my shirt rubbed against my skin.

 

“It is a sad thing,” Father Santos said to me as we began our walk back towards the church.

 

“Father?”

 

“Señora Contreras.  She is an old woman and lost her husband just last week.  I have tried to minister to her soul and assure that he has passed to heaven, but she has yet to accept it.”  Father Santos stumbled slightly and slowed his steps.  I reached out to grip his elbow as I had on the walk into the village.  “Gracias, Señor.  Today is a hard day.  Such hurt in my old bones.”

“I’m sorry.”
     

“Si.  That is all we can be.  Sorry.”  We walked in silence and when we approached the trail to the church, Father Santos stopped and looked to the ocean.  He squinted against the sun that was dropping quickly towards the ocean.  With a sigh, he continued, “Señora Contreras has spent her entire life here in Santo Cielo.  Her parents are buried in the cemetery behind the church.  As are her five brothers and three sisters.  They have all preceded her to heaven, waiting for her to join them. 

 

“As a young man, Señor Contreras came to Santo Cielo many years ago.  When they first laid eyes upon each other, it was, how do you say it in your language?”

 

I could guess what he meant.  “Love at first sight,” I offered.

 

“Si.  Love at first sight,” Father Santos chuckled, looking up at me.  “They were married for almost sixty years and loved each other very much.  That first sight lasted for many years.  Señor Contreras has now joined the rest of the family in the cemetery.  He waits for her, too.  I am afraid that she is desperate enough that she may do what she can to speed the arrival of that moment.

 

“Isabella is Señora Contreras’ youngest grandchild.  She is the only family left in Santo Cielo.”

 

Father Santos took one last look at the ocean.  “Come.  Help an old man up the hill.”

 

With my hand on his elbow and his cane in his other hand, we made our way up to his home.  When we got to the cross, freshly painted and almost gleaming in the light of the setting sun, Father Santos stopped.  The setting sun glow cast the cross and the church in an unearthly orange glow.  “Would you like to pray, Señor Rockwell?”

 

“No, Father Santos.  Thanks, but no.”

 

“My church is always open to you.”

 

“I know.  I know.”  I wondered if a man such as Father Santos could fathom some one like me.  A non-believer.  “Prayer is a difficult thing for me.”

 

“Señor, you have doubts.  That is obvious.”

 

“Father, it is much more than doubt.  I may not be able to tell you everything that brought me here, but I can tell you one thing with certainty.”

 

He interrupted me then, “You do not have faith?  You do not believe in God?”

 

“Yes, Father Santos.”  I don’t know why, but I felt ashamed to admit it to him.  By acknowledging my lack of faith, I felt as though I was calling his own into question.

 

I looked down at Father Santos and saw that he was looking at me with a bemused expression, the one I had seen several times in the past twenty-four hours.  It told me that he was playing with me, but at the same time was also entertained by my lack of awareness.  The look meant another pearl of wisdom was about to be dropped into the palm of my consciousness.  For me to consider.

 

“Prayer does not require a god, Señor,” he said with a shrug.  “What is it you did yesterday while you sat in my church?  What is it you did this afternoon while you floated on the ocean’s waves?  What is it you did while you weeded in my flower bed this morning?  Was your head full of air or were you thinking?  With your head?  Or with your heart?  It does not matter.  Why is that not prayer?

 

“Prayer is a search for answers.  Or it should be.  Yes, too many people think of prayer as asking God for something.  I believe they are wrong.  Prayer is about opening your mind and … yes … this,” he stopped and pointed at his chest.  “Your heart.”  He continued on, but I was no longer listening.

 

Once he said “you floated on the ocean’s waves,” I lost track of what he was saying.  An anger welled up in me and burst forth.  “You saw me out there?!”

 

“Eh?”

 

“You saw me out there in the ocean, struggling and you didn’t send anybody to help me,” I paused to take a breath.  “Why didn’t you send somebody to help?”

 

“I did not know.  My old eyes make it difficult.  I could see you, but, I did not know,” he said, shrugging again.

 

“I almost died!”

 

“Señor,” he now said a little sternly, “you went out into the water on your own.  If you went too far, that was by your own decision.  Was I to send one of the men of the village out to rescue you?  To risk his own life?  Sometimes when you make your own trouble, you have to find your own way out.  It looks like you did.”

 

I was tired of Father Santos’ neverending words of wisdom.  Or maybe I was just tired.  “I almost drowned, old man!  I was this close to leaving my kids without a father,” I said, holding my hand in front of his face with my thumb and index finger mere millimeters apart.  Shaking it at him for emphasis, wanting to poke him in the chest, but knowing that I had already gone too far.

 

“You choose to go into the ocean and get carried too far out.  The people of Santo Cielo had nothing to do with this.  Why should they risk their own lives to save yours?”

 

“I’m not leaving my kids without a father.  I can’t leave them to be raised by Holly alone.  That would be a catastrophe!  She thinks that parenting is telling her kids to do something and then ignoring that they aren’t doing it.”

 

I looked down at the old priest again and noticed that he was looking at me with a bemused smile on his face.  “Maybe it is through anger that you pray,” he said, shrugging once again, and turning to walk up to his little house behind the church.  He struggled to make his way with his cane and without my support, but he did not turn to ask for help.  He left me alone, standing in front of the church.  Speechless.  The anger drained out of me.  I accepted his offer and, shoulders slumped, entered his church again.  To pray.

 

I sat in the front pew and repeated my efforts of the day before.  As the sun sank and its light left the world around me, I tried to let myself go.  I tried focusing on the flame of one candle.  In the next of votives at the side of the altar, it stood alone.  One grouping of lit candles to the right, and one candle on the left.  Lit and flickering on its own.  That flicker every time a draft caught it and made it dance, kept distracting me from a thought.

 

* * *

 

Holly, Spence and Jason alone, without me.  I was terrified by the thought.  She couldn’t even figure out how to get them to turn their light off at bedtime.  How would she prevent Spence from succumbing to drugs?  How would Jason avoid fathering a child before the age of sixteen?  How could I reach such dire consequences based on an inability to get her kids to bed?  Because it was more than that, so much more.

 

“Spence, it’s time to set the table,” she would say just as she finished preparing dinner.  Several minutes would pass and Spence wouldn’t have moved an inch.

 

“Spence, dinner’s ready.  Set the table.  Jason, clean your stuff off of the table.”

 

“Yeah, just a minute, mom,” Spence would reply.

 

“I don’t want to,” Jason would whine in his barely older than a toddler voice.  He had learned that phrase from Spence, I’m sure.

 

More time would lapse.  “Spence!  Set the table.  How many times do I have to tell you?  Jason, get in here, and clean your stuff up!”

 

By the time Jason would finally clear his things off the table, usually with a tear or two thrown in for good measure, and Spence had set the table, dinner would be a little bit cooled off.  Holly would be frustrated and I would be annoyed at the fact that the same thing that happened every night had happened once again.  Why couldn’t she learn from experience?  Why couldn’t she figure out that, if she just stood firm for a few days, it would actually get easier?

 

Because she didn’t want to.  Holly told me once, “I choose my battles.  I’m not going to fight them on everything.”

 

To which I replied, “You’ve got to fight the small battles, otherwise you won’t know how to when it really matters.  And the boys won’t believe you when you finally do.”  I felt like I was speaking the obvious.  “If you get them to toe the line on the little things, it will make it easier.”

 

“I’m not going to get upset at them about everything.  They should get to be kids.  To do what kids do.”

 

“This isn’t about kids doing what kids do.  This is about them learning that there are expectations and rules that they should live by.”

      

            Unfortunately, “rules” was a dirty word to Holly.  Whenever I brought up the idea that they needed to have rules, she would roll her eyes.  “You are your mother’s son.  That’s for sure,” she’d laugh.

       

           “Yeah, well, you are your mother,” I’d retort, and the conversation would be over.  Holly would return to her ways, ignoring things that should be and making sure that Spence and Jason did not have clear, enforceable expectations — okay, rules — to live by.  And, I would over-react to every little slight, every little incidence of one or the other not complying with the behavior I expected. 

           

            I was the bad guy.  Holly was the fun parent.  I was getting to the point where I wondered if she was willing to fight them on anything.  Spence could spend the day with his IPod on, playing video games and text messaging his friends, and she would hardly say a word.  You wouldn’t want to actually try to get him to engage in real life.  Nah, that would meaning fighting a battle.  One that apparently wasn’t worth it.  That would mean expecting them to be better than other kid whose parents just as equally didn’t seem to give a damn about how their kids were growing up.

 

* * *

 

 

Maybe my anger at Father Santos, misdirected as it was, had provided me with the answer I needed.  If I didn’t want to die and leave my kids, maybe I wasn’t ready to do it voluntarily either.  My wife had a flawed sense of parenting.  If I wasn’t around on a regular basis, if I wasn’t involved with the boys on a daily basis, how could I be sure that they were learning the right lessons of life.  I had an idea of how I wanted Spence and Jason to view their roles in the world around them.  If I wasn’t around to teach them that, I might as well give up entirely.  If I left Holly, it meant leaving my kids as well.

I left the church and trudged up the rest of the hill to Father Santos’ home.  When I got inside, I saw that he had already begun his preparations for dinner.  In the center of the oven was another towel wrapped bundle.  A couple of pots bubbled away on the stove.  In the center of his freshly painted table was a bucket full of ice and beer.  Next to the bucket was a bowl of fruit. (describe either sapodilla or cherimoya) 

 

Father Santos sat in one chair with a cup of tea in his hands.  I noticed that his was the only tea on the table.  Apparently, he had learned from the night before.  Although the quality of the tea had surprised me the night before, I preferred the beer.

 

He blew on his tea lightly before looking up at me.  “Eh, so you are done.  Did you pray?”

 

“I don’t know, Father,” I replied.  “I’m … I’m sorry for earlier.”

 

“De nada.  It is nothing, señor.  I am an old man.  You are right.”

 

“Father, you were … are … only trying to help me.”

 

“Aah, señor, sometimes I carry on.”

 

I couldn’t necessarily disagree with him.  I wasn’t sure how many more times I could hear him tell me to use my heart instead of my head, but I also knew that his own heart was in the right place.

 

“Please, Father, no more for now.”

 

“Si, señor,” he sighed.  “Por favor.”  He motioned to the other chair and pulled a beer out of the bucket and held it out to me.  As I took the beer and sat down, I sighed myself and ran my fingers through my hair.  “It is a long day for you today, no?” Father Santos asked.

 

“Yeah, a little weeding, a little painting, and a little near death experience can take a lot out of a guy.”  I laughed then and found myself unable to stop.  The stress of the experience was finally coming out, releasing from my body.  I pulled the top off the beer and downed half of it in several gulps.  I needed it more than I had known.

 

“Death is not something to laugh at, señor.  Just ask Señora Contreras.”

 

“Yes, Father.”

 

He mumbled something in Spanish that I did not understand and got up.  Father Santos shuffled to the stove and began to stir what was in the two pots, mumbling more under his breath.

 

We spent the evening much as we had the night before.  The sun set with the last light fading from the window above the table.  Darkness wrapped around the room, broken only by a single candle set on the table between the Father and I, and the embers of the fire in the stove.  The candle, a faint shade of blue, was a gnarly thing, with days or weeks or months of melted wax, an even fainter shade of blue, lumped around its edge and down its sides.  The fire hissed and crackled and cast an eerie orange glow in the corner.

 

While he finished his preparations at the stove, Father Santos let me sit in silence.  But soon, he brought two plates to the table.  They were heaped with diced pork in a spicy sauce and more rice.  The towel-wrapped tortillas were placed next to the bowl of fruit.  I began with a tortilla.

 

“Si, you like Isabella’s tortillas?”

 

“They’re very good,” I replied, tearing a piece off, dipping it in the sauce and scooping up a piece of pork.  I savored the morsel before tearing another chunk of tortilla and repeating the effort.

“Isabella learned to make tortillas from her grandmother, Señora Contreras.  It is something that women in this country do.  It is as though they are born to it.  For Isabella, it is different.  There is something she learned from her grandmother that most do not learn.  For most women, tortillas are nothing much more than flour and water.  Maybe a little sugar to sweeten.  Good.  But not so good as a Contreras tortilla.  Señora Contreras’ tortillas have always had something extra.  She has never revealed what the secret is.  Except to her daughters and granddaughters. 

 

“Isabella has kept the secret and now makes tortillas that are just as good as her grandmothers.  Some say they are even better.  That somehow, Isabella has managed to improve upon the Señora’s work.”

I tore another chunk of tortilla and scooped another piece of pork with it.  The fire of the chiles in the sauce was beginning to accumulate and create a constant slow burn on the back of my tongue and down my throat, but I still wanted more. 

The tortillas, I realized, represented something much more than food to Isabella.  There was something very simple, yet remarkable, about the warm pieces of bread wrapped in a towel on the center of Father Santos’ table.  They were a link to Isabella’s past.  To her culture.  To the traditions of her family.  Ultimately, to who she was and the choices she made.  Isabella, along with her little boy who had no say in the matter, was the last of her family that had stayed in Santo Cielo.  Soon, her grandmother would be joining her husband in the cemetery farther up the hill.   

 

Alone among the younger generations, Isabella had decided to stay in Santo Cielo.  To accept and be happy with the simple things the town had to offer.  At one time, maybe she too had dreamt of a big city and fancy things, but she had not pursued those dreams.  Instead, she stayed behind.  Making tortillas for Father Santos, raising her little boy in a ramshackle cluster of shacks perched on the edge of the ocean, and paying honor to the simple things that make up a life.

 

All this I got from a piece of tortilla in my hand, the words of Father Santos, and fleeting memories of a simple woman who had smiled and thanked me for a short walk earlier in the day.  As the good Father might say, “eh,” maybe I was beginning to think with my heart, instead of my head.  Or maybe it was just a result of how quickly a beer could addle my brain after an exhausting day.  Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe Isabella burned with a yearning to leave Santo Cielo, just as I burned with a need to find my answers.

 

“Tell me about Isabella.”

The priest looked at me for a moment.  Closer than he had before.  “What is it you wish to know?” 

 

“I don’t know.  Where is her husband?”

 

Father Santos squinted his eyes at me even tighter.  The playful glint that always seemed to dance in the light of his eyes disappeared for a moment as he looked at me.  The permanent furrows of his brow grew deeper.  He sighed deep and long before settling back in his chair.

 

“He is buried up the hill with the rest of Isabella’s family that has preceded her to heaven.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“It is not my loss, Señor.”

 

“For Isabella, I mean.  And Ivan.”

 

“Si.  It is tough for the little boy.  He has never known his father.  Isabella, I don’t know if she has recovered yet.  It is not often that I see her smile.  Or hear her laugh.  With a child such as Ivan it is difficult to understand that she does not find reason to laugh.”  Father Santos sighed again and reached towards the bucket.  “Sometimes, such a thing is necessary.  Do you mind?” he asked, pulling a bottle of beer out of the melting ice.  “To talk of death of one as young as Antonio, Isabella’s husband, is hard.  He was a good man and a good husband.  I believe that with Antonio, much like her grandmother had, Isabella found a man she loved.”

He wiped a hand across one of his cheeks in a gesture that appeared to be the wiping of a tear.  It was difficult, in the dark though, to be certain.  Just as easily, he could have been trying to wipe the weariness from his face.

 

“What happened?”

 

“The ocean took him while Isabella was pregnant.  He disappeared one day while fishing.  His body washed up on the sand a couple of days later.”

With questions filling my mind, I had nothing more to ask.  In the stillness of Santo Cielo, we ate the rest of our meal in a silence broken by forks scraping on ceramic plates and the slurps of two men in the time honored tradition of sharing a couple of beers.  Two men brought together as strangers and slowly learning of each other.  Two men who could very easily not be more different from each other. 

 

While I ate, I considered my presence at the Father’s table.  I laughed to myself at the thought that I had actually followed through on my escape.  Twenty-four hours prior, I kicked myself repeatedly for having left.  For thinking that running away to a small town in the desolate wastes of Mexico would provide me with a solution.  That evening, my second in Santo Cielo, I reveled in the idea.  After a lifetime of taking life seriously, of doing the responsible thing, I had taken the ultimate step of irresponsibility.

I told my boss I was taking an indefinite leave.  I told my wife, I needed to leave for a reason I couldn’t’ give her, for an amount of time I couldn’t quantify.  I hugged my kids — at least to the extent they allowed it — and told them I would be back soon even though I did not know if it was true.  And I left.  For those few moments that we ate, seated only a couple of feet away from each other but thousands of miles apart in reality, and for the first time since I boarded the airplane the day before, I felt as though I had made the right decision. 

 

I thought of my family sitting in the dining room of our home.  Spence sitting on one side of the table, probably without me there to stop him, with his IPod on.  Jason on the opposite side, whining about what Holly had made for dinner until she relented and made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  And the dog, going from chair to chair, begging for food.

 

I still did not know what I was going to do, but I felt I was in the right place, doing the right thing.  For the first time, I was taking the time to figure out who I was and what mattered.

 

“Tell me, Señor, what did you see in Santo Cielo today?”  Father Santos broke me out of my reverie.  Back to the here and now, but only for a moment.

 

* * *

           

When Spence was two or three I started taking him to story time and the local bookstore.  A twenty-something with a silly hat would read a couple of children’s books.  A classic here, an unknown rarity there.  Maybe a fun little song with the kids clapping out of rhythm.  The good storytellers — actually, they were story “readers” — could manage all of the voices and wouldn’t just read the story in a regular voice.

 

Through it all, while I sat criss-cross applesauce on the floor, Spence sat on my lap, with my arms around him, enthralled by the stories that unfolded through the words of the storyteller.  While other kids wandered about and lost interest, Spence would stay with me.  He loved books and words.

           

Something I will never forget is reading to Spence.  It was the routine that ended every day.  No matter the trauma of the day.  No matter how much we may have butted heads.  Reading provided the quiet within our father-son storm.  As the day wound down and Spence began to yawn and his bedtime approached, I climbed into bed with him and read to him.  Even after he was able to read for himself, for a few more years, the reading ritual was the same. 

Dr. Seuss books were among his favorites.  The meter and rhyme, the pattern of verse, and the made up, silly words all worked for him.  All because they created an artificial, imaginary world he couldn’t possibly construct on his own.  Spence was, and still is, one of the least imaginative kids. 

 

Dr. Seuss opened a door on the power of imagination and allowed Spence to see that there were worlds beyond our own.  Some even had loraxes, green eggs and ham, and foxes wearing socks.  Spence’s favorite was And To Think That I saw It on Mulberry Street, about a boy who struggled to respond to his father’s request to describe his day to him — to tell him what he saw on his way home from school each day.  In page after page, the boy’s story became more elaborate, until his walk home from school was filled with …………..

 

Spence loved it.  More importantly, for fifteen or twenty minutes every night, I could lay next to him on his bed with little fuss.  With a book propped up on my stomach and Spence’s head resting on my shoulder, I read to him.  He pointed at the pictures and, at the right time, began to point at the words and repeat them.  It was the questions he asked while I read to him that revealed to me how his little brain was developing.

 

 

Doing everything he could to postpone the inevitability of sleep, once I finished a book, Spence would ask for another.  I tried to humor him.  He would ask for another.  After a couple of books, I had to be a dad again and put my foot down, but it was okay.  Much like the feel of his arms around my neck, or the softness of his lips on my cheek, those moments lying next to him and enjoying a book provided the glue that held me together in the early years of parenting.

I’d like to think, too, that those evenings of reading led to Spence becoming the reader he became.  One of the few things we still had in common was that we both read whenever we could.  As he grew older, I looked forward to the opportunity to share with him the books I had loved.  Stephen King.  Wally Lamb.  Biographies of my heroes.  Stories of some of the most historic events in human history. 

Deep down, I knew that Spence was a good kid.  He was, to reluctantly agree with Holly’s way of looking at things, just doing what kids his age did.  With all of the gizmos and distractions, he was just like any other kid.  A candy store beckoned and he couldn’t resist.  An IPod superglued to his hand, the earbuds implanted in his ears.  Instant messaging with five different friends at once.  Text messaging anytime, anywhere.  Video games more realistic than the old Atari I had when I was a kid. 

 

Could I really fault him?  No.  But I certainly could keep working on teaching him that there was a bigger world out there.  That there was value in the type of human relationships that existed before technology took over.

 

* * *

 

But what did I see in Santo Cielo?  I certainly didn’t see …   (fill in with some things from Mulberry Street)  I didn’t even see a lorax or a cat in a hat.

 

“Father Santos,” I paused, but before he would once again tell me to talk with my heart, I continued, “I saw happy children.”

 

“Si.”

 

“They played and laughed although they had few toys.  When one was hurt, a woman comforted him and sent him back to his friends where he was accepted back without question.”

 

“Si.”

 

“I saw women sharing their time and energy with each other.  They laughed, too, but spent their time getting things done but in good spirits, without anger or frustration.”

 

“Si.”

 

“And the men were comfortable with each other.  They drank their beer, told their stories, and . . .

 

“Señor?”

 

“I saw people who were happy although they had very little.”

 

“Si, señor.  But, why do you say that they have little?”

 

“Father, by the standards I am used to, Santo Cielo doesn’t have much.  No one has a car.  I haven’t seen a telephone or a television.  Clothes are hung to dry on ropes strung between the houses.  The children play in the dirt with sticks instead of the electronic games that are everywhere in America.”

 

“But they are happy, aren’t they?”

 

“Yes, Father.  They seem to be.”

 

“Why do you think that is?”

 

I paused before answering and grabbed the last beer from the bucket.  Opening it and taking a couple of sips before responding allowed me the opportunity to consider the question.

 

“I can only guess, Father.”

 

“Then what is your guess, señor?”  The bemusement had returned to Father Santos’ voice.  I looked at him and saw, too, that the glimmer had returned to his eyes.  He arched his eyebrows at me and held his hands out as though to tell me to proceed.

 

“Father Santos, it’s been a long day.  I’m tired.  You’ve given me a lot to think about today.”

 

“Señor, I have done nothing more than ask you to do a few chores.  A little weeding.  A little painting.  A little of this.  A little of that.”  His smile grew as he spoke.

 

“Father,” I chided him.  “This day has been about much more than a couple of chores.”

 

“Eh,” he said with a shrug.  “What is your guess?”

 

“The people of Santo Cielo are happy because they know who they are and what they have.  They do not need, or want, anything else.”

 

“Señor?  Do you know what ‘Cielo’ means?”

 

“No.  Why?”

 

“Cielo means heaven.  Our little town here, while it may not look like much to you, is a small piece of heaven for those of us who have decided to live here.”

 

“I’m beginning to understand why, Father?  But don’t they want more?”

 

“Listen to me, por favor,” he said.  I sat in shock when he smacked his forehead with his palm.  “Aaaay, just when I think you’re seeing things as they should be seen.”

 

“Señor, we have a place here where we can live as we wish.  The ocean’s beauty and size remind us every day of how small we are, but also how lucky.  We have our heaven here.

“And this ‘more’ you speak of?  What is more?  Is it your televisions, your automobiles, your, how do you say it, gadgets?  Is this the ‘more’ you need to be happy?  We may not have much here in Santo Cielo, but we have what we need.”  We had finished eating and Father Santos rose slowly from his seat to gather the plates.  When he placed mine on top of his, the clatter of the two plates was louder than I expected. 

 

Father Santos picked the stack of dishes up and almost dropped everything on the floor when one of his legs buckled underneath him.  With a muttered expression of exasperation, the old priest steadied himself and walked slowly to the box by the door, setting the dirty plates in it and returning to his seat at the table.

 

“Señor, I have a simple question for you.  If the ‘more’ you speak of is so important, if leads to happiness, why are you here?”

 

I began to speak, but Father Santos held his hand up to silence me.  “No, it is not your turn yet.  I am not done.  There are times when we wish for more.  You are right.  When the ocean took Isabella’s husband and spit him back out a few days later, we all wished that Antonio had a better boat.

 

“When Señora Contreras’s husband became ill and spent his final months in pain, writhing and screaming in sweat-soaked sheets, we all wished for a doctor to ease his passage with medicine to soothe his pain.

 

“When a child gets sick and dies, we all scream at God and wish for a better world.  We wish for a world in which nobody gets hurt.  We pray for our loved ones and for all of the residents of Santo Cielo to be healthy.  To live long lives.

 

“I know that you do not believe in the real Heaven, and we do not hope to think that Santo Cielo is close to the Heaven that awaits us, but it is a place where the people in that little village at the bottom of this hill … well, they are happy.  Isn’t that what a heaven should be?”

 

“What about the people who leave?”

 

“They look for their heaven somewhere else.  Not everybody is looking for the same thing.  Surely you know that.