Part IV
Ding! Dong! Ding! The ringing of a bell woke me to the sun streaming into Father Santos’ home. At first I thought it was an alarm waking me to get ready for work. I cursed under my breath at the thought and reached out to turn it off. When my hand hit nothing but air, I opened my eyes to find the snooze button. It was then that I realized that the ringing bell was coming from the church and there was no alarm clock to turn off. I sat up quickly and immediately regretted it. My body ached and my sun burn chafed.
Once again, Father Santos had left me alone to greet the morning. I rose and walked to the window that looked out towards the ocean. From my vantage point, I could see the bell tolling back and forth against the crisp blue sky. A group of villagers, with children running happily ahead and then circling back around them, walked up the hill to the church.
While I watched, Father Santos came from around the front of the church. “Señor, mass is about to begin,” he said when I opened the door to meet him.
“It’s not Sunday.”
“No, no, Señor. It is Wednesday. It is not only on Sundays that we gather to worship.” He stopped and began to turn to go back to the church before he returned his gaze to me. Quietly, he asked, “Will you join us?”
I shrugged, “Sure.”
I followed Father Santos back down the path, through the flower bed and across the hard scrabble earth that stretched out from the color of the flowers. When I got to the cross, the villagers were streaming up the path and into the church. I stopped and waited for them. This was their church and their faith that they were practicing. I felt out of place, more than I had since I arrived.
Once the last little boy scurried into the church after his mother, standing at the entrance and swatting him on his backside as he passed into the church, I walked slowly to the door. Mottled sunlight filtered in through the couple of stained glass windows on the side of the church that faced the east. Flecks of dust weaved back and forth in the light, riding on gentle currents of air. Candles were scattered around the altar. But for the most part, the church was bathed in darkness.
The people of Santo Cielo were scattered amidst the pews, with most up front, as close to the sanctuary as they could get. In the front row, an old woman dressed in black and with a black lace shawl wrapped around her head sat next to Isabella. The old woman, Señora Contreras, kept her head bowed down. She would shudder occasionally and, even in the midst of the low hum generated by the rest of the villagers, I could hear her quiet crying.
On the opposite side from her grandmother, Isabella’s little boy sat. I could just make out the top of Ivan’s head. For the few seconds I looked, he never stopped moving. Pointing to something up at the altar, turning to his mother, reaching up to touch her to get her attention.
I slipped into the back pew and sat down, resisting an unbidden urge to kneel down and cross myself. The words of the Our Father played through my head. After a couple of lines, I lost my way in the prayer. It had been too many years since my childhood of reciting it every Sunday and holy day.
Within a few minutes, Father Santos entered from behind the altar and the church was immediately enveloped in silence. Even Ivan stopped moving, if only for a few seconds, before beginning his energetic bounce again.
The old priest was wearing the flowing white robes of a priest. Gold and purple stoles wrapped around his neck and draped down his chest. In the dim light filtering through the windows and flickering through the air from the candles scattered around the altar, Father Santos glowed.
As soon as their priest entered the church, the residents of Santo Cielo quieted. All except little Ivan, whose “Mama!” as he reached up to tug on her blouse one more time, pierced the silence before Isabella leaned over to him and shushed him with a finger to his lips.
Before Father Santos began the mass, the villagers filed out of the pews and proceeded slowly up the left side of the church. Señora Contreras was the only one who did not rise with the rest of the congregation. She remained in the front pew, shrouded in black and shoulders hunched. She held her rosary beads in her hand, passing from bead to bead while her lips moved as she silently recited her prayers of mourning.
After the hours I had spent in the church over the prior two days, I noticed for the first time a small shrine at the front of the church. Each adult walked up to it and lit a candle in a tray propped against the wall. As they did so, I could see each of them quietly say a prayer. Their lips moved, their whispered words spread through the church. Everybody else remained silent until it was their turn to recite their own quiet prayer.
When Isabella approached the shrine, enough candles had been lit that I knew what was there. The Virgin Mary, amidst a background of blue and with a shining sun casting its golden beams of light from over her shoulder, looked down on each candle lighting and prayer. Ivan tagged behind Isabella and, after she lit her candle, she bent down to Ivan and whispered her prayer so that he could hear her. I could see his own lips move in the same rhythm as Isabella’s.
By the time all of the villagers had expressed their devotion to their saint and returned to their pews, the candles they lit created another glow in the corner of the church. The Virgin Mary, with a Mona Lisa like smile of bemusement, looked out over the church, keeping an eye on Father Santos and all that went on.
Once they all sat down, the villagers began singing quietly. In Spanish, they sang a song I couldn’t tell by the words, but the melody was one that tickled my brain. I knew the song, but could not place it.
As the last note faded into silence, all eyes were lifted to Father Santos, who sat on a chair next to the altar. His head was slumped forward slightly and his eyes were closed as though he slept. After a moment or two, the silence was broken by the sounds of shoes shuffling on the floor and the whispers of several children, Ivan among them, who could no longer keep quiet.
It must have been the noise of the children that brought Father Santos back. He rose from his seat with a loud sigh and approached the front of the sanctuary. The villagers quieted again as he crossed himself and began the mass.
With the mass performed entirely in Spanish, I was lost from the beginning. There was a rhythm to it that seemed familiar, but I had no idea what the old priest said. I had no idea what his prayers were or what he told his parishioners during his sermon. Lost in a world I didn’t understand, I found myself thinking of other things.
* * *
The flickering candles and the quiet singing of the villagers reminded me of another night many years ago. It was the night I married Holly. Being the lapsed, non-believing Catholic that I was, it made sense that I got married in a synagogue.
My marriage was really the last real religious ceremony I sat through until I sat in Father Santos’ church that Wednesday morning. The synagogue, although much nicer than the church, was similar in many respects. A dark interior. Candles at the bima and light coming in from a wall of stained glass windows.
I wanted to sing to my wife, but that would have been embarrassing for all concerned.
Baby I’ve been searching like everybody else
Can’t say nothing different about myself
Sometimes I’m an angel
And sometimes I’m cruel
And when it comes to love I’m just another fool
Yes, I’ll climb a mountain
I’m gonna swim the sea
There aint no act of God girl
Could keep you safe from me
My arms are reaching out
Out across this canyon
I’m asking you to be my true companion
True companion
True companion
– First Verse, True Companion, Marc Cohn
I wanted to sing to her so she knew just how much I loved her. The day we married was the happiest day of my life, topped only a couple of years later by the birth of my first son.
As the sun set that Saturday evening and the ceremony began, my only concern was whether I’d be able to break the glass. In the Jewish faith, for centuries the groom has stepped on a glass. The effort is meant to establish that the marriage will be blessed. Theoretically, the more pieces the glass breaks into the longer the marriage will last. Or something like that.
Of course, in modern times, the tradition has changed a little bit. I didn’t step on a glass. I stepped on a light bulb, wrapped in a paper bag. Light bulbs are easier to break, presumably the better to create luck in our divorce happy society. There was another reason, too.
The rabbi told us a story of a doctor he married who stepped on a real glass. In a leather-soled shoe. There were plenty of doctors in the audience to help him remove the shard of glass that shot through that sole and implanted itself in the bottom of his foot.
Still I was concerned. What if I missed? What if the light bulb didn’t break? Everything else about the ceremony went well.
Except for the slip of the Rabbi’s tongue. He meant to refer to our “meteoric star” at one point. Instead, he referred to our “mediocre star.” When he realized what he had said and went back to fix the mistake, he said it again. And again. I believe he finally fixed it on the fourth or fifth try. Maybe he was on to something.
At the time, though, it was just an opportunity to laugh and relax and let the marriage ceremony happen. I had no problem with stepping on the glass either. It shattered on my first try. I didn’t know how many pieces it was left in, so I didn’t know how many years of luck were coming my way. And what if the expected luck wasn’t good?
What left the night less than perfect was that I really wanted to sing to my wife.
So don’t you dare and try to walk away
I’ve got my heart set on our wedding day
I’ve got this vision of a girl in white
Made my decision that it’s you alright
And when I take your hand I’ll watch my heart set sail
I’ll take my trembling fingers
And I’ll lift up your veil
Then I’ll take you home
And with wild abandon
Make love to you just like a true companion
You are my true companion
I got a true companion
True companion
– Second Verse, True Companion, Marc Cohn
The ceremony was incredible. Holly was beautiful that day. I had done well. She and I were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We would be happy together. Forever. There was no challenge we would not be able to surmount.
The reception afterwards? I’ve never had more fun, before or since. For four or five hours, we ate, we drank, and we danced. We enjoyed our family and friends. It was an incredible night in all respects. For weeks and months afterward, we lived off of the glow of our wedding.
A year or so later, Holly became pregnant for the first time and nine months later Spence joined us. Our headlong rush to marry and begin a family had reached its zenith. Through it all and up to that point, I really, truly believed that Holly was my true companion. She was my girl in white. Our children would grow up to be successful adults. Holly and I would spend our later years walking arm in arm because we would always be in love with each other.
Something happened. Somewhere along the way, I lost my true companion. No matter how much I wanted to sing to her that day all those years before.
When the years have done irreparable harm
I can see us walking slowly arm in arm
Just like the couple on the corner do
‘Cause girl I will always be in love with you
And when I look in your eyes I’ll still see that spark
Until the shadows fall
Until the room grows dark
Then when I leave this Earth
I’ll be with the angels standin’
I’ll be out there waiting for my true companion
Just for my true companion
True companion
True companion
– Third Verse, True Companion, Marc Cohn
The years had done irreparable harm. Not to our bodies, but to our marriage. Many years had passed since we walked arm in arm. Now, we walked far apart. Separated by our children. Separated by ourselves. The spark I had seen in her eyes one Saturday night when she vowed to be with me forever had faded long ago. The feeling of certainty I had felt that day, for a long life well-lived, had been replaced long ago by certainty that our relationship was shrouded in shadows. I couldn’t imagine waiting for anymore. I could only imagine how to get out of it.
* * *
I left the church ahead of the villagers and walked out to the corner of the fence that was closest to the ocean. A light breeze was coming in off of the water. It whistled through the streets of the village. Leaves tumbled and rolled on the leading edge of air pushing its way up the hillside. Looking back to the church, I watched the villagers leave the church.
Father Santos stood outside by the cross and shook the hands of the men as they passed by. In Spanish, they shared a few words, always punctuated with “gracias, Padre Santos.” The women received a slight bow from Father Santos — nothing more than a dip of his head — and the sign of the cross as he moved his hand over each. Each woman accepted his blessing quietly. Reverently. The children giggled and whispered to each other, scampering around and between the adults as they left the church in ones and twos and threes.
As the villagers continued down the path to their homes, while the children danced in the wind and chased the leaves, their parents cast their eyes to the ocean with worried expressions. I looked out to the horizon and saw that out where the deep blue of the ocean met the lighter blue of the sky there was an interruption. A thin line of gray clouds, barely perceptible, broke through the blues.
“Señor, here you are.” Father Santos walked up to the fence and stood with me for a few minutes looking out at the endless waves. “She is beautiful.”
“The ocean?”
“Si. The ocean is a woman, señor. Think about it and you will understand,” he sighed. “Did you enjoy the mass?”
“Father, I didn’t understand any of it.”
“Eh, yes, the language.”
“But it brought memories of my childhood, when I went to church with my family. There is a lot that is similar, but you do things differently, too.”
“Si, we do things the way we are comfortable. And, since I never received any training as a priest, I don’t feel bound by the rules of the Church.” He laughed then, a laugh that ended in a deep, hard coughing spell.
“Father?” I asked once the coughing subsided and he had his breath back.
“It is okay, señor. It is nothing.” He turned away from me and spat in the dirt. With his toe, he pushed dirt over the result. Father Santos crossed himself and muttered something before turning back to me.
We stood for a couple of more minutes of silence before I asked, “Father, what was the song they sang at the beginning of your mass?”
“That is the Ave Maria, the prayer to the Virgin Mary. If you once went to church, how do you not know it?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been back. I don’t remember the prayers so much and I don’t remember a mass starting the way yours did. Why do your worshippers pay so much attention to Mary? The candles? The song?”
“We begin our mass by paying our respects to the Lady of Guadalupe, the Virgin Mary, because she is our saint, our protector. She is all that is good. The Virgin Mary is not just the mother of Jesus Christ, the son of God. She is a mother to all of us.
“In our country, the mother is the most important figure in the family. Sons revere their mothers, grandsons revere their grandmothers. Husbands respect their wives because they have given birth to their children. All know that they rule the house when it comes to the children.”
Father Santos stopped and I looked over at him. A tear was tracking a line of moisture down his dry, weathered cheek. “Father?” I asked again.
“Ah, señor, you ask me of the Virgin Mary. It makes me think of my wife, who was a good mother. She was my own Lady of Guadalupe, before she left me. My children worshipped her. I cherished her. I have thought over the years that is why my children had no need of me once they left. Their mother was gone, what did they need an old man for?
“It saddens me, too, that you have not the same respect for your wife.”
The old priest stopped and wiped his face with one hand while propping himself with the other against the fence. “In your home, your wife is the mother of your children.”
“Father Santos,” I interrupted, holding my hand up to stop him. I felt like he was attacking me for feeling as I did. I wanted to tell him that I had given Holly every opportunity to be the mother I thought she could be. I had tried to talk to her about the things I felt were important. I had given her more than enough time and chances to show that she got it. I agreed with the priest’s main point, that Holly’s motherhood should be respected. Revered. Cherished. But I wanted to tell him that there came a point when she had to earn it.
“No, no, señor, I know. I do not mean to … oh, how do you say it?” He stopped and reached out his free hand and placed it on my arm. He held it there for a few seconds. It was moments like these when I realized how old Father Santos was and how he struggled to communicate to me in words I would understand. “I do not mean to … be hard on you. I understand that these things are not easy. Men and women are different. No? We see the world in different ways and want different things. It is a puzzle that we can stay together as we do.
“I am just saying that I am sad for you that you did not find a wife who you could respect.”
“Thank you. Gracias, Father.” I had nothing else to say. My own eyes begin to water and I didn’t want to cry in front of him. I put my hand over his and stood there with him. It was possibly the strangest feeling of my life. Far from home, I stood on a dusty hillside with the ocean crashing and thundering, the wind beginning to whip around me, holding hands with a 90-some-odd-year-old pretend priest. A man who had expressed the thing that tore me up more than anything else.
Whenever I realized that I did not respect Holly, I felt the lowest. I wanted to give it all up then. If I couldn’t respect her, what was the point of continuing on with her? Once you lose respect for somebody, how do you get it back?
“Come, señor. Isabella will bring breakfast and then it is time for more work.”
“Father, I think it’s time for me to go home.” I hesitated and repeated, “It’s time.”
“So you have answered all of your questions?”
I laughed and shrugged my shoulders. “No, not really. But I’ve decided. I know what I’m going to do.”
“Aaah. Please. Let us go and sit down.”
Once we were in our spots at the old priest’s freshly painted table, he leaned back in his chair and sighed before asking me, “Señor?”
“Father Santos, you are right. It isn’t right that I don’t respect Holly. If I can’t do that, I should leave. She deserves to be with somebody who respects her. Somebody with whom she can share happiness. I deserve the same thing.”
“And what of your _____ (Spanish word for children), your children?”
“I will,” I stopped and looked out the window. What would I do? It had been so easy to say that I would leave Holly, but when it came to expressing the idea of leaving Spence and Jason, the words did not come as easily. “Do my best to make sure they remain happy,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders.
“And, so, that is it? You are ready to leave my church and my village? Your questions are answered?”
“It isn’t that simple, Father.” While I continued to struggle with my words, I began to trace my finger along the grains of the wood on the table. A straight line a few inches long that began to curve into a whirlpool of grooves. Over and over. I focused on that grain. I couldn’t look at the priest.
“Don’t forget to speak with your heart,” he prompted me quietly.
“I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know if this will make me happy. I’m terrified that my family will be torn apart and my kids will suffer unnecessarily.”
Before I could go on, there was a knock on the door and Isabella’s voice made its way into the room. “Padre?”
“Si, señora, si. (“come in” in Spanish.)” With my limited understanding of Spanish, I didn’t miss that Father Santos had referred to Isabella by title of a married woman.
With her eyes cast down, refusing to make eye contact with me or even look in my direction, Isabella entered the room and walked to the table. A tray of food was in her hands. Once she set it down, Isabella looked at Father Santos and spoke a few words, bowed to him, and then backed out towards the door. I couldn’t resist. I allowed my eyes to follow her out and, for a few seconds after she was gone and the door closed behind her, I didn’t return them back to the special groove on the table that had become my own. I looked up briefly and saw Father Santos staring intently at me. “Señor?”
I went back to my groove without answering.
With a sigh, Father Santos uncovered the tray of food. I took a plate and began to eat. I didn’t notice the taste of the food that morning. I don’t recall if there were tortillas. All I remember is that I felt sick while I ate. Every bite roiled my stomach. Every swallow made me want to gag. Father Santos allowed me to eat in silence, breaking it once we were both done eating.
“You cannot leave Santo Cielo yet. I have two reasons,” he said, while he stacked the plates and placed them back on the tray. “Do you feel the wind?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Señor, a storm is coming in. If I smell the air right, it will be a big one. Do you not notice?” Father Santos did not provide me the opportunity to respond. “I need your help. Santo Cielo needs your help. A lot of work must be done today and tomorrow before it hits.”
“And besides, the bus does not come again for another five days.”
That’s what good planning did for me. The old man in the bar had his car. He could leave at any moment. I had a bus drop me off, but had not bothered to learn when it would be back. My uncertainty about when I might return home was set without my knowing. Five more days. Five long days. I could only imagine what Santo Cielo and Father Santos had in store for me as I waited for the next bus.
“Por favor, señor, your weeding awaits you.”
“Father, I weeded yesterday,” I said a little more sharply than I intended. “Don’t you think there are more important things I should be doing if this storm is coming?”
“Señor, have you learned nothing since yesterday?”
“I really don’t think that weeding is what I should be doing now.” I pushed my chair away from the table and got up. “What do you need me to do?”
“There is more than enough time,” Father Santos replied. “First, the weeds. Then, we will get ready for the storm.”
I sighed loudly and pushed my way out the door. Grabbing the bucket from where I had left it the day before, I knelt down and began looking for weeds. Here and there, I saw the tell-tale sign of weeds poking through the surface. Grumbling under my breath, I began to pull barely noticeable shoots of green.
A couple of minutes after I began, Father Santos came out and walked down the path towards the church. “Señor,” he called to me just before he rounded the corner of the church, “if you have learned nothing, I hope you have learned that you must pull the weeds every day.” I may have imagined it, but I think he had a face-splitting grin on his face as he turned the corner and disappeared.
* * *
Almost fifteen years into our marriage, during one of our countless conversations about the issues we confronted, she told me she wasn’t comfortable with me. As a result, she could not find the words to tell me how she felt or to show me through action that she loved me. She could not make the gestures of love and affection I so desired. I thought that was one way you kept the weeds at bay. Small acts of affection, randomly displayed. But Holly rarely bothered.
I couldn’t figure out if it was my fault she was not comfortable. I wracked my brain to identify the cause, but could come up with nothing. I couldn’t remember ever rejecting her so that she felt unwanted by me. I couldn’t remember ever belittling her so that she might feel I didn’t respect her feelings. I thought I had always treated her with respect and could think of nothing I might have done to lead to her not feeling comfortable with me. And neither could Holly. It was just a simple statement. “I’m not comfortable with you,” and as with so many of our conversations, there was really nothing left to it. I said a few more things. She said, “Okay,” and we went about our business.
Not only was Holly apparently incapable of helping pull the weeds. Here was a weed that she had planted firmly in the midst of our marriage. After all the years together, she confessed essentially that she didn’t know how to relate to me and then didn’t show a willingness to try to figure it out. Why bother then? Why continue working at it? That’s what I did, I stopped trying, too.
Instead of talking to her or suggesting we get counseling, I stopped caring. I didn’t see the point. Oh, there was a time when I suggested counseling. Holly agreed with a look of fear on her face and a tone of terror in her voice. I waited to make the call though. We had a vacation planned and I thought I’d wait until we got back. When we did, I had already lost the motivation to seek counseling. It wasn’t that the vacation had resulted in a door opening on our relationship. No. Instead, I had returned to not caring.
The interesting thing is that Holly never brought it up. Counseling, that is. I have no doubt she was thrilled I never made the call.
Instead of pulling this weed that Holly had identified, by not caring, I watered it. I fertilized it. I let the little weed she planted grow into a life-sucking thing in the middle of our marriage. If, after all the years of our marriage, after two kids, and everything we had been through, she couldn’t find a way to be comfortable with me and didn’t seem to think it was worth an effort on her part, why the hell should I care? Why the hell should I be the only one who pulled the fucking weeds?
