With the Father by Jenni Moen

suffering in the
world that wasn’t related to mine. “How long will you be gone?” I asked, wiping
the last of the tears from my face.
    “I’m not going
anywhere,” he answered.  
    “But you’re on
vacation?”
    He shifted uneasily
next to me. “No, I’m just taking a few days off to reevaluate some things.”
    “What are you
reevaluating?” I asked.
    “Everything and
nothing. ”
    I nodded at his
non-answer. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    “This isn’t really
the right time.”
    “Please, can we
talk about you?” I begged. “I want to think about someone else’s problems.”
    He was quiet for a
few seconds. “Okay. How about I tell you a story?”
    “Yes,” I said in a
hushed voice. Yes, make me forget.
      “There was this boy, a loud boisterous
boy that was full of life. He was born into a family that didn’t appreciate
loud boisterous boys, and I’ll admit that he was a bit of a troublemaker.” He
smiled as if that wasn’t   necessarily a bad thing. “He was another mouth to feed when they
already had too many. So the family who had largely ignored him most of his
life tossed him out to fend for himself.”
    “At the age of
twelve, this boy ran the streets of Roxbury, stealing to eat, and sleeping
behind boxes in alleys. He learned to fight because he had to. He protected
himself when he needed to. He did things that he didn’t even know he was
capable of doing. Things he’d regret later though he thought there had been no
other way at the time. He relied only on himself. No one came to his rescue and
he didn’t need any one to save him. Or so he thought.”
    “After about five
years of living this way, the kid was tougher, but tired. He’d seen more than
most people see during their entire lives. He was tired of fighting, tired of
trying to find a way to stay ahead of the trouble that always seemed to find
him.”
    “One day he found
himself in a small church on Blue Hill Avenue, hiding in a confessional of all
places when a throat cleared on the other side of the lattice. It was ironic
because a confessional was exactly where he should have been even if he was
there for the wrong reasons. Not believing that there was an act of contrition
powerful enough to cleanse his soul, the kid ran. And do you know what
happened?”
    I shook my head.
    “The priest
followed.”
    “Did you catch
him?” I asked.
    “No. Father Russell
did and talked some sense into the kid. For the first time in years, someone
actually cared what the boy had been through. And because Father Russell
listened, the boy also listened. Without judgment, Father Russell offered   him an
alternative. He gave him a home, and for the first time in his entire life, he
had a safe place to live. Then he followed him to the church, and for the first
time, he had a safe place to think. He followed him to somewhere much better
than anywhere he’d been before.”
    He stopped talking,
and a few seconds passed before I realized that the story was over. “Is the kid
okay today?” My voice hurt from a day’s worth of crying and came out as a
croak.
    “Very much so. He’s
in a very good place actually,” he said, standing up. “Come on. It’s getting
late. I’ll walk you to your car.”
    As we walked past
St. Vincent de Paul and the Madonna, I didn’t look back at the plots where I’d
buried a piece of my heart. For the first time, I felt like there was a chance
that it could grow back. Someday. Somehow.
    Outside the gate, I
saw Paul’s car parked behind mine. “Paul?”
    “Yes.”
    “If you’re not
working, how did you know I was here?”
    “Kate,” he said. “I
was getting ready to drive over to San Antonio to pick up a friend from the
airport, and I ran into her.”
    “What did she tell
you?” I asked.
    “Enough,” he
admitted, running his hand over the top of his short hair. “She’s not the
enemy, Grace.”
    “I know.” I was
still furious with her, but I’d never been any good at staying angry