The Water Keeper Page 3
“Slaves built it. About two hundred years ago.”
The moon filtered through the glass and cast her shadow on the worn stones below her. She ran her hands along a pew. Letting her fingertips read the stories it told.
She glanced out the window, which did little to mute the sound of the Atlantic crashing on the beach some several hundred yards distant. “It’s amazing the hurricanes haven’t erased it.”
“They’ve tried a couple times. We pieced her back together.”
She continued, “Slaves, huh?”
I pointed at the wall. At all the names carved into the stone by hand. “Each one a mom . . . a dad . . . a child.”
She walked to the wall and ran her fingers through the grooves of the names, then the grooves of the dates. Some deeper than others. A wrinkle formed between her eyebrows. She asked, “Slaves?”
“Free slaves.”
Hundreds of names had been etched into the stone wall. She tiptoed to the right. A half smile spread across her face. She craned. Quizzical.
I continued, “Most date prior to the Civil War, when this place was one of many stops on the Underground Railroad.”
She studied them and asked, “But some of these dates are from the last decade? Last year?”
Another nod.
“But slavery’s over.”
I shrugged. “People still own people.”
She read the names. “All these people found freedom here?”
“I wouldn’t say they found it here as much as they stopped by on their way to it.”
Her fingertips read the wall again. Her voice was loud and didn’t match the quiet of our conversation. “A record of freedom.”
“Something like that.”
“Why do these just have one date?”
“Once free, always free.”
She walked to the wall, coming to another list. “Why do these have two dates?”
“They died before they tasted it.”
Outside, a foghorn sounded. One long blast followed by a shorter second and third. It pulled her eyes off the wall. She walked to the door only to turn and stare at the wall of names. She turned to me. “Am I the only one here?”
“Just us.”
“You mean you-and-me us, or . . .” She shot a glance upward. “You-me-and-Him us?”
“Just us.”
She considered this and smiled, twirling again. More dancing, but her partner was only visible to her. “I like you, Father.” She pointed at the ground beneath her. “You live on this island?”
“I’m not the priest. And yes, I live here.”
“What do you do?”
“Groundskeeper. Make sure people who sneak up at night aren’t here to spray-paint graffiti.”
She grabbed my right hand and turned it over. Running her fingertips along the calluses and the dirt in the cracks. She smiled. “Where’s the priest?”
Short question, long answer. And I wondered if this was the real reason she’d come to my door. “We’re in between priests at the moment.”
She looked bothered by this. “What kind of da— I mean . . . What kind of church is this?”
“The inactive kind.”
She shook her head. “That’s silly. Whoever heard of a church being inactive? I mean, doesn’t that sorta go against the whole reason for a church?”
“I just work here.”
“Alone?”
I nodded again.
“Don’t you get lonely?”
“Not really.”
She shook her head. “I’d lose my ever-loving mind. Go bat-shi—” She covered her mouth again with her hand. “Sorry . . . I mean, I’d go crazy.”
I chuckled. “You’re assuming I’m not.”
She stepped closer, her face inches from mine. Her eyelids were heavy. Her breath reeked of alcohol. “I’ve seen crazy and you don’t look the part.” Her eyes walked up and down me. “I don’t know. You loooook pretty goooood to me.” She reached out with her finger and touched the scar above my eye. “That hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
“How’d you get it?”
“Bar fight.”
“What happened to the other guy?”
“Guys. Plural.”
She put a hand on my shoulder and patted me, proving that whatever boundaries of personal space she’d once possessed had been erased by the cocktail in her blood. “I knew I liked you, Padre.” She considered me again. Ran her fingers down my arm, tracing the vein on my bicep. Then she squeezed my muscle like someone would test the air in a bike tube. “You work out?”
“I keep busy.”
She squeezed both arms, and then—invading every barrier of personal space I’d ever erected—she squeezed my pecs and patted my abs and butt. “I’ll say.” She thumbed behind her. Toward the water and what I could only assume was her boat. Lifting her rain jacket, she said, “He’s always working out. Nothing but muscle.”
I said nothing.
She continued, “What all you do here?”
“I mow the grass and keep the weeds down, and they give me a free place to stay.”
She considered this. “I never been in a church like this.”
She was looking at a far wall covered in weapons of archery from around the world. Handmade bows from more countries than I could count. Matching arrows. She walked an unsteady S to study the mementos. “These yours?”
“I used to travel a lot,” I responded.
“You’ve been a lot of places. I never . . . uh . . . I never been anywhere . . .” She feigned a smile. “But I’m about to.” She ran her fingers across the bows and arrows. “You Robin Hood?”
“No.” I’ve always had a thing for archery—seeing how various countries created energy through a stick and string amazed me—so I collected them on my trips. Whenever I bumped into one, I’d bring it home.
She mimicked the motion with her arms. “You shoot these?”
“No.”
“Why you keep them?”
“They’re reminders.”
“Of?”
“What I am.”
“What are you?”
I didn’t respond immediately. When I did, my voice was lower. “A sinner.”
She looked confused. “Well, me too, but what’s that got to do with . . .” She flipped her hand across the wall. “All this?”
“The term sinner grew out of an Old English archery term from the thirteenth century.”
“What’s it mean?”
“To miss the mark.”
She laughed. “Well, hell, we’re all—” She covered her mouth with her hand, then wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. “I mean . . . They sure got that right.” She twirled again and then walked in between the pews, staring at my world. “So, you’re a sinner, huh?”
I stared at her but said nothing.
“Can’t imagine what that makes me.” She walked around me in a circle, sizing me up. “You can’t be that bad.” She gestured toward the walls. “God keeps you here.”
She eyed the old, worn confessional. “When they gonna get a new priest?”
“Don’t know.”
“So . . . what you’re saying is that there won’t be a priest here anytime tonight? Say in the next twenty minutes?”
A nod. “Yes.”
“So he isn’t coming?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. No priest tonight.”
She let out a deep breath. “So I’m stuck with—” She waved a disapproving hand across the whole of me. “You.”
Whatever was in her blood had made its way to her head. She was swimming. Ghostly pale. Sweat beaded on her face. She closed her eyes, swayed, began humming quietly, and raised her arms. An act of which I was not certain she was conscious. For nearly a minute, she stood in the chapel, arms raised, swaying, humming a song buried somewhere deep in her memory. I have this thing that happens in my rib cage when I’m around kids who are a long way from home—and getting farther. I’ve had it for years. Whi
le she stood there, I felt the knife enter between my ribs.
When she opened her eyes again, the sweat had trickled down her temple. She lowered her arms. “Whoa . . . This place is legit.” She caught herself on a pew, only to look at me a long time. After a minute, her head tilted sideways like a puppy, and then a sour look shaded her face. Her hand touched her stomach and her eyes began blinking excessively.
“Uh-oh.” Her cheeks filled with air and she convulsed slightly. The beginnings of a dry heave. Frantically looking for ground that was not sacred, she exited the pews and ran into the center aisle, swaying, only to pause midway. “I think I’m about to pu—” She tried to step toward the door, but the floor was uneven and her steps uncertain. With too many hurdles, she dropped to her knees, collected herself, and emptied her stomach. Then she did it again. The sounds of splattering and heaving echoed off the stone walls.
Wiping her mouth with her jacket, she sat back against a pew and closed her eyes. Pouring sweat. She spoke without opening her eyes. “I cannot believe I just—” She cut herself off and crawled down the center aisle. Stopping two pews away. She leaned against a pew and closed her eyes again. “If you’ve got a towel or a mop, I’ll clean that—”
“I got it.”
She opened one eye. “You’re really gonna clean up my puke?”
“I’ve seen worse.”
She leaned her head back, closed both eyes, and placed her palms flat on the floor. As if she were trying to stop the world from spinning. “If you weren’t a padre, I’d kiss you on the mouth.”
“I’m not the padre.”
“What, you wouldn’t kiss me?”
I said nothing but pointed at the trail of saliva dangling off her chin and pooling on the top of her breast. She wiped it on her other arm and said, “Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t kiss me either, but—” She closed her eyes again. “I’m a goooood kisser.” Opening her eyes, she studied me a minute. “You ever kissed a girl, Father?”
“Yes.”
She looked around as if she was afraid somebody was listening to our conversation. “They allow that around here?”
I laughed. “Yes.”
“What are you?”
“Just a guy.”
“So you’re married?”
“I was.”
“Was?” More of a statement than a question.
“For a short while.”
“So . . .” She smiled. “It’s been a while since you been kissed?”
“Yep.”
“Then you could probably use a good kisssssing.”
I didn’t disagree with her.
She puckered her lips and closed her eyes. Held that pose for several seconds. “You sure you don’t want to kiss me? I’m pretty good at it.”
“I believe you.”
She unpuckered, then puckered again. Doing so made her look like a fish. If she wasn’t so high, it would have been comical. “You’re missing out.”
“I can see that.”
She opened both eyes, but the space between them narrowed. “How old are you?”
“Forty-nine. How old are you?”
She responded without thinking. “Sixteen.” She leaned her head against the pew and closed her eyes again. “If you weren’t, you know, stuck in here with God breathing down your back, I’d introduce you to my mom—although we’re not on the best of terms right now, so you might neeeeed”—she raised a finger in the air to add emphasis—“to take a rain check on that.” She opened her eyes. “You like to dance, Padre?”
It wasn’t worth the effort to correct her. I shook my head. “Not much.”
She attempted to point at me but her finger missed again. This time by a couple of feet. “You’d like my mom. She’s one helluva—” She covered her mouth again and began crawling toward the door. “I need to get out of here.” She held her hand close to her face and began counting out loud, touching her fingers with each count. “Thirty-two, thirty-three . . .” She stopped and looked at me. “You’re old enough to be my dad. You should meet my mom.”
“Technically, I’m old enough to be your grandfather.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re pretty good looking for a grandpa.” She pushed off her knees, climbing up the pew one hand over another. Now standing, eyes closed and legs wobbly, she tugged on her bikini top, which came off rather easily. Chest bare and sunburned, she stood with her eyes closed, lips puckered, and waited for me to accept her invitation. A girl trying ever so hard to become a woman when being a girl was what she needed. A silver Jerusalem cross hung in the space between her breasts. Whenever she moved, it bounced off her skin and spun slightly, exposing the honeycomb engraving. She noticed me eyeing it.
“You like my cross?”
“I do.”
“You take it off me and you can have it.”
I pulled a robe off the hook on the back wall and hung it across her shoulders. Draped in white, she looked disappointed. “Not pretty enough for you?”
“You’re plenty beautiful.”
Twirling her bikini top, she was playing with me now. “Too dirty?”
“Nope.”
Suddenly, her eyebrows lifted and her eyes grew large, followed by a sly smile. “Oh . . .” Another point. Another miss by several feet. “This is one of those churches. You’re gay? I’m sorry . . .” She fumbled with her bikini top but got nowhere. “Here I am coming on to a—”
“Not gay.”
“You sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
The space between her eyes narrowed and she held her chin in her hand. “Too young?”
I relented. “Something like that.”
Her nose caught scent of the puddle on the floor that separated us. Her lip curled. “You sure you don’t want some help with that?”
“You sure you want to go back to that boat?”
She closed her eyes and puckered her lips, holding the position several seconds. “I’m a good kisser, Padre. You should get it now while the getting’s good. You worried I’ll tell?”
“Not really.”
“I won’t tell a soul. It’ll be our secret.”
“You good at keeping secrets?”
She smiled knowingly. “I’m fr-fri-fricking Fort Knox.” She eyed the confessional again. “Can you call maybe a fill-in priest?” She pointed at the kneeler. “Anybody will do. I wanted to, uh—”
“No.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“This is a weird fri-fricking church.”
I laughed out loud.
The words she spoke circled her fuzzy and incoherent mind and settled somewhere near her understanding. When the reality of what she said sank in, she covered her mouth again. “Oh, I’m sorry. I need to shut my—”
“Will you let me give you my phone number?”
“What, you gonna have the priest call me?”
“No, I’m giving you my number. Not the other way around.”
She waved me off. “Padre, I’m not that kind of girl. I don’t ever give my number on the first date.”
“Is that what this is?”
She looked disappointed. “Not really. You won’t kiss me.”
I held out my hand.
She slipped her phone from the back pocket of her Daisy Dukes and held it in front of her. One finger unbuttoned the top of her Daisy Dukes, exposing the matching bikini bottom. “I’ll give you my phone if you kiss me.”
“Close your eyes.”
She did, then puckered and waited, swaying a little. Had I been thirty years younger I might have taken her up on it. Actually, I’m positive I would have. I gently took her phone, but it was locked so I pressed her thumb to the home button and unlocked it. She smiled, eyes still closed. “Padre, my lips are cramping.” I typed in my number and saved it under the name “ICE—Padre,” then handed her back her phone. She opened her eyes and read the new contact.
She looked confused. “ICE?”
“In Case of—”
Forcing her eyes to focus, she read my number out loud. Halfway through it, she said, “That doesn’t look like any phone number I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s a satellite phone.”
“Does that make me special?”
“It makes you one of a few select people on this planet who’ve ever had that number.”
She winked at me. “Oh . . . that’s a good one. You’re smooth, Padre. I’ll bet you get all the girls with that one.”
She held the phone over her heart and nodded. I didn’t know if she’d ever remember this conversation or even who “Padre” was, but maybe she had enough sober brain waves to recall it if she had an emergency. Then without notice, she raised her hands, twirled, then twirled again.
She strolled down the center aisle, shedding the priest’s robe as she walked. It lay in a pile on the floor. Stopping at the door, she clung to the massive iron latch. My voice stopped her. “Can I ask you one thing?”
She twirled again, eyes closed. “You gonna kiss me?”
“What’s your name?”
She stuck one finger in the air and waved it like a windshield wiper. “You gotta do better than that, Padre.”
I took one step closer. “Let’s say we get a new priest, and he asks about you—”
“Why would he do that?”
“So he can ask God to watch over you.”
She put her finger to her lips. “Ooh, that’s a good one too.” For the first time, she covered her chest with her arms, but her covering was playful. Not ashamed. “You got game, Padre. You tell that to all the girls?”
“Just you.”
She tied on her bikini top and eyed the walls that surrounded us. A girl again. Then without speaking, she walked to the wall of names, slid a lipstick tube from her back pocket, and wrote “Angel” at the bottom of the list.
“That your real name?” I asked.
She spoke without looking. “It’s what my momma calls me.” A pause. “Or used to.”
The soft light shone on her face. Drowned the pain. I held up my phone and clicked a picture. She liked the fact that I’d finally noticed her. She smiled. “Something to remember me by?”
“Something.”
She twirled her finger through the strap of her bikini. “Should’ve taken it a few minutes ago. More fun to look at.”