Sound of Yearning

“We must admire the teachings of Luke,” Father Lorenzo states as he and Khadijah drive out of the church parking lot in his silver Toyota Corolla. “He teaches us the importance of caring for the stranger.” He pauses, first checking his right and then his left, before pulling out into the slow moving traffic on Massachusetts Avenue. “I try to live not with a shallow religiosity, or a pervasive immorality, or the lack of compassion for the poor, but with real religion which I believe is not far from the truest justice.”

“Mmmm,” Khadijah answers watching the houses outside the car window pass by in a blur of colors and shapes, thinking of her own connection to real religion. She opens her window and looks up at the small buds of green covering the trees on both sides of the road and listens to the bird’s staccato chirps from the open window “I do love this time of year.”

“Spring is the eternal hope. The miracle of life.”

 “I enjoyed that message in your sermon this morning Father, and I agree the miracle of life is that we can hold onto hope. But I think our ability to experience our true selves, even after trauma and knowing darkness, that we find ways to milk life for the smallest pleasures. That’s the power of religious stories,” she says without turning her head toward Lorenzo. “But it’s the storytellers who have the power to persuade because the storytellers create the perspective, I learned that from Daddy.”  Khadijah sits back in her seat and closes the window as they merge onto a two-lane highway. “It’s like Daddy always preached,” she says almost to herself, slowly swaying in her seat. “We must remember, I say, that the Bible was developed out of opposition. A narrative of survival and redemption. We all learn from those who oppose us, we must offer compassion for compassion. That is the gospel of Luke. I say. This is where I want to be remembered, right here in this church. This is who you are, I say,” her voice rising in excitement. “I can’t help myself. Love and charity with thy neighbor, Amen.” Khadijah laughs as she exhales her last burst of emotions. “Then the church music would rise us all up and I’d watch Daddy take in a deep inhale and survey his congregation with his shoulders back and eyes focused on his community. He’d always looked out to the front pews first to see us, his girls, and I’d feel so seen when he’d raise his chin slightly before looking away with a straight back and open arms.”

“Sounds like quite a performer, he must have loved JP,” Lorenzo says, regretting instantly the sarcasm in his words.

“Oh, Daddy wasn’t a JP fan, not at first. When I told him my plan to be a singer in a band he was not happy. But when my preacher daddy finally saw JP on stage, when he and Mama came to see us in New Orleans, Daddy was surprised! JP was so in control of the room with his black curls and blue guitar  - on stage JP is transformed into someone irresistible. Daddy said it was like watching Jesus himself on that stage,” Khadijah says, laughing to herself before turning her attention back to Lorenzo. “He isn’t Jesus, we all know that. But he has himself a following and our concerts are their Church.” She turns and smiles at her reflection in the car window.  “He’s no saint, but he’s always been Annie’s angel.”

Father Lorenzo feels ashamed by the jealous thoughts rising in his consciousness, and keeps his eyes focused on the road in front of him. Khadijah allows his silence to fill the car as they drive along the highway, passing the neighborhoods hidden behind tall stone walls and groves of overgrown trees, the branches beginning to sprout small green leaves that reflect the bright afternoon sun.

“Speaking of,” Khadijah says punctuating the uncomfortable silence just as they take an exit off the highway. “How did Annie convince you to spend your afternoon with me?”

He smiles before answering. “She was quite persuasive, she said I have work to do in the kitchen, can you spend some time with Khadijah, it’s her last day here.”

Khadijah watches the birds float across the blue sky as she considers Lorenzo’s answer. “Well, thank you for spending the afternoon with me, hard to believe I’ve been here for two weeks!”

“And I can’t believe in all that time that Annie hasn’t taken you to Concord, and I couldn’t let you leave without visiting Walden Pond. It’s the place I like to go when I need to get out of Cambridge, to lose myself and find myself - know thyself and know nature,” he smiles. “You’re going to love the pine trees and water, it’s where I  feel closest to the holy spirit.”

“Not in church, I think that’s a funny thing for a Priest to say.”

“I have faith, but there are days when my soul feels depleted and it feels like I’m not really living. It’s in the woods where I can feel wild, like Henry David Thoreau, and I’ve learned to see the infinite in the minutia. The nature at Walden is a spiritual elixir that awakens my senses.”

 “Mama would like nothing better than for me to find a spiritual elixir through her faith.”

“No mama complaining around me, you’re lucky to have a mama.” He turns to look at her quickly, a moment with his eyes off the road, but she can see he has more to say so she stays quiet waiting for him to speak, savoring the moment of his hesitation, fighting her urge to talk. “Lately,” he begins hesitantly, “with Annie back and watching her with Dottie, I’ve been wishing I knew more about mine.”

Before Khadijah can respond they make a sharp left turn onto an unpaved road and descend quickly into a grove of pine trees. As they drive through small forest lining both sides of the dusty dirt road, Khadijah opens her window to take in the fresh scent and scans the unfamiliar scenery for the famous pond.

“There she is,” Lorenzo says extending his right hand, pointing toward an opening in the grove where Khadijah can see the pond for a moment before the car turns into the asphalt lot inside the small forest.

“I don’t mean to pry,” Khadijah says slowly after Lorenzo parks and turns off the engine but before either unfastens a seat belt. “But why don’t you know about your parents?”

Before daring to address the question for which he has not answer, Lorenzo intentionally unclips his belt with his right hand, removes the sunglasses with is left before placing them on gently on top of his head. With his eyes still focused on the trees beyond the windshield, he grasps the stationary steering wheel tightly with both hands and answers, not turning to look at her. “Honestly, I don’t know.” He pauses, reflecting on his admission and continues before Khadijah can say a word. 

 “What I do know is that when my parents died and Nona was asked by the social worker if she’d take me in, she told me she’d prayed for the strength to care for me. Nona didn’t know me, we lived in California, my parents ran away, together. They wanted a new life.” The feeling of loss rising in his chest again, the loss of a life he couldn’t remember and only recently wishes he could.  “I don’t remember much else about them or my life in California. But what I do know is that there was a sadness, in me, when I was sent to Nona that I carried with me for so many years. Nona didn’t want to tell me about them and there was no one else to ask.” He stops, remembering how he longed for a family with cousins and uncles and aunts, and how Nona insisted they were better off as a unit of two. “But at some point I decided not to despair – because we will all be together again, in Heaven, and our individual pains will end. I miss them, my parents, but I don’t think about them much,  anymore.”

Khadijah feels his sadness creep into her own heart and when she touches his hand he allows her hand to stay on his. They sit together staring at the pine trees outside the windshield, neither one willing to be the first to move.

“Truth is, I just went along. Nona, well you must know some of this from Annie.”  

Khadijah nods without making a sound just feeling the car warm from the Spring sun shining on her face, allowing him to speak without making eye contact.

“Nona told me that in exchange for the strength to care for me she’d made a promise, to God. She’d made a bargain on my life because of the sins of my parents. But I don’t really know what those sins were.”

He pulls his hand from hers and wipes a small tear running from his right eye.

 “I was so young when they died in that car crash and Nona’s expectation was that I was supposed to forget and move on, so I went along. I built a life around my grief because I didn’t know how to let it out. And as I grew the grief, it didn’t shrink. But having Annie and all of them in my life, felt like I had a family. The McGraths helped me move forward, and eventually all I could do was carry the idea of my parents forward in my heart, that had to be good enough, because there was no one to ask who they were or what they were like.”

“Is that love? How could you just go along with Nona when she was taking love from you, again?”

“I lived with her rules because I had no choice. It was my destiny.” Lorenzo feels his chest filling as his deepest belief begins to rise like a fog, the belief he holds as more than a kernel of truth, but the holy core of the prayers Nona offered God when he came to her.  “So no, this may not have been a choice I’d have made without her influence.” He answers touching the white collar on his neck. “But we all come from someone else’s dreams, this is who I am, for me. It is good, I have found comfort in the silence and solitude in my world and my place in the Church.”

They stay for a moment in the car with the memories of the people from long ago who formed their lives, but were absent from them. “Let’s take a walk before the sun starts to set,” Khadijah proclaims as she pushes open her door and steps out into the bright Sunday afternoon light.

Lorenzo walks ahead a few steps to survey the quiet of the pond before turning his attention back to Khadijah.  “The first time I came to the pond was with a church youth group, I was the youth leader for many years.” He says as they begin their walk along the worn path circling the pond.  “After Annie left I threw myself into the work and sometimes that was not enough to exhaust me so I would take long, solitary walks around the pond. I did that all winter, and I was reminded, or maybe I really first learned, the importance of travel in the mind for figuring things out.”

“Hah,” Khadijah laughs with a slap of her hands on her thighs. “I travelled the world for real and I never really figured anything out.”

“Travel in the mind is quiet, it’s in those moments of quiet where I hear my soul. When I chose to listen to the quiet was the first time I’d really questioned my decision, or the decision that I’d thought was mine.” Lorenzo says turning his attention on the birds flying above his head, dotting the blue sky.  “After Annie left I fell into what I can now see was a depression. I felt disconnected from myself and so angry at her. I prayed so many days  to bring her back but I knew she was gone. I was so mad at her for making me question everything again but she always knew . . .”

“Knew what,” Khadijah answers from her place walking behind him, thinking but not knowing what he would say next. “What do you mean?”

She hears him sigh but he doesn’t turn his head when he answers her.  “I couldn’t do that to her, I wasn’t going to abandon my calling while Nona was alive. When I accepted that truth it was  the beginning of my healing, and my journey back to me. Back to Church and my community.”

“I like to think that Church is wherever the people are, not just a building. Honestly, I feel grateful to find churches in so many place.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stage, our concerts, these are places, palaces,” she laughs. “Palaces of big emotions. When we are together these types of communities remind us we are human and not alone. Like Church.”

They continue their walk on the path covered in pine needles, their shoes make no sound on the soft ground, and they listen to the birds and planes flying above both thinking of who they once were.

“I know about the bike ride to St. Paul’s, and what happened at the Harvard observatory,” Khadijah says abruptly, hoping he will turn to show his expression.

“That’s an old memory! She does tell you everything,” he says quietly, turning toward her but focusing his gaze to the black braid wound on Khadijah’s head.

He thinks of that summer day in late August, a few days before they were to begin eighth grade. He’d asked Annie to go on a bike ride before supper and she’d been so excited to talk about all the plans she had for them as the oldest grade in Middle School, that when he’d told her about transferring to St. Paul’s she hadn’t believed him.

“If it wasn’t for that bike ride she might not have gone to MIT, it was the first time she’d seen the word astrophysics,” he laughs remembering themselves as fourteen- year-olds. He’d taken her to the top of the hill across the street from St. Peter’s boys’ school where Nona had convinced him was his place. He hadn’t noticed the bronze domed observatory on the Harvard Astrophysics campus across the street from the tall white steeple of St. Peter’s until the day he’d accepted, and when he’d seen it had made a plan. “I brought her there because I knew how she loved the stars and I found the class for her that fall, so that we could be together in the afternoons.”

Khadijah hears his words but holds her questions, hoping he will tell her what she doesn’t know.

 “We spent every afternoon together, after her class ended but before I needed to be home to help Nona,” Lorenzo continues, enjoying the warmth of the memory of a time when he felt seen. “She loved riding our bikes on the Charles River paths and exploring parts of Cambridge we hadn’t seen before. And then,” he begins but turns his head away trying to remember the thing he wanted to forget the most.

“And then what?”

“And then, one afternoon, she kissed me,” he says as he closes his eyes and slouches his shoulders toward the pine needles covering the path. Khadijah takes a few steps toward a rock on the side of the path and motions Lorenzo to sit with her.

“When was that?”

“It was in December, I remember how the days were getting shorter but we still tried to meet after school before the sun set. The class at the observatory had ended but she was helping to organize an observation party on the shortest night of the year, the winter solstice, and was telling me all about it on our ride.” Lorenzo keeps his eyes focused on the pond on the distance and Khadijah sits quietly by his side. “We stopped by the river and she had brought snacks and one of Dottie’s quilts. The kiss, it happened when we were leaving. I was helping her fold the quilt and when I stepped toward her with my end of the blanket we were so close, I remember her eyes were shining with excitement and was surprised when she leaned in and her lips touched mine.” He stops and stares up at the black silhouettes of the birds on the darkening afternoon sky.  “It was like my world shifted and everything came into focus, I knew then that I loved her and wanted to marry Annie.”

“But you didn’t.”

Lorenzo fights the panic rising in his chest and focuses on his breathing, knowing he can’t justify he can simply share his story. “The next week was winter solstice and she invited me to watch the stars with her and I stayed for a party with her class. We walked home that night holding hands and I told her I wasn’t going to be a priest, I was going to marry her. She was so happy.” Lorenzo shakes his head slowly trying to remember who that young boy was who’d thought he’d had choices.

“I told Nona on Christmas Eve, I’ll ever forget the look in her eyes. More than disappointment, more like betrayal. She said it wasn’t possible for me to marry, that I was promised to God. I didn’t have a choice. Until that moment I didn’t see that she was in control, I’d thought the decision had been mine.” He lets out a small noise filled with disappointment and regret. “I’d found my soul mate, but on the on the night of Christ’s birth I became doomed by it. Is that irony or a paradox?”

“Love isn’t supposed to hurt.”

“Depends on the type of love,” Lorenzo answers with a crack in his voice.

Khadijah hears his words and feels the energy between them shift, then decides it’s time to change the subject on a topic she could not control. “I haven’t wanted to have sex since Colette was born.” She pauses and sees his neck begin to turn a shade of red as he returns the sunglasses to his face to hide his embarrassed eyes. “And, I know that’s something you now about.”

“We’re nothing alike, me and you,” he says rubbing the red spot on his neck, small beads of sweat forming on his temples. “But I had a libido once,” Lorenzo says with a smile.

“Truth is,” Khadijah says with a smirk on her face, “I never really enjoyed it, not as much as everyone says I should.”

 “I don’t know why we have to hide this part of ourselves to serve God,” he begins. “Maybe because we are called to be the calm in the center of the storm, that to be part of something bigger than ourselves requires us to be a calm in the storm, reduce personal distractions.”

“I’m sort of  like a hurricane, I know that. I shouldn’t have had  sex with JP, that was a mistake. I think maybe God is punishing my libido for sinning.”

He laughs and stands up from the rock, extending his hand toward Khadijah to continue their afternoon walk. “I don’t know what other priests do, we don’t talk about this. But not all of us have abstained forever, for many it was a choice.”

“I’m going to ask this and you can ignore me if you want, but I’ve never gotten a straight answer from Annie.”

He nods.

“If you both knew that your destiny was fixed, why did you have sex with her?”

Father Lorenzo stands still at the base of the towering oak tree and slowly removes his sunglasses again, folds them with intention and places them in his pocket while trying to find the words to explain. “It was not a mistake,” he begins, “but I shouldn’t have asked. I hurt her and I’ve grappled with this for many years but I’ve come to accept that I can’t undo the hurt of the past but I can work to create a better future. God is with those who seek peace.”

 “Really?” Khadijah questions. 

He turns to her and says in a rush of words, “I was twenty and a virgin and I was curious.”

 “But why did Nona lie to her, that day you were supposed to, you know?”

Lorenzo furrows his brows in reaction to the words Khadijah has uttered and then turns to watch the flat fluid surface of the pond, wondering what he should reveal.  “I didn’t know what she knew.” He stops, feeling his heart pound inside his frozen chest, and begins to know he is going to find the pieces of his life puzzle he’d been missing.

“I’m ready to go home,” he says, thinking gratefully about the warm cup of tea and the quiet sanctuary awaiting him in Cambridge.

“We can work on that.” Khadijah smiles as she throws her arm across his shoulders and they walk quietly back to the parked silver Toyota.