The Hacienda(27)

My head snapped up. From his visit to my property I had learned that Padre Andrés’s voice was low, thickened by a gentle, sleepy rasp. Now, it hummed with urgency.

I tightened my clasped hands as if in a fervent prayer of gratitude. “Thank God,” I whispered. The words came out strangled; hot tears had leaped to my eyes and lingered there, stinging. “You understand.”

“I felt it the moment I stepped through the gates,” Padre Andrés said. “It didn’t use to be like that. My aunt is Do?a Juana’s cook, and I used to—”

A sharp rapping sounded on the confessional door.

I jumped.

“Carajo,” Padre Andrés breathed.

My hand rose to my lips in surprise. A priest? Cursing?

“There’s a storeroom behind the sacristy,” he whispered. “We can talk there. I—”

Light flooded the confessional.

“Padre Andrés!”

His head snapped to the door; a lock of straight black hair fell into his eyes. I had noticed his good looks when I first met him—how could I not have, when sun poured down on him like a saint in a painting?—but now that I was hidden behind the grate of the confessional, I could peer at him unseen. Shadow carved out sharp cheekbones and a severe, aquiline nose; sensitive hazel eyes blinked as they adjusted to the light. He frowned as he looked up at someone out of my line of sight.

“Padre Vicente, a parishioner wishes to have her confession heard,” Padre Andrés announced, voice open and innocent.

Padre Vicente. My chest tightened.

“Then why are you in here?” Padre Vicente’s voice was aghast. Accusing.

Evidently, confessions were not a responsibility of Padre Andrés’s. He was not a full parish priest, then. Perhaps he was too young, or perhaps his mixed heritage prevented him from taking on such responsibilities when criollo priests like Vicente and Guillermo ran the parish.

Padre Andrés blinked. He opened his mouth to speak. A short beat passed.

Then he grasped for something in the confessional and lifted a book in a swift movement. “My book of prayers. Padre Guillermo borrowed it and must have left it here by accident.”

Gold lettering winked at me through the confessional grate, peeking cheekily through Padre Andrés’s long brown fingers. The Holy Gospel.

A giggle rose to my lips. I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep it from escaping.

“Out!” Padre Vicente snapped.

Padre Andrés obeyed. His exit was neither graceful nor immediate; judging from the low thump of a skull against wood, it seemed the confessional was not built for someone of his height.

Padre Vicente settled into the confessional across from me, his pale, thinning hair nearly translucent in the light. He shut the door with a click and settled in with an expectant sigh.

“Buenas tardes, Padre,” I said, speaking out of the corner of my mouth to disguise my voice and layering in as much piousness as I could summon. My heart sank. I actually had to confess my sins to Padre Vicente before I followed Padre Andrés, didn’t I?

Carajo, indeed.

“Forgive me, Padre, for I have sinned . . .”



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*

TEN EXCRUCIATING MINUTES LATER, I stepped from the confessional and walked quickly to the back of the church. I exited through a smaller side door, deeply grateful that anonymity etiquette dictated Padre Vicente would wait until I was out of sight before stepping from the confessional himself.

Sunlight seared my eyes. I shook my head, blinking to clear my vision, and followed the white stucco wall of the church. What if I walked into another priest somewhere—how would I explain myself? The last thing I needed was to be caught stealing into a sacristy like a common thief, not after running afoul of Padre Vicente mere days ago.

But the alternative was to return to San Isidro without any help. And that was out of the question.

I turned a corner. A worn wooden door, only about as tall as I was, had been left slightly ajar, its angle an invitation. Was that the door to the sacristy storeroom? I slipped through it as quickly as I could and collided very solidly with Padre Andrés.

He leaped back.

“Excuse me!” I gasped at the same time he held a finger to his lips for silence.

I edged away from Padre Andrés as he closed the door, and immediately bumped into an abandoned pew. An old altar, covered in cobwebs and stacked with ceremonial linens, dominated the back of the room; rickety shelves lined the walls, stuffed with bowls and wooden chalices covered in a thin layer of dust.

I slipped back to the altar, sheepishly putting as much space between myself and Padre Andrés as possible. Which wasn’t much—even without the clutter, the room was cramped at best. I was surprised Padre Andrés didn’t knock his head against the ceiling as he turned to face me.

“My apologies about the confessional, Do?a Beatriz,” he began. “I think here will be—”

There was a rap at the door.

Padre Andrés froze. Then the gravity of the situation struck me like a blow: what if someone opened the door and found us alone here?

Then—be Andrés a priest or not—I would have something even worse to explain to my husband than asking for an exorcism.

We stared at each other in shocked silence, momentarily paralyzed, realization of our predicament thick as copal on the air between us.