if he moved, the old wooden floor might creak, revealing that he’d already eavesdropped, which left him in a conundrum of his own making.
Even hearing one side of the conversation, Adam managed to gather a lot of information on Mrs. Janina. Her grandson’s name was Patryk, and he’d recently moved abroad to study. That alone wasn’t all that surprising, but when Mrs. Janina and Patryk went on to discuss money, Adam felt he really should have announced his presence.
“So it’ll be five thousand American dollars, right? I’ll go to the post office and transfer it all to your mother. I can’t deal with international payments well. Their bank accounts don’t even have the right number of digits,” she stated before laughing in the sweetest way possible. “Oh, don’t worry. You know I want for nothing. I could never spend everything I have, and I can’t let my only grandchild feel like a pauper.”
There was nothing odd about a grandmother offering money to the apple of her eye, but how in seven hells did a pastor’s housekeeper in Dybukowo, a place that didn’t get cell phone reception, have five thousand USD to spare?
It was none of his business… but how?
Adam waited through the rest of the conversation, but once Mrs. Janina returned to her tasks, he was glad to shake off the icy dust his body had collected and made some noise before entering the kitchen.
The housekeeper glanced up from the sink. She looked much more put-together in an apron and with her hair pulled back by a blue scarf, which rested on a bun at the back of her head, keeping it out of sight. In daylight, her wrinkled skin seemed delicate, almost translucent, but the set of her lips was as firm as it had been when Adam had last seen her.
“Is it customary for people in Warsaw to sleep until so late?” she asked, drying her hands on a towel. “I serve breakfast at 7.30 sharp.”
“Is that my new protégé?” came a low yet friendly sounding voice from a door on the other side of the old-fashioned yet tidy kitchen.
Mrs. Janina took a deep breath and met Adam’s gaze. “The pastor’s awake now. You may join him,” she said in a way that suggested she was the one calling the shots at the parsonage. But who was Adam to change the status quo, if he was staying for only six months?
He cleared his throat and entered a dining room decorated in a style reminiscent of his grandparents’ home in the countryside. Simple, with whitened walls, a thin carpet in the middle of a wooden floor and a cheap metal chandelier as the centerpiece. A framed tapestry of the crucifixion hung across the room from a window with sheer curtains, but he spotted plenty of other framed images. Not all were religious in nature, and Adam noticed that group photos from various events were a prominent presence on one of the walls. He didn’t get to look at details when his gaze focused on the pastor smiling at him from behind a large oak table in the middle.
“Adam Kwiatkowski, right?” he asked, awkwardly pushing the chair away from the table before rising to his feet.
Whatever worries Adam might have harbored, died the moment Father Marek squeezed his hand. The man was the embodiment of a spoiled yet kind village priest, with a round face that might have had more wrinkles if he were slimmer, and a large pot belly pushing at the front of his cassock. But, most importantly of all, he seemed glad to have company. No wonder, if he shared the house with a tyrant like Mrs. Janina.
“I am so sorry about this mix up—”
The pastor waved his hand. “You shouldn’t be. I checked the letter, and turns out I was the one to make a mistake. I hope you got here without too much trouble?”
Adam’s shoulders relaxed, and he presented the chocolates to Father Marek. “This was really the only thing that suffered throughout my journey. It was meant as a gift for you, so I hope that they at least still taste good,” he said, glad to see the pastor’s smile widen.
“It’s the thought that counts, but I won’t lie. When it comes to dessert, I am a bit of a connoisseur. And you will be too, once you taste Mrs. Janina’s famous home baking.”
“You won’t get into my good graces with exaggerated compliments, Father,” she said, entering the kitchen with a tray containing two