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. While she stood there, I felt the knife enter between