The Gospel of Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

and followed her into the sunroom. The doors split open and revealed the men slumped in armchairs, smoking their cigars. Father Greg waved as he descended the couple of stairs, and the men roared their greetings to him. Mother pulled the doors closed. A rich tobacco stink lingered in the air, and Father Greg left behind him that charged negative space an animal creates when it flees into the brush with a snap of sticks and rustle of leaves.
    Cindy and I were left standing beside each other, and she looked around the room quickly. “I’ve heard how much you enjoy working for Father Greg,” she said. “I think it’s great. James has started working at Most Precious Blood too. He loves it. He’s an altar boy now.”
    I hadn’t seen James working there yet, but it again made me realize how many fewer afternoons I’d been scheduled for at Most Precious Blood recently. Of course Father Greg made time for others. Of course he needed assistance with other tasks besides fund-raising. He was our priest. But my stomach dropped as I thought of Father Greg consoling James. Wasn’t it okay that I thought I was the one who needed Father Greg the most? He was the only one who didn’t speak to me through bars of gritted teeth, as Cindy was speaking to me now—smiling at me in a way that said, I don’t want to be anywhere near you .
    I cut through the dining room to the pantry. When I came into the kitchen, I saw Elena arguing with two of the chefs by the wall ovens. She waved a wooden spoon that looked like it had been charred. She glanced at me but continued her tirade. The chefs weren’t listening, though, and she yelled at their backs as they worked. “Elena,” I said, but I was too quiet. The room was roaring with commotion. I bumped into one of the waiters coming back into the kitchen and upset the tray of shrimp ends he carried. “Shit,” he spat, and I weaved away around the island. I stole an opened bottle of fumé blanc from the ice bucket behind the bartender and ducked out the back door of the kitchen. The noise from inside the house followed me into the backyard, and once I was beyond the circumference of the spotlight over the path, I shouted up into the sky. Nothing responded, and it felt like my voice just disappeared in the darkness.
    I made my way across the lawn toward the second garage and walked up the stairs to Elena’s apartment. I tried the door. It was locked, but I could still see through the window. Her room was simple and small, like a well-furnished monk’s cell: a bookshelf, an armchair, a wardrobe closet, and a crisply made bed. Two frames with pictures of her daughter, Teresa, and her son, Mateo, leaned against the base of the lamp on the bedside table. In the first photograph, her husband, Candido, had his arm around Teresa.
    I slumped down, leaned against her door, and drank, staring up into the dark night. I stayed there for a while, andit wasn’t until I saw Elena shuffling down the path behind the kitchen and coming up the stairs that I realized how much I was shivering. I hid the bottle of wine behind the flowerpot on her tiny stoop. I was sure she saw it anyway, but it wasn’t in my hands so she didn’t have to say anything. Instead, she pulled me up into her arms. “ M’ijo ,” she said. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” she repeated as she held me.
    She let me in, sat me down on her little bed, and continued to hold me. She mumbled in Spanish and, after a little bit, I realized it was the Hail Mary— Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death . I don’t know how many times she repeated it, but I joined her, in Spanish, although it hurt to pray with a fist-tight throat. “Do not cry anymore,” Elena said. “Please.” Eventually, she got up and moved her packed suitcase toward the door. She pulled out a toiletry bag from