I leave a note for Tag so he won’t be surprised when he wakes up and finds me gone. I tell him where I’ll be and hope he comes and finds me.
Then I leave the bus and go to the hotel on the corner. I know which room Marta and Emilio are in, and I knock softly on their door. Marta greets me there and I see her gently bouncing Peck’s baby on her shoulder.
“That one wants his mommy, huh?” I ask her.
“I’m trying to hold him off because I know she’ll want to feed him.”
Sammy is sucking on his little fists. I hold out my arms to take him. He comes to me and I pop a pacifier into his mouth, but he’ll have none of it. He’s getting more and more fretful.
I text Peck really quickly and tell her if she doesn’t come and feed her baby quickly, I’m going to give him a bottle.
BE RIGHT THERE, she texts back.
“She’s on the way,” I tell Marta. I look around and see Benji asleep in his portable crib. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
She yawns. “Not much. One or the other was up most of the night.” She smiles at me though. “How was your night?”
“Good,” I say cryptically.
“Oh, yeah?” she asks. She grins wide. “How good?”
“We didn’t do anything,” I whisper, my cheeks growing hot.
“I think you’re lying, mija,” she says. “I think you did everything.”
I blush. “Yeah, we kind of did…” I squeeze my eyes shut tight. “And it was wonderful.”
She just smiles at me.
“Where’s Melio?” I ask.
She nods toward the bedroom. “He’s sleeping. He helped with the grandbabies last night.”
I grin. “He did?”
“He has decided that he wants to be called Melio instead of Grandpa.”
I shrug. “That fits.”
She shrugs too. “I don’t think anyone will care. You girls never called him Daddy. It was always Melio.”
“Yeah, but he knows he’s Dad in our hearts.”
“He does.” She smiles.
Benji starts to stir, so I go and get him and change his diaper. I’m all thumbs because I haven’t done it much, but Marta helps me. She warms up a bottle, and I sit and feed him.
“I think I’m going to go to church,” I suddenly blurt out.
She smiles. “You don’t say…”
“What do you think?”
“I think church is important to Tag, even if he doesn’t want to talk about it right now, so it’s probably a good idea.”
“I saw one on the corner, and since it’s Sunday…”
She nods. “Okay. Let me change my clothes and I’ll join you.”
My heart squeezes at the very idea that she’ll go with me.
“It’s non-denominational,” I say. “Do you think it matters?”
She pats the top of my head as she walks by. “I think what matters is what’s in your heart, mija.”
Tears prick the backs of my eyelids and I don’t even know why.
Marta comes back out just as Benji burps loudly in my ear.
“You ready?” she asks.
“You sure you want to go?”
“I’m positive,” she says.
Well, I’m not completely positive, but I think this is what Tag needs. And I’m going to try to give it to him.
I grab Benji’s bag just as Peck comes in to feed Sammy. She takes him and sits down. We tell her where we’re going and she stares hard at me for a long moment. Then she nods. “I’ll join you there as soon as I get him fed.”
I feel like I’m going to cry all of a sudden.
Marta and I walk down the street together, and I feel solemn and resolute as we enter the church doors. We slide into a pew and I let the feeling of church wash over me.
I hope Tag wakes up in time to join us, but it’s okay if he doesn’t, because I have his son in my arms and we’re in the one place where he needs for us to be.
Tag
Someone shakes my toe and I pull my foot in, but my knee bumps the roof of the bunk bed and I grumble.
“Dude, get up,” Sam says. “We need to be somewhere.”
“What?” I lift my head. “Where’s Finny?” I look around, still trying to get my bearings.
“Get up, dude,” he says again. He’s staring down at his phone and texting. “We need to go.”
“Go where?”
He grins at me like a fool. “You’ll see.”
I get up and get dressed, and we step out of the bus together.
“This way,” Sam says as he points down the street.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He grins at me again. “You’ll see.”
Something is up, but I have no idea what.
“So, what’s the deal with you and religion?” he asks me.
I shrug, and heat creeps up my cheeks. “No deal. It’s just…never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
Emilio joins us in the street, and he says, “Tell me too. I’m curious.”
I jam my hands into my pockets. “When I had nothing at all, and I felt like I was in this dark hole, my faith sustained me. Faith is what’s left when everything else has been stripped away.”
Emilio nods and claps me on the shoulder. “Good enough,” he says.
We walk up the steps of a tiny little church that’s a few blocks from the venue, and I can hear organ music playing inside. My heart fills up with love, because religion is the only thing that sustained me for quite some time. I’m still confused, though, about why we’re going to church—until we step inside and I see Finny sitting beside Marta in a pew, and she has my son in her arms.