We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves.
― George Eliot
She sat on a bench by the acequia behind her family’s house in Santa Fe, looking down the grassy bank into the silvery trickle of water flashing over the gravel bottom. A comforting warmth settled next to her.
“I’m dead,” Cici murmured.
“Not yet.”
She turned, noting her uncle Peter’s soft brown eyes and easy smile. His face was unlined and smooth, a shade or two darker than Cici’s, his dark brown hair a bit shaggy. He had the same hitch on the left side of his mouth as her father. He wore a T-shirt and bell-bottomed jeans. His sneakers looked like something the kids would wear today, probably ironically. But on Peter, they were new.
She studied her uncle, absorbing as much detail as she could. This man was her relative. Her heart squeezed with sadness that she’d never known him—never would get to know him as she wanted. “You sent me those visions?”
“Of course. Lydia departed long ago.”
“Huh. I really thought it was her.”
He slung his arm across the back of the bench. “Sorry about the initial push. I didn’t realize I was causing you pain.”
“Roland resisted you,” Cici said.
He nodded.
“The Navajo elder told me never to anger a spirit.”
Peter appeared abashed. “Smart. But I hadn’t intended to hurt Roland either. I wanted him to understand that my death started it all—a chain reaction.”
“His life spun off its axis because of it,” Cici murmured.
“Yes, but that’s not what I meant. I wanted him to find the child before…well, before all of this.”
“Why?”
“Because Roland could have stopped so much violence,” Peter said. Like his voice, his eyes held more wisdom and years lived than his physical appearance.
“How?”
“By loving him.”
Such a simple answer. Simple but clearly not easy. “The child…he didn’t have a happy home life?”
Peter shook his head. “His father was deeply involved with the Central American gangs and drug dealers. Life was…difficult.”
“That’s what this is all about? A boy’s pain morphed into a man’s ability to pay back? But I don’t even know him!”
“You know hate isn’t logical.”
Cici stared down into the river, trying to piece together the details. She was missing something. The baby…Michael…his adoptive father had abused him, so he sought revenge. But something more was going on. Something related back to Sterling. To Michael’s CIA operative connections.
“I met your twin,” Peter said, drawing Cici from her reverie. “Anna Carmen is as smart and funny as she is beautiful.”
Cici smiled, a wistfulness slithering up her chest. “Yes. That’s the perfect way to describe her.”
“She worries over you.”
“Clearly, she’s right to.” Cici hesitated. “He’s going to hurt me, isn’t he?”
Peter’s face turned grave, and his eyes grew distant. He seemed to scan something. “Not yet. He’s dealing with the other one. The man.”
Her breath hitched. “Sam?”
Peter shook his head. “The spy.” He narrowed his eyes. “Michael hit you harder than he knows.”
There was a lot to unpack there, but Cici decided to focus on the biggest issue first. “So, I could die.”
Peter nodded. “You could.”
“And I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of what he did to me?” The words quavered. As a scholar of biblical teachings, Cici took deep comfort in heaven. It was eternal rest from suffering. But pain…that was a human construct based on the body’s nerves and receptors. The only way to remove pain was to remove one’s soul from the body housing it.
“Maybe,” Peter said. He shrugged. “Probably.”
Cici chewed on her lower lip. “I’d get to be with Aci.”
“True.”
“I don’t want to leave Sam,” she whispered.
Peter smiled, a sly one that ended with a wink. “I wouldn’t either. He’s a prime specimen.”
Cici licked her lips as she focused once more on the water. “I’m scared to go back.” She struggled to swallow. She’d been injured many times over the last year, but something told her this was going to be the worst pain she’d ever experienced.
“I’ve been scared to go on.”
“Why?”
She felt Peter shift beside her, his energy restless. With each passing moment, it became more chaotic. Cici settled her hand on her chest to ease the growing ache.
“I’m gay,” Peter said.
He rose and began to pace.
“I know.”
“My father preached love between two men was immoral, unclean.”
“I’ve heard that argument,” Cici said. She grimaced. “Often.”
“He said…he said if I acted on my unnatural impulses, I’d go to hell. That’s where I belong.”
Cici caught Peter’s hand in hers, surprised by how solid his flesh felt against her own.
“I’m a preacher,” she said. “And I perform marriages between two men or two women.”
Peter’s harsh breaths turned more ragged, less like pants. “Wh-what?”
“I’m a woman of the cloth—one of many, thousands. And at the 2005 Synod, the United Church—my denomination—approved marriage equality for all beings.” She squeezed his fingers. “My church hired its first openly gay minister in 1972.”
His wide, rounded eyes sought hers.
She smiled. “I’m guessing my grandfather told you that God has a grand plan for each soul walking this earth.”
Peter nodded. His lips trembled.
“And I’m guessing my grandfather believed with all of his soul in God’s plan, His compassion and knowledge for each of us.”
Peter swallowed a thick lump, his face avid with longing.
“And since God doesn’t make mistakes—because His plan is infallible, perfect, all-consuming—we have to believe He understood who you would be.”
Peter’s breath hissed from his lips.
“Being gay is part of you, Peter, just as your voice, your moles, your thoughts, your loves, your most embarrassing moments, your memories, your least-liked foods are part of you. All of that makes you, you. And God doesn’t make mistakes.” Cici pressed two fingers to her lips and held up her hand. “Pope Francis said something to that effect. He also said that homosexuals are children of God and have a right to a family. Most people of faith—across all groups—support nondiscrimination laws for the LGBTQ community.” Cici tilted her head and explained the acronym when she caught Peter’s blank look. “Just as they believe in the importance of dignity for all people and the right to practice their religion.”
She trailed off as Peter pressed his forehead to her shoulder and sobbed. His shoulders rose, heaved, and his breath broke as he released more than forty years’ worth of fear and anxiety. Cici wrapped her arm around his shoulders, unsurprised to find him less corporeal. He’d fought hard, allowed his soul to bear terrible burden in an effort to stave off what he’d been taught was inevitable.
But the hell of trying to remain on Earth was his penance, one he never should have felt the need to suffer.
“God loves all His children, Peter,” Cici said. “He made us in His image. He made us in our perfect form.”
The sobbing quieted. Cici smiled as his pain eased. She then went to cup his cheeks, but her shoulders slammed into the slats of the bench, her throat convulsing as she screamed.