Page 22 of Steadfast
I served chicken all through the early rush. Father Peters flitted around the dining room, greeting everyone. Then he joined the line, and when he reached me he asked for two plates. “One is for our newest helper.”
My flinch was involuntary, and Father Peters saw it. “Sophie, I’m sorry he gave you a surprise today. But the church belongs to all God’s children. And it’s a small town, sweetheart.”
“I know.”But really?When had Jude ever been to church? And there was one problem. “My dad would freak if he knew.”
The priest sighed. “Perhaps. Though your father is quite welcome to volunteer on Wednesday nights if he wishes.”
I looked up into Father Peters’s sharp blue eyes and knew that he had a point. After my brother died, the church allegiances in my family had all flipped like coins. These days, my mother sat through Sunday service in a trance and never volunteered for anything anymore. My father never set foot in the place.
And me? I’d become the family churchgoer. It wasn’t because I’d found religion. It was because Father Peters was one of the few people in town who understood what had happened to my family after our tragedy. Three years later, he still visited my mother once a week at home.
So when he’d asked me to help out on Wednesday nights, I’d said yes immediately. And I’d recruited Denny to help, too.
Father Peters heaped two plates with chicken and vegetables. At the end of the line, Denny added biscuits. Then the priest disappeared into the back to serve dinner to my ex-con ex-boyfriend.
If the night got any trippier, I’d probably start clicking my heels together and singing Judy Garland tunes.
“Would you like a breast or a leg?” I asked the next person in line.
To Jude I said nothing at all that night. By the time the last food had been served, he’d cleaned up his prep station and disappeared into the night.
* * *
Ididn’t tellmy parents that Jude had showed up at church that night. I decided that it was a fluke, and there was no chance that Jude Nickel had gotten religion. Furthermore, there was no chance that he’d turned up because ofme. My brain turned this thought over and over like a hamster running on a wheel.
The following Wednesday, I got to church around four-thirty, and he was nowhere in sight. I put the earliest arriving volunteers to work prepping chili with all the fixings, cornbread and salad.
Sneaking up on Father Peters’s office, I heard no voices inside. And when he waved me in, I found that he was alone this time. The twinge I felt was relief, right? It couldn’t possibly be disappointment.
“Evening, dear. Did you find the beans and spices? Mrs. Perkins dropped them off but could not stay.”
“So we’re down a man?” I asked. That left Denny and me and Father Peters. And Mrs. Walters on the dishwashing machine.
Father Peters stood up. “It will be fine. We’ll dish out the chili, but the rest can be self-serve.”
I led the way back through the hall. Just before we turned into the kitchen, I saw a stream of people climbing the stairs from the basement and exiting onto the street. The paper sign that pointed toward the basement was one that I’d seen before, yet never paid much attention to. “NA Meetin.”
Jude appeared at the end of this trail of people, and that’s when it clicked. Now I knewexactlyhow Jude had come to appear in this building on Wednesday nights. Narcotics Anonymous.
Oh shit.
Backing up hastily, I ducked into the kitchen and made a beeline for the walk-in refrigerator for a moment alone. Maybe I was an idiot, but there was something shocking about Jude sitting in a room full of people and saying,I have a problem. It wasn’t something my Jude would ever have done.
It was a good thing that Jude was getting help, right? I should feel nothing but happy for him. Standing there in the chill of the fridge, a shameful wave of anger pulsed through me. Because…nowhe was getting help?
When we’d been together, I ached to hear him say, “I’ve got to kick this little habit that I try to hide from you. I’m going to do something about it.”
But those words never came. And then suddenly it was too late.
I stood there, my hands on a tray of ground beef, wishing Jude had chosen to get healthy somewhere other than Colebury. But he was here in this building whether I could handle it or not. So I put on my game face and headed back to the kitchen. When I passed Jude, he was already dicing onions with the finesse of a cooking-show host.
Without a word, Denny got to work browning ground beef in two giant commercial-sized pots, whistling to himself. Two weeks ago I’d assumed that our friendship had been permanently damaged by our worst date ever. But somehow that hadn’t happened. Instead, he’d asked out a girl from the accounting department. And she’d said yes. They were going out for a second time tomorrow.
I was happy for Denny. At least one of us had a plan to move forward.
“Incoming,” I said, tipping a quarter cup of chili powder into the pot. I’d given myself the task of measuring the spices. It was a simple job, perfect for someone whose brain fled the building every time Jude walked into it.
Not simple enough, evidently.
