Chapter 22 of the R.M. Dolin novel, "Trophic Cascade"
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Sympatico spends what’s left of the night on the floor of the halfway house with the other girls since none of the rooms are ready. She wanted Jake to sleep there too, but he opts for the quiet comfort of his truck. For the girls, there’s a lot of crying, not much talking, and an unsure sense none of this is possible. It would be far less possible to believe, if Sympatico weren’t both here and alive. As soon as Theresa comes with blankets and a huge pot of posole, the girls devour their first taste of freedom since current time began and fall into the kind of sleep that says perhaps safety and security really are obtainable. Jake doesn’t get much sleep either, while Theresa’s inside with the girls, Hector stays with Jake discussing his strategy for engaging the Mexican Underground. Once Hector leaves Jake’s almost to sleep when Preston stops by to brief Jake on the aftermath of Operation Take-Down, which by all accounts, went off without a hitch. By Preston estimate, the FBI and state troopers are convinced Miguel’s apprehension was due to their brilliance. Alvarez is feeling equally satisfied as he managed to get to the Las Vegas airport just as Ramon’s plane was taxiing for takeoff. Marcos reported Miguel and his men are in federal custody, as trace amounts of DNA from the tattooed henchman with the cut off hand were found on Miguel’s knife. He’s being charged with murder, along with a long list of lesser crimes he may or may not have committed depending on how detailed the ANA were with their breadcrumbs. Ramon is being held under RICO for crimes including trafficking, drugs, weapons peddling, and kidnapping. Thanks to the NSA social networking capability built off Mind’s Eye technology all Ramon’s known associates have been apprehended and charged with random federal crimes.
Jake completely gives up on sleep when Padre walks out with early morning coffee and they sit on the bench under the cottonwood where Emelia would wait for Jake to pick her up. “It’s finally over,” Jake states, as mental exhaustion catches up with emotions.
“Is it really, or are we just getting started?”
“It’s over for me,” Jake confesses, “I’m not made for this sort of crap.”
“Funny you say that.” Padre takes a sip and looks toward the Sangre’s as the sun peaks over Santa Fe Baldy. He seems distracted by thoughts too deep for examination. “Do you remember our conversation here the morning after Cinco de Mayo?”
“Not likely to forget that any time soon, especially the blistering way you accosted me.”
“I took it back then but to be honest I wasn’t sure you’d stay on the right path; but you did. In light of everything’s that’s happened I can confidently say Emelia’s damn proud of what you’ve done.” He gets up to stretch kinks out of tired muscles. “I think though, she’s wondering if you’re finished?”
“Seems there isn’t any more to do.” Jake gets up to stretch beside Padre. “I’ll admit though, I’m ready to get back to being plain old boring me.”
“There’s always more to do, it’s the first things they teach at seminary; a good Samaritan’s always on the road, always peeking around the next new corner finding ways to make a difference.” Padre smiles at his dear friend knowing much more than he lets on. After a well-placed grin, he’s unable to conceal his compulsive need for gossip. “I’ve known for some time ya know.” He pauses giving Jake a chance to jump in, but continues when Jake patiently forces him to continue. “You and your poker buddies are up to something, I won’t pretend to know what, but it’s big, that I know. No way you old farts pull off the kind of magic and miracles you do without having your toe into something huge.”
“I seriously doubt that.” Jake looks at the sunrise recalling a time not so long ago when his life was perfect.
“You don’t have to tell me, and I don’t need to know. What I’m suggesting is that as you guys move forward with whatever it is you’re doing, keep in mind that all of life is local. You can dress up your lofty PhD thoughts and ambitions in worldly matters, but if you really want to make a difference, you start at home. A person can spend forever just trying to make life in this valley better.” Padre takes a moment to let his wisdom find an opening. “You’ve always been a big thinker, always looking beyond the nearest horizon, but look at the good you’ve done. Not only for Sympatico and those girls, but for the entire valley. The headlines of course will say some sort of nonsense about after a year’s long undercover investigation, and how the dedicated brave souls at the FBI brought down New Mexico’s biggest crime network, but I know it was you and that ragtag group of misfits you play poker with. I’ve known that since before Cinco de Mayo. What you guys did for our community can’t be measured, and that’s how you improve life my friend, small bites of local cuisine.
“You give us too much credit, we made a few phone calls, lodged a few complaints, that’s all.”
“You stepped up when most wouldn’t, you think you kept trying to off load your destiny, buy I knew you really never would. Twice you rescued Sympatico, and at huge risk. And along the way you became that boy who rescues dogs. You resurrected a dying soul and, in this life, nothing’s more profound. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how you did it. You’re an ornery old cuss that can’t get along with anyone, yet people like you, follow you want to be near you, that’s the mark of a leader. Hector and Theresa talk about you like your saint and Dario would ride into Hell itself if you asked him to. And brother Mandy, don’t even get me started on him. This new guy though, Chance, I don’t know his deal, but I can see your helping him get his life back together. I don’t think he’ll be singing in my choir anytime soon, but who knows; how a fart like you helps so many people defies logic, but you do, and the funny thing is, I don’t even think you try, you just do what needs to be done.” Padre pauses before placing a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “And now my friend, you must do something I fear will be your most difficult challenge,” Jake turns to face Padre a part of him knows what’s coming but still needs to hear it, “you have to set her free.”
“Ya know Padre, most of the time I don’t have a freaking clue what you’re talking about, and I kind of think you don’t know either; and yet there you are, always pushing and prodding.”
“Sympatico, she’s grown a little too dependent on you; you want her to stay, but you have to let her go.”
And there it is. Jake knew the instant Padre brought out coffee he was after something. Padre never, always working some sort of agenda. He should have gone home last night, hanging around Padre never ends well for anyone, especially him. What offends him most is knowing on some level that he’s right; he usually is and that’s what’s so damn annoying.
“She’s has a life, a life to get back to, a good life,” Padre continues, “Bolivia seems like a place she can never return but that’s where she belongs. It is the necessary next step on her journey toward resurrection.”
Jake paces around the massive cottonwood; seems like every time he and Padre wind up under this cottonwood, it’s only a matter of time before they’re pacing about like two prize fighters too tired to throw punches but not willing to toss in the towel. “Don’t you think she should decide? I promised she could stay as long as she needs, and a promise is a promise.”
“Unless that promise needs a push.”
“She has no family left in Bolivia, nothing to return to.”
“It’s still home, and just being there will help her heal.”
“Maybe she’d rather stay, you know, become a citizen and all.”
“This is not home.”
“Well maybe it is!” Jake forcefully exclaims with a growing agitation he does not fully comprehend. “Did you ever consider that she’s got a place to stay, a job, and friends who care about her; isn’t that the definition of home.”
“Friends, or a friend?” Padre begins what he’s most famous in the valley for; cutting away flesh to get at the soul, just as he did that morning after Cinco de Mayo.
“Don’t even go there,” Jake angrily fires back as he sits back down on the bench and is instantly reminded of all the afternoons, he and Emelia sat on this bench having no particular reason not to.
“You’re on a slippery slope my friend. I worry about your soul, her heart, and how you think this all ends.”
“I don’t think at all about this ends!” Jake is starting to sense Padre perhaps knows him better than he wants to know himself but isn’t that how talking to him always ends; all he wanted was to enjoy the sunrise with a warm cup of coffee and now he’s arguing to keep something just a week ago he was desperately trying to off-load on anyone he could find.
“Then why do you present so much resistance to something you know has to happen?”
“Because it’s not for us to decide! Not you. Not me.” Jake knows Padre’s right, but he also knows he doesn’t want her to leave and certainly can’t imagine telling her go. “That woman’s been through hell, a hell controlled by men telling her what to do, how to act, where to go. If we do the same, how are we different? You claim to know what’s best, but you can’t possibly know. You have all the answers, like you always do, but have you even asked her what she wants? I’ll not be the next man, in a long line of men, tell her what to do, deciding what comes next, responsible for her disappointment.”
Padre considers Jake’s counter argument and has to concede it has merit. “Okay, I’ll give you that, but let’s agree you have to give her options.” He walks behind Jake putting a hand on his shoulder, “do it without making her feel guilty or obligated to stay. And keep in mind she may need a push. Not an order and not controlling, just a nudge to get her going. You knew all along this was a temporary arrangement and I trust you’ll do the right thing.” With that, Padre walks to his rectory where he rousts Brother Bob out of bed. They have a lot of work ahead, starting with how to feed twenty recently freed girls and that requires something special.
Jake leans hard into the bench remembering an argument he had with Emelia just before his life went to shit. It was under this very same cottonwood on a hot kind of afternoon where the cool shade amplifies feelings you wish you had enough control to take back before being heard. Emelia had spent the day in the rectory garden talking French with Padre, that always puts her in an unpredictable mood; not in a bad way, just a not knowing what’s coming kind of way. Jake had finished his first batch of Angelica after the Quintina brothers finally shared their ancient recipe. He was quite proud of himself for resurrecting a five-hundred-year-old piece of New Mexico and apparently, so was Emelia because she told Padre all about it who immediately insisted it become his alter wine. In retrospect, Jake should have been proud Padre wanted his wine but instead, Jake rebelled against the intrusive obligation, and he takes it out in frustration. Before long, his frustration ratchets up Emelia’s frustration to the point they’re voices are reaching never before heard decibels. He’s not sure who sat down on the bench first, but once they were both seated, calmer heads prevailed, and he’s able to inadequately apologize. Now, whenever he delivers Angelica to Padre, he has to relieve that regrettable day.
He looks through the tall thick cottonwood branches at the breaking day wondering how heaven waits, “What would you do?” he asks his angel. “I am getting more right lately, but still a lot wrong.” While waiting for an answer he knows isn’t coming, Sympatico emerges from the halfway house wrapped in a Navajo blanket someone donated. As she approaches, Jake marvels at how anyone can endure the absolute limits of what she’s been through and still be so proud and dignified, so beautiful and strong. He accepts without question that in the short time he’s known her, she’s found a place in his heart, a place he didn’t think even still existed. “Good morning,” Jake stands as she draws near, “would you like some coffee?” He holds up the carafe Padre left but she gestures no. “It’s okay, I didn’t make it.” Sympatico smiles and nods, so Jake pours a cup, realizing why Padre brought three cups in the first place. He hands Sympatico her coffee and motions for her to sit beside him on the bench.
“Padre told me this is Emelia’s favorite place,” Sympatico begins the conversation she’s already knows she should be dreading.
“Besides home,” Jake defensively shoots back. “I mean, yes,” he adds feeling a twinge of guilt for both sharing Emelia’s sacred spot and for defending the palace he made for his queen. “We’d sit here sometimes for hours.”
“It’s hard isn’t it, I mean missing her. You spend most your life planning for something that’s gone in an instant with no way of ever getting it back, and it, well, leaves a hole in your heart.”
“Every day, all day. It’s an emptiness that knows no bottom; like Moses parted my soul only no one’s saved.”
“It goes away. I used to have that same emptiness and felt it could never be filled, but it was, and it can be for you. What you did for me, for those girls, it’s a miracle, you are the bravest most decent man I have ever met. Why did you do it? Why risk so much for people you don’t even know?
Jake thinks for a long difficult moment, “I don’t know. It sounds silly right? You’d think I’d talk about duty or to say something noble and profound, but none of that fits. That night in the Al Azar, when Dario defended you, that was noble, that kind of heroism is instilled in his DNA. I am not brave like Dario and to be honest, I didn’t have a plan and was scared shitless when I challenged Miguel. No matter how much I replay what happened, I can’t come up with a rational reason why I did it.”
“And yet you did, is that not the very definition of noble courage?”
“It should be wrapped in some sort of valor. Since we’re being honest, do you know why I brought you here that morning after Cinco de Mayo? It wasn’t because I’m a God-fearing church-going man. I don’t fear God, whatever he’s got queued up for me is a fate that fixed. We came here because I absolutely had no clue what to do with you and it scared me. One minute I’m learning how to live in the pity of my self-loathing, and the next I’m responsible for a severely damaged woman. My plan was to dump you off on Padre; the way I sat you in the pew and started for the door is anything but noble or decent?
“But you stopped before the door, you brought me home, you named me when even my soul lost sight of who I was. You not only cared for me, you cared about me and that more than anything is how I survived everything Satan through at me.”
“You have no notion of how hard Padre worked me over, it’s his freaking specialty, shaming people past their reluctance. He said all kinds of nonsense about obligations, about how God was the reason I won that card game. Said that even if I didn’t know what to do with you, God would, and that through the miracle of healing, I would help you. But the funny thing is, I can’t say if I helped you or you rescued me? I’m every bit as broke now as you were then, just maybe not as outwardly scared. You helped me to heal in ways I don’t even think I understand, but I am a better man now than I was before; so, thanks.”
“I don’t see how, I’ve been nothing but trouble. You rescue me from Miguel, rescue me from the dogs, rescue me from Ramon. I was supposed to die so many times, yet each time I prepare for the end, you somehow pull me back. These last few years I’ve convinced myself that in the end, there’s only the end and as my last act of defiance, I’d decide about that. But then you show me a world of possibilities beyond what’s possible, you make me think about tomorrow as if there’s going to be a tomorrow. While it’s all scary, it’s also wonderful and exciting.”
Jake takes his time reloading his coffee, as if that’s sufficient to brace for what he has to say. “I’ve made arrangements with Hector; he has connections in the shadow community of people that aren’t supposed to be here. In the coming days we’ll be sending the girls home. Jon seems to have an endless supply of money, inheritance or something, he’s offered to cover all the costs and to provide extra cash to help each girl restart the life they’re meant to live.”
“That is most generous of Hector and Senor Jon, the girls will be most happy. It is beyond anything they can ever have expected.”
“And you Sympatico,” Jake takes a long moment trying to find the fortitude to say what he knows must be said. The words are all there; on the tip of his tongue and roaming randomly around the space between them and yet, for some reason, he can’t organize them into a coherent sentence, he can’t move his mouth in the way words require. “The thing is-,” he tries to say, “I mean-,” he struggles to go up incline any serious cycler would surrender. “You- you should go too,” he finally blurts out. And there it is, the words that could not be spoken. Even as the words escaped captivity, Jake wishes there was a way they could be retracted, a way Padre could be wrong. A way to allow for the caveat, ‘but only if you want to because otherwise, I’m cool with you staying, forever if you want.’ But words set free can’t be corralled or contracted, just as caveats cannot be placed on conditions for departure. As hard as it was to invite Sympatico into his life, it’s infinitely harder to facilitate her exit, even if it is an equal obligation.
If there’s a skill people can acquire to mask utter shock, Sympatico never acquired even a modicum of it, and it’s clear as she stares at Jake in terrorizing horror that of the long list of things she prepared to hear, that’s a blow she’s inadequate to weather. ‘I can’t go back,’ is her first thought. ‘I can never go back.’ That’s quickly followed by ‘I don’t want to leave, please don’t make me leave. I can’t bear the thought of leaving. Not after everything we’ve been through.’ She struggles to stand up from the bench in stunned confusion. She paces aimlessly around the cottonwood. ‘How could he do this? Why would he do this? Do I mean nothing to him?’
Jake walks up behind her awkwardly reaching his hand for her shoulder, but before making contact he retracts. “I know this is a lot all at once, but we both knew that sooner or later you’d go home, we talked about it.”
“This is home,” Sympatico whispers without turning around. “This is the only life I know; the only life I want to know.”
“You’re always welcome, but Padre says, and I reluctantly concede, going home is an important step in your healing.”
“Only death waits me there, with no hope of an alternate outcome. Here though, I have a chance at life. Don’t make me go, Jake.” Sympatico wheels around falling into Jake’s arms crying. “Don’t make me leave.”
For what seems like hours, Jake does nothing but hold Sympatico under the large cottonwood in the middle of the church courtyard where he and Emilia once spent hours together. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to ever leave. But it’s not about what I want, it’s about what’s best for you. As someone very wise once said to me, ‘what I want in this life, don’t amount to a hill of beans when it comes to what I want you to have in this life.’ And that’s how I feel, I want only the best life can offer for you, and I guess I just assumed that would mean going home.” Jake tilts Sympatico’s head upward so he can look into her eyes. “I barely could speak the words that you should go. I love you, Sympatico. I know it’s sudden and I know it’s weird coming from someone like me, but I do love you. Not as a lover, and not as a daughter, and not as a friend either. You are so much more than all those things. I can’t explain it, because it is not possible to explain things that have yet to be discovered. It’s as if love isn’t even the right word, because necessary words transcending how I feel have yet to be invented.”
Sympatico gently smiles with a freshness filled with life, her eyes soften, and she regains the strength to stand on her own but doesn’t want to leave Jake’s embrace, “That is how I feel. I can never love in the physical way, it is not possible, it is too painful, desires that people put on love died in me somewhere in the horrors of what happens after dark, so lost they can never be reborn. But I too love you, in a way that can’t be described but one that I cherish more than life. I don’t want anything more from life than for things to stay the way they are, for me to stay where I am. Tell me that is possible that is the only thing I need to hear.”
Jake smiles as he wipes strands of tear-soaked hair from Sympatico’s face, he looks deep into her eyes, eyes that just a few short weeks ago could not permit anyone to pierce. “Of course you can stay. It was foolish for me to suggest otherwise. We once talked about your season of healing, now we can move into your season of living.”
Padre stares out the rectory window to the bench under the courtyard’s massive cottonwood where so much of rural parish life happens. He watches Sympatico gleefully hug Jake and kiss him on the cheek before returning to his kitchen chores. “I got a feeling,” he quietly whispers while once again feeling God’s invisible hand work miracles and magic, “this story’s far from over.”
