Unbroken Connection (26 page)
MAN OF GOD
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
POEM #65, BACK TO LIFE?
“Guy at the door for you, Leese.”
Dayla’s eyebrows dance hormonal excitement.
“Oh, my gosh, woman. I told you—
it’s my brother.”
I throw my pillow at her
and push the mound of study notes
off my lap. The words I crammed
into my head for the past six hours
float out my ears and drip down
the walls.
There is a guy leaning against the door frame
with his back turned,
but it’s so not,
“Phil?”
My mystery man spins—
grinning at me like
I should know him.
“Are you kidding?
Jaron?”
The cute boy that collected six girls
to write him on his mission
and promised to marry every one but me
is buried somewhere in the
recesses of the man of God he’s become.
I run, and he catches me in a hug
not quite as brotherly as it used to be.
“You’re home? Nobody told me.”
I squeeze him tight.
“Surprised? I came instead of your dad. Okay?”
His voice is low and sweet in my ear. He doesn’t
release me from the hug.
“Sure.” I whisper, too. “Where’s Phil?”
A slow grin, that makes him look more
like the boy of my eternal crushing,
spreads across his face.
“I dropped him off for his interview.
I don’t think he’d want to witness this—”
His strong fingers push my hair back from my face.
He leans forward—
My eyes close—
His mouth presses on mine with way more
warmth than that one solitary good-bye kiss
consolation prize he left me with.
“I waited two years to do that again.”
“Nuh-uh.”
His lips are back. “You were the last
girl I kissed—”
“You kissed two other girls before
they set you apart. I saw.”
He laughs. “Guilty.”
I lean forward and test my lips against his.
He strokes my hair. “You’ve grown up.”
“Lots.”
I touch his face. The next kiss
is mutual, consensual, prolonged.
“You’re the first girl I’ve kissed post-mission.
That one is true.”
I start trying my hardest. He’s waited
two years for this—got to make it good.
He does his best, too. But it’s strange.
Like we’re both trying out for something.
And don’t quite fit the role.
His mouth shifts back to my ear.
“I want you to be the last.”
I try to smile and be happy—try so hard
to feel what I need to feel.
Jaron is everything I should want.
But I’m so, so empty.
He cups my face between his
hands, won’t let my eyes leave his.
“I figured it out on my mission.
My dad was right.
I want to spend
eternity
with you.”
I go limp in his arms and draw away.
“Don’t tease me like that. I’m not
up for a joke.”
He draws me close, barricades me safe
behind his arms and shoulders and chest,
presses his cheek to my temple.
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
I relax in the warmth of the love
that pours off him.
Try to send something back—
but there’s nothing there
except a mangled lump that
used to be Michael.
“It’s okay, Leese.”
His lips find mine.
“Give it time. It’ll”—
one more kiss—
“come.”
My eyes smart, and I bury
my face deep in the front of his shirt.
How can I do this?
Eternity is an awful long time
to spend with someone you
don’t
love.
AN ERRAND
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #10
D
IVE
B
UDDY
: Claude
D
ATE
: 04/22
D
IVE
#:—
L
OCATION
: Hong Kong
D
IVE
S
ITE
: Mormon temple
W
EATHER
C
ONDITION
: muggy
W
ATER
C
ONDITION
: humid
D
EPTH
: surface
V
ISIBILITY
: hazy
W
ATER
T
EMP
.:?
B
OTTOM
T
IME
: 22 hours
C
OMMENTS
:
Claude is marrying his girlfriend tomorrow. We’ve got twenty-two hours to celebrate his last gasp of freedom. That’s how he puts it. Seems to me once you belong to each other, you’re more free than ever. They’ve been together for three years, but Claude cheated whenever he got the chance. He says that’s over. The whole Suki thing made him take a look at how he treated his Thai girlfriend.
Still, he wanted me to fly up to Bangkok with him and go to the sex shows in the red light district. I refused, so we’re in Hong Kong for one day. Not a bad flight. Only a few hours. We fly back tonight at midnight. He gets married at 10 AM and then it’s back to work—double work for me. Claude’s dad gave him the week off for a honeymoon.
Claude drags me all over Hong Kong. The place is a cement jungle full of short, busy Chinese, and thousands of yellow taxis. We’re riding in one on the Kowloon side on our way to the bridge so we can ride a tram up Victoria Peak, eat at some place called, “Bubbas” and stare at the city lights before we head to the airport. I see a sign that says, “Mormon Temple.”
“Stop.”
Claude gives me his best perplexed Frenchman impression.
I lean forward and point to the sign for the driver.
He nods his head. “Can. Can.”
I pat his shoulder, and he maneuvers his taxi so he can turn back, drives a few blocks and then stops in front of an ivory colored stone building—maybe eight stories high with long, narrow elliptical windows striped down the front and their gold angel statue on top. I turn back to Claude. “I’ll see you at the airport.”
Now he’s mad, but I ignore it.
I have to see this place.
A brown-veined granite wall protects the temple’s entrance from the street. Most of the wall is a fountain, interlaced rectangles that jut out from the smooth wall. Water trickles gently all along the face of it and pools in a blue tiled basin. Chinese characters—undoubtedly spelling out the church’s name—stretch across the center of the fountain wall. Two arched silver doors with a round window of mottled glass flank the fountain. Big stone planters filled with manicured trees, tropical bushes and tiny pink, purple, and red flowers on either side of the doors complete the streetscape.
I’m drawn to the door. It’s decorated with straight shiny ridges that curve at the top to emphasize the arch.
And it’s open.
I walk cautiously through it.
Granite columns guard a plaza that leads to a gold and glass revolving door. There aren’t extensive grounds and gardens like the Utah temples Leesie showed me, but the fountain is reversed on the inside of the wall. The falling water mutes the traffic zooming by just outside. More perfectly manicured planters terraced in varying heights filled with a tropical garden expand the small space into a calming oasis.
I sit on a stone bench in the corner by a small potted tree, trimmed bonsai style. I tune into the shush of falling water, put my hand where Leesie’s ring hangs, and close my eyes. The peace here is palpable, but intertwined in that is a shudder of dread. Leesie? The dread returns. Something’s happening to Leesie?
A short, round man in a white suit, white shirt, white tie, white shoes—white hair even—comes out of the temple doors. He sees me and smiles, makes his way slowly to my corner, and sits beside me.
“Good evening. I am Brother Gilbert.”
“My name is Michael. Is it okay that I sit here?”
“Of course. Have you been to a temple before?”
I nod.
He leans forward, rests his forearms on his thighs, and clasps his hands together. “With a girl who wants you to take her inside some day?”
I nod again. “But I don’t even believe God exists.”
“But she does.”
Nod.
“Where is she now?”
I hunch over like he is. “I’m not sure. I’m trying to stay out of her life. She deserves—”
“But you still love her.”
“How do you know?”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I was in your shoes a long, long time ago.”
“I can’t help loving her—thinking about her—wanting to see her again.” I turn my head so I can read his eyes. “That’s not wrong is it?”
“No.” His eyes agree. “Painful—but not wrong.”
“I got this urgent feeling when I sat down here. It’s not going away. I think she’s in trouble. Maybe she needs me.”
“Ah, my son.” He sits up and folds his arms across his chest. “You might not believe in God—but God believes in you. Sounds to me like he’s got a job for you.”
“For her?”
He nods.
“What should I do?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Get on a plane—now.”
“Can you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why are we still sitting here?” He stands up and holds out his hand.
I stand and clasp it. “What if I get there, and it’s nothing. She’s fine. I’ll feel like a fool.”