Chapter 8:
Deo volente
Lunch passed quickly, and the children quickly cleaned up the remnants of sandwiches that had been prepared, ate them, and left quickly for their next activity. This left Luca and Felix to grab what was left of the soy butter and jelly sandwiches and a small bag of pre packaged potato chips. Luca grabbed what he thought was a sweet barbecue chip bag and walked to the small table he, Ms. Lowell, and Luca had been sitting earlier, but as he sat down, he found it was hot and spicy flavoured, too hot for the weak-tongued Luca.
“Did you get the wrong flavour?” Felix asked as Luca stared at the bag with a frown.
“Yeah, I accidentally got the spicy flavour.” Luca shrugged, “I’ll just eat it. There weren’t many flavours left anyway.”
Just as Luca was about to open the chip bag, the bag in his hands was switched with Felix’s own bag of original flavoured chips. While Luca wanted to protest, Felix swiftly opened the bag and plucked out a chip, chomping down on it as if he were claiming the bag as his.
“Don’t think I won’t take that bag from you.” Luca said with a laugh, holding Felix’s bag in his hand.
Felix chomped the rest of the chip in his mouth and licked the spices off of his lips. He then smiled and said, “Try it.” His smile was saucy, testing Luca.
Feeling a little annoyed, Luca began to reach his hand towards Felix’s bag, his troublesome streak shining through. Just as he was about to grab the tip of the bag, Ms. Lowell walked to the table with Heidi by her side, holding a binder of things tucked away into separate tabs, about as thick as Luca’s wrist.
“Oh no.” Felix muttered, pulling back his bag of chips out of Luca’s reach as he straightened his back, adjusting his expression back to his usual smile. “More work to do.”
Ms. Lowell smiled as she saw Luca and Felix sitting together, both looking as if they were enjoying their lunch as she walked in front of the pair and set down the heavy binder on the table with a small “thud”. Felix winced, his smile tightening as Ms. Lowell said with a grin, “Now that you’re back from tooting around the town, you can get some of your work done, Felix.” Her expression was bright, but there was a dark undercurrent in her words.
“You caught me.” Felix laughed as he put his hands up in surrender. “I think I got a little carried away showing Luca around again, but he was able to meet Paul and see Margo again, so I don’t think it was a waste of time.”
Ms. Lowell sighed, “Margaret is such a beautiful name, I don’t understand why she would want to change it…” She then changed the subject, “Never mind. I collected some of the community survey results. Make sure you look these over and implement the changes I noted on the note on top. If you see anything else that you would like to add, add it to the list and let Heidi know.”
Luca could not help but ask, “Community survey? What’s that?” He was curious about the new change. What type of survey was it?
Before Felix could respond, Heidi chirped in response, “It’s a new system to collect more feedback from the village and the surrounding neighbourhood. So far it’s been a great help for setting up a children’s bible study group and the community choir!”
“The church has been open to the community for ten years now, but with Father Michael’s declining health, it was difficult to establish programs.” Ms. Lowell said with a smile, patting the binder on the table. “But with Felix studying under Father Michael, he can start these programs and involve the community more.”
Father Michael never had implemented a survey system before. Luca thought to himself. Maybe it was because Father Michael was retiring that Felix was beginning to implement so many changes. The man was old, after all, and he had been a priest for over forty years. Much of the town had grown around the orphanage after it was first established almost eighty years ago. The buildings now had been recently refinished, updated time and time again almost every ten to twenty years, appearing new as it had when Luca was a child.
With that in mind, maybe the community was beginning to become more involved in the orphanage? The church was open every Sunday to members of the public, a recent change from the past ten years, and it was now more open to community programs like children’s bible study and a community choir. Looking at what was to come with Felix’s new role, it was difficult not to be excited, to watch the community grow.
“How come you didn’t tell me about this, Felix?” Luca joked, patting his hand on Felix’s broad back with a laugh. “You’ve always thought of others, even now.”
Turning to Luca and seeing his bright smile and gentle gaze, Felix felt the sudden urge to draw the young man close to him, to pull him into his embrace and wrap his arms around the other man’s narrow waist. He wanted the young man’s head to rest on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around his own in a gentle, warm embrace. Lost in thought, Felix’s hazel eyes looked to the hand on his shoulder, as if he wanted to grab Luca’s hand and hold it in his, lacing his fingers through Luca’s, but the heat in his mind was cooled abruptly by the naive smile on the other man’s face.
Now is not the time to be acting like this. Felix thought to himself, his nails piercing into the soft skin of his palms as he restrained himself and his thoughts, I can’t scare Luca away by acting like such a needy child. Now is not the time. Felix closed his eyes momentarily before he opened them with a chuckle, shortening the awkward pause as he said, “I didn’t want to sound like I was bragging. After all, most of these programs were Father Michael’s ideas, I just implemented them.” Felix responded humbly.
Ms. Lowell soon turned to Luca and said, “Now I’m sure you don’t want to watch Felix work on that, do you? If you would like, the children will be having recess outside in a few minutes. Do you want to play with them for a while?”
Felix was about to speak up, but Luca spoke first, quickly saying, “I’d love to! Can I take my sandwich, at least?” Luca still felt a little irritated about Felix switching his chips, so he decided to leave the chip thief with his own as well.
It’s not that I can’t take spicy foods, I just don’t like them, that’s all. Luca consoled himself in his mind, grabbing the uneaten sandwich, still wrapped in the plastic wrap, and stood up from the chair.
As he stood, Luca remembered Felix was going to say something, so he asked, “What were you going to say, Felix?” Luca turned to Felix, his smile still just as bright as before as he held the unopened sandwich in his hand.
“Ah, it’s nothing.” Felix only shook his head in response and said, “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Following Heidi and Ms. Lowell, Luca walked with them, side by side, happily laughing and chatting about the children, unable to contain his excitement, soon leaving Felix to stand in the empty lunch hall. With the rows of bright fluorescent lights still on, the hall looked startlingly empty, clean of any and all plates and sounds, leaving only the sounds of Felix’s breathing.
The young priest stood up from the table, standing in front of the sandwich and spicy chips he had stolen from Luca. With an annoyed gaze, he passed over his own food and stopped at the bag of plain chips abandoned by Luca. Lifting his right hand, Felix’s finger traced over the rigid surface of the blue bag until his fingers stopped at the opening. Just inside the bag, there was a single chip with a small bite mark taken out of it.
The chip, marred with Luca’s lips, was plucked out of the bag with care and held in Felix’s fingers like a forgotten treasure. Sticking out his tongue, Felix licked the surface of the chip, stopping at the edge of the surface before he placed the chip in his mouth and slowly ate it, savouring the processed snack as if it were a communion wafer.
“Such small lips. It makes me wonder how they’ll taste.” Felix said quietly to himself, licking the last of the salt residue off of his lips.
After the chip was eaten, Felix grabbed the remnants of his lunch and threw them out, leaving only Luca’s chip bag and his binder on the table. As he stepped back, walking up to the table, he grabbed the items, holding the bag carefully in his right hand as he supported the binder on his left forearm. As quickly as he came, Felix left, turning his back as he looked over his shoulder and into the cafeteria. All the signs of the children had been extinguished, leaving only the faint traces of him and Luca.
With one last glance, Felix turned off the lights, switch by switch, until the entire room had been covered in darkness. No more could be seen.
…
“Will you be okay without snow pants? I know you’re not good with the cold.” Ms. Lowell said to Luca, helping the young man tuck his scarf into his winter coat dotingly as he put on his thick gloves, coated with a faux leather lining on the fingers and palms.
“I’ll be okay. I’m sure the kids won’t be that rowdy.” Luca responded, adjusting the tongue of his winter boots, finishing his winter ensemble. Donning a heavy winter jacket, knitted scarf, hat, gloves, and thick winter boots, it would be difficult for Luca to feel cold, other than through his jeans. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to put on his long johns this morning, leaving only his bare legs between the cold and the denim of his pants. “Besides, this scarf is tied so tight, I doubt any cold air will get into my lungs.”
“Okay, okay. Go have fun, now.” Ms. Lowell said, pushing Luca lightly on the back towards the back door of the orphanage.
With Ms. Lowell’s blessing, Luca walked up to the door and opened it, stepping out onto the salted sidewalk behind the building. As he walked out towards the playground, two of the nuns, dressed in their winter clothes, waved him over towards the jungle gym. On the bright, heavy plastic equipment were the children playing, some running around the bars underneath the platform, while others slid down the slide and ran back up the stairs to slide again. Most of the older children, however, were playing to the side of the playground, hiding behind two large mounds of snow as they tossed snowballs at each other.
“Hi, Sister Bethany, Sister Dana.” Luca smiled and greeted the nuns, recognizing them from his time at the orphanage. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” While he did not have the opportunity to greet them before, at least he could see them now.
Sister Bethany laughed, “My, look how big you’ve gotten! If you got any taller, I don’t think I would have recognized you!”
Luca smiled, “I’m still just a hair shorter than Felix.”
As Luca caught up with the sisters, one of the children from the cafeteria saw Luca and ran over to him excitedly, hurrying to his side and grabbing his jacket sleeve with a gentle tug. “C-can you help us?” The child asked, looking up at Luca.
Luca bent at his knees and spoke to the child. “What’s up?” He smiled, patting the snow off of the young boy’s hat.
“Can you play with us? Our team is losing the snowball fight.” The boy asked, looking up at Luca with an excited gaze.
The sisters both laughed, looking up at Luca with smiles on their faces. He was always weak to the children, even when he was at the orphanage. When the younger children would ask to play with him and Felix, he could never say no. Often, he would have a trail of children around him like ducklings. Felix, however, was the one to always lead Luca.
It seemed like even now, he was still leading him.
Following the young boy, Luca was led to the two large snow mounds created by the children. A group of boys and girls introduced themselves to Luca, each throwing out their names and questions before he could answer them. He could only talk to them one by one, eating away at their short recess time until they were able to start the snowball fight.
While Luca had participated in sports, he was not the best at throwing things, he had found. He softened his throws as he gathered the balls of compacted snow, sometimes hitting the children on the other side of the mound. His team of four was not bad, and the young boy from before kept making snowballs at a fast pace, making sure the team was stocked and ready to defend their keep as needed. This led to a small advantage for Luca’s team.
“Take that!” One of the children on the other team shouted, throwing a snowball towards Luca and his teammates. Luca ducked to avoid the far-flying ball, but his hat was knocked off of his head instead and tossed into the wet snow.
Holding up his hands, he shouted, “Hold on! I lost my hat!”
For the children, however, there was no waiting. They continued to throw snowballs back and forth, some hitting Luca as he ducked out of the cover of the snowbank and retrieved his wet hat. He was quick to dust it off and continue playing, losing track of the time. Just as the sisters had rung the recess whistle, one of the other children had snuck behind Luca as he was kneeling on the ground, grabbing the back collar of his jacket as they stuffed a large, cold snowball down his shirt. As Luca stood up, the nearby children laughed, hurrying back to the sisters before Luca caught them and threw snowballs back at them in retaliation.
“Ah! That’s cheating!” Luca yelled, attempting to shake out the snow from inside of his shirt. As he lifted his jacket, shaking it out, a sliver of his bare abdomen showed, exposing his fine muscle lines. While it was only exposed for a short moment, beads of melted water from the snowball trailed down his waist, and the view was caught by a figure standing by one of the windows facing the playground. The figure’s eyes were fixed on Luca’s frame, only looking away when his shirt had been lowered, feeling regretful that they caught only a glimpse as they held a heavy binder in their hands.
“Come line up!” Sister Dana shouted as Sister Bethany collected the rest of the children, lining them up in groups as they were led inside by the other staff, taking them inside line by line until only Luca stood by the door, having held it open for everyone to enter. Once all the children had stepped inside, Luca was quick to follow. Stepping inside, Luca’s hair and shoulders were full of snow, making his face red with cold. As he stepped through the doorway, he shook out his head with his hand, using his other hand to brush off the snow from his shoulders.
“Achoo!” Luca sneezed, rubbing his nose with his finger, having already removed his wet hat and gloves.
“Here, take this. You’re soaking wet.” Felix handed Luca a towel as he took the other man’s jacket, hat, and gloves, soaked with water from the melting snow. A look of concern flashed across his face as he said, “Luca, you should take a hot bath to warm yourself up.”
Luca took the towel and began to dry his hair, shaking out the clumps of snow and moisture with a rough shake of his hand. “There’s no rush. I can just take a bath later tonight. It’s not like I’ll get sick, right?” Luca laughed, causing Felix to frown as he took Luca’s wet jacket and hung it on the jacket hooks with the other jackets in their cubbies next to the door.
“If that’s what you want to do then I won’t force you.” Once Luca had changed into his indoor shoes, Felix grabbed his shoulder and said, “Now that you’re back, there’s something I want to show you.”
“What is it?” Luca asked curiously, adjusting the damp collar of his sweater.
Felix smiled, his gaze softening as he said, “You’ll see shortly.”
…
Stockpile ends at chapter 11, and then I'll be placing this project on hiatus for a while to focus on YMtK, as the stress of both is making me unable to keep the quality up as I would like. I apologize ;;
