Things got a little better when the diners began to show up. I put myself on the serving line, where it was more difficult to stare at the bulky, uncharacteristically helpful ghost of Jude. I was still trying to resolve all the strange little inconsistencies between my memory and the man at the prep table. His piercings were gone—the barbell from his eyebrow and the studs from his upper ear. And when Father Peters passed by saying something I couldn’t quite catch, Jude answered “Yessir,” in a quiet voice that lacked the edge I was so familiar with.
I was like Dorothy in Oz, seeing the familiar transformed into something odd. But in this musical, I was clearly cast in the role of the scarecrow. If I only had a brain, I might be able to stop staring and start serving chicken.
“Denny,” I said, dragging my attention back to the matter at hand. “Would you take charge of the biscuits? Don’t let the kids take a handful.” I put him at the opposite end of the table from me, so he wouldn’t be able to ask me questions.
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.
*
I didn’t tell my 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 of me. 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 knew exactly how 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…now he 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.