Free Shelter Me by Juliette Fay Page B

height when they sat on a fallen tree-trunk and smelled the oxygen-rich air.
    “Hey,” said Janie. “Can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.”
    “Do you see your parents very often?”
    “No,” said Father Jake. He inhaled deeply and let the air in his chest out slowly, carefully. “Last I knew, my father was the deputy chief of police in Hamilton, Bermuda.”
    “Jesus!” Janie whispered, immediately regretting her choice of expletives.
    “Yeah,” he snorted. “Miserable bastard.”
    “Your mom’s there, too?”
    “No. He left her years ago. I’m not really sure where she is.” He was completely still for a moment, then he blinked. “Where are your parents?”
    “My mother lives in Italy. She teaches Home Ec at the American School in Turin.”
    “Even during the summer?”
    “Nope. She’s off now. Visiting a friend in Naples. Noreen Dwyer spends every cent she earns on travel. She’d rather board a plane than eat.”
    “Oh,” he said, watching her.
    “My parents split when we were little, and my father took off. I have a feeling my Uncle Charlie, my mom’s brother, made the options clear: you either step up to the plate or you get traded to Siberia.”
    “And you have a brother?”
    “Mike, my twin. He’s in Flagstaff, Arizona. He’s a sculptor.”
    Two crows flew screeching across the treetops and landed in a nearby hemlock. The birds sat quietly on separate branches, as if their prior outbursts had been embarrassing lapses in otherwise decorous behavior.
    “And you have Jude,” said Father Jake.
    “Like a bad rash,” replied Janie.
    The priest chuckled and shook his head.
     
    T HEY BOTH SEEMED TO know when it was time to go, and rose simultaneously from their separate spots on the huge log. As they descended the trail Father Jake mentioned, “I’m going over to that soup kitchen, Table of Plenty, to help serve dinner tonight. I guess that’s what got me thinking about homelessness.”
    “Don’t tell me,” said Janie, her quadriceps burning as she worked not to jostle the sleeping baby on her back. “Aunt Jude roped you in.”
    “She’s definitely blessed with determination,” he said diplomatically.
    “If she told you to work on me about that stupid self-defense course,” she said “you can save your breath. I’m not doing it.”
    “I’m not going to work on you.”
    “But you think I should do it.”
    “I don’t think you’ll get anything out of it if you don’t want to be there.”
    “She did tell you about it, then,” said Janie.
    Father Jake smiled to himself and glanced at Janie. He looked for a split second like he might roll his eyes, but he never did. “A lot of those women at Table of Plenty have been assaulted at some point in their lives. Jude’s probably heard some pretty grisly tales.”
    “I’m sure she has. And if I slept behind the Dumpster at Stop & Shop on a regular basis, self-defense would be high on my list, too. But I don’t. Which is why it’s so annoying that everyone’s on me about it.”
    “Who’s everyone?”
    “Well, Aunt Jude, of course. And my neighbor Shelly. Also, my cousin Cormac, who stopped by last weekend to ply me with muffins.”
    “So all the people who’ve done the most to support you through this terrible time are asking you to do something that helps them sleep better at night.”
    “Exactly—it’s not for me, it’s for them. They just don’t want to have to worry about me.”
    He stopped and waited.
    “Shit,” she whispered, the sudden realization of her utter self-absorption causing her to slump in defeat. “Sometimes I just can’t stand myself.”
    They continued on. When they got back to Janie’s house, Father Jake pulled a rock speckled green with lichen out of his pocket. He placed it in the empty fruit cup jar on the kitchen counter.
    “What is that?” she asked.
    “Something for your jar.”
    “Why that?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I just liked it.”
     
    W HEN J ANIE WOKE UP Sunday