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.

…