Night at the Fiestas

A teenager named Crystal has a dream that Father Paul cut off her fingertips with a pair of scissors as she held a prayer card on which was printed not a saint (as was customary), but a sonogram of her unborn child. The next day, while she works at Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, Crystal finds her dream slightly ridiculous. Because she is unmarried and is in the third trimester of her pregnancy, she has been the target of unpleasantly judgmental comments at the church. As she works at her desk, a couple waits for Father Paul to meet them for their premarital counseling appointment. He is late, and this pattern has become increasingly common since Father Leon joined the parish. Crystal pictures the two of them staying up late together, chattering like girls at a slumber party. Crystal’s coworker Colette sends her to look for Father Paul.

Crystal prefers Father Paul to Father Leon, as most people in the parish do. Father Paul is kind and benevolent, and he cares deeply about his parishioners. By contrast, Father Leon is cold; his sermons are full of fire and brimstone, and he has offended several people with his anti-gay bias and his assertion that romantic relationships between people of the same sex reflect the inherently sinful nature of American culture. Father Paul has not judged Crystal for her pregnancy; instead, he gave her a small prayer card of Santo Niño de Atocha after she confessed her sin to him. Now, she reflects that she partially confessed; she told Father Paul that the father of her baby is no longer involved, but she did not admit to having a drunken one-night-stand with him.) Crystal was actually upset about the prayer card, feeling that Father Paul was either too forgiving, or that he meant to suggest that her unborn children would save her from her own sinful ways. She threw the card in the trash.

Now, when Crystal finds Father Paul, he appears slightly disheveled. He asks her to dispose of a suitcase that is full of vodka bottles. Although Father Paul claims to have been sober for decades, Crystal wonders if he has once again succumbed to his addiction. He tells her that Father Leon has been trying to force him out of his job, that the bottles are Father Leon’s evil mind at work. Crystal cannot tell if he means that Father Leon forced the vodka on him or hid the bottles in his room to frame him. Father Paul then tells Crystal that Father Leon does not approve of her and wants to fire her so that an unmarried pregnant woman will not be the first face that people see when they enter the church office. Crystal feels hurt by these words, but she does consider that Father Paul is having a crisis. That feeling intensifies when he asks Crystal to hold him. She wonders if he believes that he can save her and that by giving her the prayer card, he did not mean to imply that her babies would save her. Utterly confused, she hugs Father Paul and tells him that everything will be all right.