Stones for Bread (35 page)

Well, I thank you again for your offer, but I think we have all the help we need right now
. The woman turns away, and I am left to wonder if I’m the only person outside a boulangerie or
Bäckerei
who thinks bread has a beauty beyond eating.

I unlock Wild Rise at six in the morning and know, the moment I walk into the building, something isn’t right. I stand in front of the door, the cold from the glass chilling my back, waiting for my front side to absorb the warmer temperatures of the café area, heated by the brick oven despite it being in the other room. I’m greeted, however, with more cool air and the haze of sunrise. And I wait for the vibrations of human energy to come over me; I’ve always been able to feel the presence—or absence—of life.

There’s no one else here.

To be certain, I slip my messenger bag off my shoulder as I cross the room; it tumbles somewhere behind me, and in my rush to get to the kitchen I hear its contents spill onto the floor, my Sigg water bottle, a collection of pens and Tic Tacs and lip gloss, a hairbrush. It doesn’t matter, and I’m through the swinging door into the shadowy kitchen. No fire in the oven. The proofing baskets and shaped loaves Kelvin prepared last night untouched on the center table and counters.

Xavier hasn’t missed a day of work in three years.

Fear blisters within me. I check the answering machine. No messages. I fumble beneath the counter for my Rolodex and reconsider having a cell phone in which to keep my contacts programmed, or some other kind of electronic directory. I spin through the cards until I find Xavier’s, dialing first his mobile and then his home. No answer. Beneath those is Jude’s cell; I punch in all eleven digits for the out-of-state number and wait as it rings. “’Lo,” he grunts.

“It’s Liesl. Where’s Zave?”

A yawn. “I don’t know. Call him.”

“Jude, wake up. It’s past six.”

He mutters something unintelligible. Bedsprings shift.

“Jude,” I shout.

“What?”

“You were supposed to be here three hours ago.”

More fumbling. Something crashes to the floor. He groans again but sounds more alert. “Pops didn’t wake me.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Something’s wrong. He’s not here either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do I have to spell it? Xavier didn’t come in to the bakehouse this morning.” I’m screeching at him. “Go check on him.”

“Oh no, no,” he says, and I hear him stampeding through the house shouting, “Pops? Pops!”

My breath prays on its own,
Please, God, please, God, please, God
. And then Jude wails, and I recognize the sound.

It’s grief.

“Liesl, he’s not waking up.”

“Is he breathing?”

“I think so.”

“Call 911. Now. I’m coming.”

“Liesl, I can’t—”

“Now, Jude.”

“Okay, okay. Okay.”

The line goes dead.

I crouch and scoop all my scattered things into my bag; the floor against my kneecaps impels me to prayer, and I press my forehead to the ground, searching for the words. I have none. I weep instead, and when I finally stand, the knees of my jeans are stained with tears.

Somehow I manage to make it to Xavier’s home without being
pulled over by the police for erratic driving. The ambulance is already there when I arrive, Xavier strapped to a stretcher, one EMT pumping air into him with a mask and rubber balloon, the others lifting him into the vehicle. Jude slouches on the front porch in boxer shorts and nothing else, face swollen, eyes dim. I go to him.

“Liesl? You’re here.”

“I told you I was coming.”

His skin is veined with purple. “Yeah.”

“Where are they taking him?”

No response.

“Jude?”

“They told me . . .” He shakes his head. “They told me.”

I run to the driver’s side of the ambulance and the EMT rolls down the window. “Which hospital?” I ask.

“St. Mary’s,” he says. “You got the kid?”

I nod. “Can you tell me anything?”

He flips on the flashing lights. “It doesn’t look good.”

Jude hasn’t moved. I shepherd him into the house. “We should get to the hospital.” He shivers, and I look around for something with which to cover him. “Jude. Clothes?”

“I don’t know.”

Searching for a dresser, a closet, I find a laundry basket of socks and towels at the top of the stairs. Everything in it seems clean. I grab two socks of similar length—though the ribbing doesn’t match—and move into the first bedroom I see. It’s Xavier’s, the bedcovers thrown back, the photo frame on the nightstand overturned. I set it upright. A picture of his Annie.

The next room is empty, and the one after that is where Jude sleeps, his clothes flung around the space, on the floor, hanging on the footboard, the open dresser drawers. I grab the first shirt and pair of jeans I can reach from the doorway and rush back to the living room, slipping on the narrow farmhouse stairs. I scrape my spine along the treads until
I hit the floor at the bottom, crashing hard on my tailbone. Shaken, I bite my hand to keep from crying out, roll onto my side and curl up until the pain subsides, and then I stand. Again, Jude hasn’t moved. His feet and lips are zombie white. “Can you get dressed?” I ask, tucking the clothes in his arms. With jerky, automated motions, he manages to slip into his pants and shirt. He fumbles with his socks, losing his balance because he doesn’t sit. I take his elbow and lower him into a chair, and I bunch up each sock and roll the fabric over his bird-thin feet. “Shoes?”

He licks his lips. “The mat.”

His sneakers are there, and I kick them over to him. He worms into them without untying the laces.

“Do you have your phone?”

“I left it in his bedroom.”

“Okay, I’ll get it. Go to the car and wait for me.”

Back upstairs, I shake the blankets and look under pillows before finding the cell phone under the bed. When I finally collapse behind the steering wheel of my Civic and turn the key in the ignition, I see only a bit more than an hour has passed. I hold out Jude’s phone. “Can you manage a call to Seamus?”

“No,” he whispers. Sleek, silent tears cut a trail down each cheek, each one dangling at his jaw until the next one slides down and bumps it off.

I dial and Cecelia answers. “Hey, Jude,” she says, and giggles.

“It’s Liesl, sweetie.”

“Oh. Daddy’s phone said Jude.”

“I know. Can you put your dad on?”

“Daddy,” she yells.

I cringe as her sharp little girl’s voice pierces my eardrums. I hold the phone away from my ear until Seamus’s voice comes on the line. “Liesl? What’s going on?”

“Xavier has been taken to the emergency room. St. Mary’s. Can you meet us there?”

“Oh, sure. Yeah. We’ll come now.” A pause. “Is it serious?”

“Yes.”

We drive. The hospital isn’t far. Jude sits rigid beside me, hands clamped between his legs, staring ahead. He doesn’t wear a seat belt, which makes me much more conservative as I stop and look and turn. I park the car, but as I open the door I realize Jude isn’t moving. “We should go in,” I say.

He begins to shake. “He can’t die. I have no one else.”

“Let’s just get in there and see what’s happening.”

“I know he’s gone. I saw how those ambulance guys looked at him.” I try to leave the car again and he grabs my arm, his fingernails pricking my skin through my sleeve. “Pray, Liesl. Please.”

I slam the door. I want to tell him I’m a sorry excuse for a follower of Jesus, a fraud, really. I give bread to the hungry because it’s what I do—bake bread. It doesn’t require effort or sacrifice, only twenty cents per loaf for a custom-printed paper bag, which in turn I deduct from my yearly taxes. I go to church now, but that’s to spend time with Seamus and Cecelia. Otherwise, I can’t be bothered to crack open my Bible for five minutes a day. I shouldn’t be allowed to pray for anyone.

Jude waits, though. I reach for him and place my hands on the back of his neck. The weight of all my awkwardness and shame drags him toward me until his forehead rests on mine. His eyes are closed. I shut mine as well and offer my own silent petition first, that I’ll have the words to comfort this boy.

I start there, asking the Lord’s peace and comfort on Jude, his guidance and protection. I implore him to spare Xavier, to heal him, to give wisdom to the doctors and strength to us. I ask for mercy. And finally, I ask for him to give us the grace to accept his will, whatever that may be. Jude echoes my “Amen,” and we go into the hospital where a doctor waits for us with the news Xavier is dead.

“Can I see him?” Jude asks.

“Of course,” the man says.

“I’ll wait here,” I tell Jude. He bobs his head at me, and it continues to seesaw as he walks down the sterile hallway.

I drop into a molded plastic chair, orange, too cheerful a color for this place of death, and hard as a seashell beneath my bruised tailbone. I shut my eyes and lean my head back against the wall. The world throbs around me, each ping of a monitor, burst of oxygen, staticky message over the intercom magnified in my sightlessness. Heavy footsteps, and a mountain of body and denim stops above me, blocking the bright lights still able to penetrate my eyelids. I know it’s Seamus.

“He’s gone,” I say, eyes still closed.

He sits beside me and folds me against his neck.

And then the bread bleeds.

The priests find them, the guarded wafers, surfaces crusted with red. It looks like dried blood. What else can it be? Yes, they are certain. The bread is being crucified again, and who else but the very people who killed him the first time would want to inflict this pain on the Christ?

They blame the Jews.

Of course, the Jews have no part in it. They don’t believe God can be incarnated in such a vulgar thing as bread. So why would they bother stabbing at bits of baked wheat when they think it no consequence whatsoever?

Logic does not prevail. It’s the Middle Ages, a time of darkness and fear. Already anti-Semitism flows through the church as freely as the wine it calls his blood. It is far too easy to allow hatred to rule the mind. Jews are tortured publically, stretched in half on the rack, and in their agony they confess,
Yes, we pierced the bread
. Others are then rounded up en masse and beheaded, burned, or forced from their homes before they, too, can perpetrate such evil.

Five hundred years later, in an age when reason overcomes
superstition, and when bleeding food is not something to be feared but explored, a scientist discovers
Monas prodigiosa
in the lens of his microscope—a bacteria that, in the proper humidity, secretes a harmless red substance on bread.

I close the bakehouse for the week, the sign on the front door announcing a death in the family and apologizing for the inconvenience. During that time, I do little but sleep and wander through the apartment trying to fill the hours. I don’t bake. I don’t step foot into the bakery kitchen. Kelvin feeds the starters and manages to fit most of the daily sourdough buckets into the cooler; the rest end up in my refrigerator. They’ll be fine until we reopen.

I desert Jude, wallowing in my own sadness. He has Seamus, I tell myself, but I know I’m a coward. I don’t want to deal with Jude’s grief, or sweep up the pieces.