Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 10

the church opened and the priest came out.
    "Come in to pray or go on your way, boys," he said sternly, and after a few minutes of nervous giggling and shuffling the boys moved on. The priest waited until they were out of earshot, and then said, looking up at the branches, "It's safe now. You can come down."
    West didn't move.
    The priest waited a moment, then said, "Stay in the tree if you want, but it's dry inside."
    West slid from the branch and dropped to the ground. The priest smiled at him, his face a lot like the statue's a few feet away. "Come on. I've made hot cocoa." He put his hand on West's shoulder as they went into the little house.
    There was another boy in the kitchen, as soaked as West, with a towel over his shoulders and an empty cup in front of him. It was Riley, of course, the bruise around his eye fading but with a new split in his lip, and he hunched under his towel when West came in. "Have a seat," the priest said to West and gave him one of the kitchen towels from a drawer. "Were you hurt?"
    "No," West said, trying not to stare.
    "Bullies," the priest said to Riley.
    "I know who that'd be." Riley sniffed hard and wiped his face with his flannel sleeve. "They run the school. Nobody can do anything about it."
    "There's always something people can do." He said to West, "What's your name, son?"
    "West Cunningham." He swallowed. "I'm not Catholic. I'm not anything."
    The priest smiled. He looked younger than West's dad, and had brown eyes and a reddish beard. "It's all right, West Cunningham," he said. "The church offers sanctuary to anyone who needs it. That's why Riley's here."
    "Did you get chased by bullies too?" West said, and Riley stuck out his chin and looked away.
    "Riley sometimes needs a safe place," said the priest. "I'm Father Jackson, West. When you're ready to go home I'll drive you. Okay?"
    West nodded. Father Jackson put marshmallows in his cocoa and told him the story of St. Francis and why the church was named after him. West told him hesitantly about wanting to be an artist when he grew up. Riley didn't say much, but he did his math homework with Father Jackson's help and looked at West's drawings like they were something really amazing.
    When they'd drunk their cocoa and done their homework, Father Jackson said, "You can play now, Riley," and Riley lit up. He went into another room with Father Jackson, and West followed, curious. The other room turned out to be a study with tall bookcases and a desk in front of the window. Father Jackson sat in one of the chairs between the bookcases so West took the one at the desk. He thought Riley would sit in one of the other overstuffed chairs and they'd play chess or something, but instead Riley got an instrument case from a closet. He opened the case and took out a violin, and to West's astonishment he began to play. It wasn't sawing away with the bow, either, like most kids their age— it was beautiful and dreamy, and Riley looked like he was in heaven as he played. Father Jackson smiled while he listened, and applauded when Riley was done. West did too. He'd never heard anything so beautiful, not in person, not played by someone his age.
    Before it grew any darker, Father Jackson drove both West and Riley home— Riley didn't live that far away from West— but he dropped Riley off down the block from his house and waited down the street, his headlights off, until Riley was inside.
    "Why?" West said when they were on their way to his house. "Why'd you do that?"
    "I hope not to make things more difficult for him when he gets home." He paused. "West. I know you feel very alone right now and not like you've got a lot of power, but there's something you can do for Riley that very few other people can."
    "What?" West said, mystified.
    "Be a haven for him," said Father Jackson, and added at West's puzzled look, "A haven is a safe place. If you can do that, he'll be a safe place for you. I promise."
    West nodded, not quite sure he understood. His parents exclaimed over him when he got home, demanding where he'd been, but they relaxed when Father Jackson said West had been at the church to get out of the rain. "Lost his umbrella," Father Jackson said, and his mother said, "He'd lose his head if it weren't attached to his body— he'd lose everything but that sketchbook," but she looked proud when she said it, and West thought maybe this would be okay.
    He didn't know how to be a haven for anybody, though, and when the hissing, "West the wuss,