The Son of Every Man

Chapter 2.6

Years later, Miguel would decide that he had reacted poorly (to be specific: non-strategically) to his parents' concern. It escalated steadily over the next eighteen months, by which time general complaints were submitted on the regular, on behalf of both parties.

It was lucky that Daniel's parents travelled frequently, but they still spent more time at home than away, leaving the boys' private moments in short supply. Sometimes, when the stakes were too high, Miguel and Daniel suspended their intimacy for as long as a few weeks. Neither resented these times of rest all that much. They were extremely protective of their public lives, and both kept frantic, distracting schedules. Miguel carried on with soccer, where he remained a middling but cheerful player, and Daniel showed up to the most important games, proudly airing his support for his prized second-in-command. That was all it needed to mean to anyone else. At least for Miguel, bolting across the field, eyes meeting for an instant with those of his clean-cut companion in the stands, a sense of deep intimacy persisted even when it could not be tangibly expressed.

One evening, as Christmas drew near, Miguel's father barged into his room and announced, "You don't have enough friends who are part of the faith."

"That's because most of my friends are in student council."

"You have friends of all kinds," he corrected. "And I'm okay with that. It's what you're good at—good enough to be trying harder with your friends from church. You're a natural leader, Miguel, and I know exactly where you get that from. There are plenty of ways to put your leadership skills to work at church. Ways that are more worthy...and more righteous."

"The student body is a completely worthy place to put my leadership skills. At least as worthy as the church."

"See, right there. That's the problem. First, it's all of your absences from church events because of student council. And now, I can hear it in the way you're speaking. You covet your interest in politics more than you covet your relationship with God."

Miguel shrugged.

"Miguel," he demanded, "please tell me I am wrong."

"Fine, you're wrong. Whatever you want to hear."

Flames danced behind the bishop's corneas. Miguel braced himself in anticipation of his father's strike, clean across the face and straight back to his childhood, but it never came. Instead arrived his solemn dictation: "This is not a game, Miguel. Your utter servitude to Heavenly Father is not a game. Misconstrue it and you will not be saved."

"Okay," said Miguel. "I'm sorry. I will try harder."

Without another word, his father left the room.

He did try harder, but by that time, no matter how many smiling faces met him at church, the message was loud and clear to Miguel: You are rejected. This clarity arose in part out of the church's extraordinary obsession with marriage. Everyone talked about it. One of the most beautiful contracts ever to be handed down was constantly under threat, strangled at the filth-covered hands of secular society. Still a few months shy of seventeen, He found himself steeped in the subject, along with other members his age, all of whom embracing matrimony as a mysterious miracle (or was it miraculous mystery?) with which they would, with any luck at all, soon engage. For them, it could not happen soon enough. But for Miguel? He was coming quickly to terms with the futility of his own tragic, humiliating attempts at worship, furiously diverting his love and commitment toward an insatiable deity that did not love him back.

One spring evening, three days before his seventeenth birthday, he directed his fury elsewhere. Rosa had since left home to live with Lucia and Lucia's husband in Argentina. His father stayed late at the church, so Miguel and his mother ate dinner alone. Nothing about it was premeditated; the moment simply arrived, unanticipated, and he recognized it immediately for what it was—time to confess. "Mom," he said to her, "there is something I need to tell you."