The Priest’s House by Babak Lakghomi

At the butcher shop, the butcher used to watch Anna from the security camera. Her muscles went sore from moving the heavy sides of beef around. Hooks pierced into pink flesh. She mopped blood from the floor, arranged sausages on trays, weighed and vacuum-sealed bags.

She was alone at the store most mornings, and the butcher only came in later in the day. Fridays and weekends, the butcher’s wife and son came to help.

She spent most of the money she made from the shop on buying paint. She was hoping that she would start to paint again. But whenever she tried, she ended up covering her older paintings with white. The front of the canvases faced the wall in her tiny studio.

In the gallery that night, the works were mediocre. She had to force herself to talk to others, distant connections from her past. They kept talking about their upcoming shows and residencies. When someone asked her what she thought of the show, her mind went blank.

“What are you up to these days?” a former classmate asked.

“I work at a butcher shop,” she said. After a short silence, the classmate excused herself to talk to someone else.

Anna busied herself looking at a painting, but she felt like everyone was watching her. She rushed out of the gallery and walked back to her studio, steam coming out of her mouth, the sound of her boots against the day-old snow.

Her room smelled of rotten melon and unwashed underwear. She called Alex, a close friend of hers, but he didn’t answer. The dog curled beside her in the bed, but she couldn’t go to sleep. She walked to the fridge, opened the door, grabbed a slice of bread, and ate it staring into the fridge that hosted expired condiments, the loaf of the bread, and a shriveled lettuce.

In the morning, she woke to the dog crying, but she felt too tired to take him out for a walk. From her small window, she watched a construction crane move under the concrete-colored sky. More tall buildings took over old houses and trails.

***

She had been at the Institute for a couple of weeks when the nurse told her someone was there to visit her.

“You can have your lunch with him,” the nurse said.

When Anna went to the kitchen, she saw Alex with two styrofoam lunch boxes sitting there. There were two of the older women studying them when Alex handed her a bouquet of pink flowers.

“They’re beautiful,” she said, putting them on the table. “I’ll give them to the nurse. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I should’ve come sooner. Sorry that I missed your call.” Alex pressed his hand on her shoulder.

The nurse was watching them from outside the kitchen. Anna wondered if Alex would ask what had happened to her.

“Let me know if you need anything. Do your parents know about this?”

“You know we’re not close. I don’t really want them to. It’ll complicate things.”

“I thought I’ll come to see you. I am on my lunch break. I brought something. Do you want to eat?” Alex said, looking at her before opening one of the boxes. The smell of the soggy fries and fried chicken was invasive.

“I’ve already eaten,” Anna lied. “I am worried about the dog. I keep asking the nurses about him, but they only tell me not to worry. I don’t know when I’ll be out.”

“I’ll find him Anna,” he said. He took a bite of chicken, chewed, and licked his fingers. “Sara is pregnant, so things have been busy. But I’ll promise to find the dog and have someone take care of him.”

Anna felt embarrassed for giving him trouble.

“Do you need any money?” Alex asked after a pause.

She hadn’t paid rent last month and didn’t know what would happen to her things in the studio. She imagined her clothes and canvases stored in a damp storage somewhere.

“I am fine Alex, I am not spending any money here.”

She remembered the dog, crying for her in the morning to take him out for a walk. He was better off with someone else, she thought.

“Is he your boyfriend?” one of the women asked after Alex had left.

“No, just a friend of mine.”

Several days later, Alex called her to tell her that the dog was retrieved from a shelter and was with a friend of his now. Alex had moved Anna’s furniture to storage, and she no longer needed to pay rent.

Anna was worried that she wouldn’t be able to return his favors.

Nobody else called her. Her parents were probably used to her not calling them.

***

The priest wore a black T-shirt and jeans. His lips were the color of chicken liver, the corners of them foaming when he talked. At the Institute, he showed Anna photos of the house and the women she’d be staying with. He told her the women’s names. Most of them were older than her. Only one of them was around her age. Her name was Nancy.

The Institute had suggested the priest’s house as an option if she wanted to be released earlier, and arranged for the meeting. She would have more freedom there. There would be support and she didn’t need to pay much rent.

Several days later, she was holding her suitcase in her hand and the other women in the Institute were waving at her. They had knitted her a pink sweater as a goodbye.

The priest drove her in an old yellow car with dents along both sides of it. It was early morning and the sun punched tunnels of light through the clouds. Close to the priest’s house, a man was blowing wet fall leaves off his front yard.

The priest’s house was cluttered with knickknacks. China dishes and sculptures everywhere. Paintings of Jesus and Madonna. Floral patterns on the curtains and sheets. They had to leave the doors to their rooms open at all times. The other women wore long gowns and took their meals at the same table.

Nancy had long blonde hair and serene blue eyes. She smiled at her every time their eyes met. Anna wondered how she had ended up there and if she could talk to her.

When the priest joined them for dinner, they said grace at the table. Anna asked the sister if she could take her meals in her room.

“I am sorry,” the sister said, “but father wants you to engage more. It’s for your own good.”

They gave her a list of things she could participate in to improve. Bake sales. Knitting on Wednesday nights. They would get together around a firepit in the backyard on Fridays.

One night, when the priest was there and he was rinsing the dishes with Nancy, Anna noticed their faces almost touching. Nancy looked at her briefly and whispered something in the priest’s ear, and they both laughed. They were laughing at her, but she didn’t understand why.

She left the dinner table and went back to her room. She was unsettled that she couldn’t shut the door. The next day, there was a faint blue bruise on Nancy’s neck.

She tried calling Alex with no success. “I am sorry I can’t pay you back for the storage, please feel free to sell my things. I am not going to need them,” she messaged Alex, wondering if there’d be a response. She was secretly hoping that he would call her now. But the baby was probably born and he was even busier.

She had been hiding one of her pills in a pot every day for the last while. She wondered if there’d be enough of them yet. She looked at the open door wondering if the sister would check on her.

As she closed her eyes and covered herself with a blanket, she remembered one summer night when she had taken her dog for a walk through the trails. The rain had stopped and she couldn’t see much through the fog. Then, she started seeing small dots of light appearing up ahead of her. At first, she’d thought she was just imagining it, but then there were more and more flashes of light. They were fireflies lighting on and off and moving around her and the dog.

Babak Lakghomi is the author of South (forthcoming from Dundurn Press in August 2023) and Floating Notes (Tyrant Books, 2018). His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, NOON, Ninth Letter, New York Tyrant, and The Adroit Journal, among other places. He currently lives and writes in Toronto.