CMO 87: The Storm Beneath The Steeple (Chapters 1-5)

 

The Storm Beneath The Steeple (Chapters 1-5)

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Written by Carlos Michael Padilla, in collaboration with Microsoft Copilot / © 2025, Carlos Michael Communications Media I The Carlos Michael Studio I Coffee House Productions.

Opening Summary

In the small, storm-struck town of Friendship, Oklahoma, twin brothers Michael and Christopher Nathan Bagsley are left reeling after a devastating tornado shatters the only life they've ever known. With their parents gone and their faith cracked open, the boys find themselves under the care of their eccentric Uncle Declan—a man whose coffee is strong, rules are few, and devotion to family is as deep as his drawers full of Hanes briefs!

As Michael clings to the Church and Christopher pushes it all away, the story unfolds across bedrooms, thrift stores, bridge underpasses, and the tables of a humble gathering called Waffle & Word. Along the way, unlikely friendships are forged—particularly with David Paul, a cardigan-clad Presbyterian with a sandwich in hand and grace in his pockets—and grief begins to give way to something that might just be resurrection.

The Storm Beneath the Steeple is a story of loss, laughter, and the fragile, faithful work of choosing to love again.

Author’s Note

This story was born in fragments—scraps of memory, metaphor, and real-life ache—and stitched together with waffles, words, and quiet faith.

At its heart, The Storm Beneath the Steeple is about what happens after everything breaks. After the wind. After the silence. After the questions that don’t come with answers. It’s about the holy ordinary—the conversations at kitchen tables, the love of family, the bond of brothers, the forgiveness that sneaks in during breakfast, the way a folded letter can resurrect something you thought was gone.

I wrote this not just for those who believe in God, but for anyone who has ever longed for home—as it once was but must learn to accept the inevitable change.

To anyone who’s angry and aching and not sure if they’re allowed to come back—this story is for you.

And to anyone who’s still waiting for someone to return—

Don’t give up. Love circles back. It always does.

With gratitude and hope,

--Carlos Michael

--

Let’s meet the main characters in today’s story:

Benjamin "Ben" Ray Mattix

·         Age: 33

·         Occupation: Communications Director at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, Friendship, Oklahoma.

Background: Ben knows the quiet corners of church life, the lonely pantry, the sacristy light left on, the gossip and grace of parishioners. As Communications Director, he often hears more than folks think he does. He tells this story in retrospect (through the voice of the author), not as a savior but as a witness—someone who saw the Bagsley boys arrive from the outside and found himself pulled deeper into the healing that followed.

Michael Bagsley

• Age: 17
• Traits: Earnest, protective, quieter than people expect, prone to trying to fix everything
• Arc: Tries to hold the family together after their parents’ death, but his own grief threatens to curdle into control. He keeps attending Mass out of loyalty, even as his faith trembles.

Christopher Nathan Bagsley

• Age: 17 (younger twin by 4 minutes)
• Traits: Spirited, sharp-tongued, deeply emotional, easily wounded by silence
• Arc: Feels abandoned by God and furious at anything wrapped in ritual. His anger makes him reckless—and vulnerable to despair. When he meets David Paul, the rawness of his pain begins to make space for mercy.

Uncle Declan Shaughnessy

• Age: Late 50s
• Occupation: Retired trucker turned custodian at a local high school
• Traits: Gruff exterior, smoker’s laugh, rosary in the glove compartment
• Role: Takes the boys in reluctantly but loves them with quiet, sacrificial tenderness. He represents embodied faith—imperfect but unwavering.

David Paul

• Age: Mid 30s
• Background: Former Presbyterian seminarian turned hospice volunteer and community mentor
• Traits: Calm, piercingly kind, owns too many cardigans
• Role: Meets Christopher Nathan in a moment of rupture—serving sandwiches to those living rough under the bridge. Tells parables that heal by indirection. Lives the Gospel without quoting it.

Chapter One: The Storm Beneath the Steeple.

Hi, my name is Benjamin “Ben” Ray Mattix, Communications Director at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, Friendship, Oklahoma.

Most people think the hardest part of working at a Catholic parish is planning the Easter bulletin or calming the ladies’ altar society when someone forgets to refill the holy water fonts. But the truth is—every now and then—you get front-row seats to a redemption story that doesn’t arrive in Latin or lace, but in ripped jeans and brothers who haven’t spoken a kind word to each other in weeks.

That’s how I met the Bagsley twins. Michael and Christopher Nathan. One wore his grief like a crucifix; the other hurled his at God like a stone. I was supposed to be updating the parish website the day they showed up. Instead, I watched two boys drag their pain through our front doors like it owed them something. And maybe it did.

I’ll tell you this much up front: Michael and Christopher Nathan Bagsley weren’t troubled boys. Not at the start. Not before the storm. They were the kind of twins that made you believe in the power of small-town miracles and decent haircuts. All-American, boy-next-door types—handsome in that effortless, catalog-cover kind of way, like the kind of kids who only wore church shoes under protest and somehow made “matching white tees and jeans” look like a magazine spread instead of laundry day.

But what really made people love them—especially Maureen and Nathan Sr.—was how tightly wound their hearts were to each other. Those boys did everything together. They played on the same Little League teams, rotated whose shoes were "the good ones" depending on who had a game, and even learned to drive on the same dusty road in Uncle Declan’s old truck.

If Christopher Nathan got a bruise, Michael limped. It was that kind of bond.

I remember someone once asking their mother how she kept them from fighting. She laughed and said, “Oh, they fight. But then one apologizes before the other has a chance. They’re their own reconciliation rite.”

Michael was the steady one. Protective, a little older by four minutes but older in all the ways that matter to brothers. He once bloodied his knuckles on one unfortunate classmate who shoved Christopher Nathan at recess for defending his favorite Disney character—some blue genie or space alien, I can’t remember which. All I know is Michael didn’t hesitate. He caught that moment in midair and threw himself between his brother and the world like a prayer with fists.

Christopher Nathan—now he was the feeler. Smiled wider. Hurt louder. Could run faster but sometimes tripped on his own joy. He once spent a whole Saturday trying to teach their dog to say “I love you” by barking in syllables. (He swears it worked. I’m not here to argue.)

Their father, Nathan Sr., was one of those decent men who wore his conversion to Catholicism like a badge of honor and a daily choice. Maureen insisted on marrying someone who would take Mass seriously, and she raised those boys like grace was something you practiced with your sleeves rolled up. After the twins were born—and Maureen was told she could have no more children, she didn’t mourn. She just held those boys tighter. They were enough. The family was whole.

They moved to Friendship because of Nathan’s job transfer. Left Southern California behind with nothing but good photo album memories and a crockpot recipe for red chili pork. Maureen swore that recipe could convert the devil. And for a while, it was good. Really good.

Then June came.

It was a Friday when the sky cracked open and said too much. And the boys—those catalog-perfect, sun-warmed, inseparable souls—woke up in a world where nothing smelled like Maureen’s coffee or echoed like their father’s laugh. Just wind and sirens and silence. And after that, everything changed.

They say storms have a sound. Not thunder or wind—but a sound. I used to roll my eyes when people said that. Thought it was just bad weather wrapped in poetry. But now I know better.

It was a Friday in June when it hit. Humid as confession. I remember the copier at the parish office was jammed again, and I was elbow-deep trying to fish out a paperclip that had no business being where it was. Miss Eileen was arguing with Father Delgado about whether the Corpus Christi procession should go clockwise or counterclockwise, and somewhere in the background, the rectory dog was howling like he could already hear the sirens before they started.

Then it happened.

A pressure drop you could feel before you heard it. The sky didn’t just darken—it bruised. Somewhere between the coffee pot and the emergency broadcast alert, the power hitched, and the air got mean.

The storm that hit Friendship wasn’t just violent—it was surgical. It danced through neighborhoods like it had a vendetta. Roofs lifted clean off like shrugged shoulders. Power lines snapped. Sirens wailed, but they were swallowed up by the sound of the sky splitting open.

The Bagley family lived on the east edge of town.  Close enough to the flatlands that they could see Oklahoma sky like it was a theatre screen. Their house—modest, one-story, white siding, wind chimes always clinking—never stood a chance.

When the storm passed, Friendship was left gasping.

The church basement became a triage center. Cots lined up between folding chairs. People wandered in with dust on their faces and dazed in their bones. And that’s when I saw them. The twins.

Michael had blood on his shirt—not his, as it turned out. Christopher Nathan wasn’t speaking. Just staring. I remember someone tried to hand him a cup of juice and he looked at it like it was a language he had forgotten.

Uncle Declan showed up a few hours later. Drove through downed trees and detours in an old pickup with rosary beads wrapped around the rearview mirror. He didn’t say much. Just nodded at the boys like he knew this was never going to be enough—but he’d carry them anyway.

And that’s when I learned something I haven’t unlearned since: Grief doesn’t arrive in tidy pews or well-timed prayers. Sometimes it walks in holding its brother’s hand, with dirt under its fingernails and eyes that don’t blink.

Ben’s Reflection

There are some things you just don’t put in the parish newsletter.

You don’t write about the way Christopher Nathan flinched when someone asked if he wanted a blanket, like kindness might break him open. You don’t publish the sound Michael made when he saw their last name on a list taped to the bulletin board under “Displaced Families.” You sure as hell don’t mention how Uncle Declan sat in the back of the church that Sunday with his hand trembling on the pew in front of him, mouthing along to “Be Not Afraid” even though his voice wouldn’t work.

I am not a priest. I didn’t grow up dreaming of holy orders or knowing which season required which shade of green. I came into this job because I was good with words and knew how to coax truth out of bulletins and broken websites. But that Friday changed something. Not just for the town—for me, too.

Because when Michael knelt at the back of the church a week later—hands clenched, tears held like a host—he wasn’t asking for answers. He was just asking to be seen.

And when Christopher Nathan stormed out before the homily even started, he wasn’t rejecting God. He was begging Him to come down off the ceiling and sit beside him on the floor.

That’s the thing people miss sometimes. Grief doesn’t always look like candles and casseroles. Sometimes it looks like silence. Or rage. Or two boys trying to figure out how to breathe in a world that doesn’t smell like their mother’s perfume anymore.

I don’t know why the storm picked up part of that house. I don’t know why Maureen and Nathan Sr. didn’t make it. I just know that love showed up anyway—in casseroles, in flannel, in folding chairs. And if I’ve learned anything watching the Bagsley twins try to live again, it’s this:

Sometimes resurrection doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in pieces. In borrowed clothes. In stubborn prayers. In brothers learning to say, “I’m still here,” when everything else has walked away.

-- 

Chapter Two: The Weight I Thought I could Carry.

Michael Bagsley wakes before his alarm. He always does now. Morning isn’t a time, it’s a tension. A quiet countdown between breath and responsibility.

The house is silent except for the rattle of the kitchen fan and the faint whistle from the hallway vent. He moves like someone trying not to wake grief. Socks first, then the Jockey briefs—navy today. They’re folded the same way his mom used to do it, even though now it’s just his own hands and memory doing the folding. T-shirt, hoodie, white rugby shorts. The kind of outfit that can handle anything. Or nothing.

In the kitchen, he scrapes toast too long and ends up with a corner that tastes like charcoal. Doesn’t matter. He eats it while checking Christopher Nathan’s laundry pile. Three clean shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks—one mismatched. He refolds them anyway.

There’s a photo on the fridge—faded, slightly curled. The four of them were on the beach. Maureen’s hair caught mid-laugh. Nathan Senior in his USC man shirt and shorts—whatever that means. Michael stares at it long enough for the toaster to time out again.

He still goes to Mass most Sundays. Not because it makes sense, but because he wants it to again. He sits in the fifth pew on the left, same side his mom preferred. Some weeks he counts how many tiles are cracked in the nave. Others he watches Father Delgado’s hands when he lifts the chalice. Every now and then, he hears something in the homily that makes the back of his throat sting, but mostly, it’s just him and the silence. He hasn’t said much to God. Just sits there, like someone holding a phone long after the other line has gone quiet.

Michael’s favorite color is forest green. He says it’s because it reminds him of a flannel shirt his dad used to wear when they’d camp near Big Bear. But there’s more to it than that. It's the color of shadowed pine, of quiet strength. He wears it when he doesn’t know how to ask for help.

His music is mostly acoustic—Ben Howard, Gregory Alan Isakov, and that one Noah Kahan album he keeps on repeat but won’t admit to liking. He lets lyrics speak for him. Let them hurt for him, too.

There’s a youth minister named Rachel who started checking in once a week. She doesn’t ask hard questions. Just drops off snacks and leave messages like, “Found a comic page that reminded me of you, will give to you after school hours.” She’s the only adult who doesn’t flinch when he says his brother hasn’t been to Mass in weeks.

Sometimes, late at night, Michael lies awake staring at the popcorn ceiling. He thinks about the moment the roof lifted off their house like a lid. The sound it made. The hollowness that followed. The way he reached for Christopher Nathan first and didn’t realize until hours later that he never checked on his parents.

He hasn’t cried about it. Not really. Not all the way.

But he did punch a wall last month when the dryer ate one of his socks and it came out half-singed. Not because of the sock. But because grief is irrational and drywall is weak.

Michael is the kind of boy who keeps his pain on a clipboard. Who learns to carry what should have been shared. Who sets a quiet plate on the table for someone who’s not coming home and doesn’t tell anyone he did.

He doesn’t call it faith anymore. But he still wears the medal. Still refolds clean clothes. Still shows up.

That counts for something. At least, I think it does.

Sometimes I wonder if Michael ever really gets to be seventeen. Not perform it. Not fake it for the sake of his brother or his uncle or the woman at the deli who always asks how he’s holding up.

Just… be.

At school, he moves through the hallways like a question mark in a building full of exclamation points. Teachers let him turn things in late. His English teacher keeps handing him short stories from back when people still read print. One of them was Raymond Carver. I asked what he thought of it once and he just shrugged and said, “It felt like silence that forgot how to end.”

There’s a girl named Raelynn who used to sit next to him in geometry. Now she passes him notes she never expects back. Jokes. Doodles. Once a cartoon of a waffle with a halo that said “Saint Syrup, patron saint of second helpings.” He smiled at that one. Didn’t say anything. But I saw the corner tucked into the back of his wallet later.

He still does his chores without being asked. Folds everyone’s towels the same way Maureen did—rolled at the ends, stacked tight. The laundry room is his cathedral now. It’s where he listens to music he can’t let anyone else hear: sad stuff, mostly. Stuff with banjos and yearning and lyrics like “what if grace doesn’t sound like church bells?”

He’s got a journal. Doesn’t call it that. It’s an old spiral notebook left over from ninth grade. Covered in band stickers and scribbled-out curse words. I found it once in the church lost-and-found bin. He must’ve left it behind during youth group. I didn’t read much. Just enough to see the word “Dad” written over and over. Sometimes with periods. Sometimes with nothing.

Michael doesn’t talk much about the tornado. But he flinches every time a storm watch gets posted. Checks the windows twice before he goes to bed. Keeps a flashlight under his pillow. Keeps his brother close—when Christopher Nathan lets him.

When he walks past the nursery at church—the one Maureen helped decorate for baptisms—he lingers. Doesn’t go in. Just traces the edge of the window frame with his fingers and moves on.

There’s this weight he wears. Not just grief. It’s more like inheritance. As if holding the memory of his parents with tenderness and toughness at the same time is the only thing keeping the house from falling apart.

He hasn’t said, “I miss them.” But I’ve heard him breathe it.

I think of him sometimes when I hear that verse in Romans: “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”

If that’s true—then Michael’s sighs might be doing more praying than he realizes.

Every Wednesday afternoon, Michael volunteers in the parish pantry. No one asked him to. He just started showing up.

He doesn’t talk much while he’s there. Just stacks canned goods, sweeps behind the boxes, lines up jars of peanut butter like they’re communion vessels. The older ladies love him—especially Miss Geraldine, who always tries to sneak him hard candy and calls him “baby boy” under her breath. He smiles politely but never stays long enough for the chit-chat. Just enough to do the work and disappear.

One time, I caught him organizing the donation shelf in the back closet. You know the one—half winter coats, half random kitchen supplies people thought someone might need. When I asked what he was doing, he just said, “Trying to make things easier for the next person.”

That’s how he moves through the world now. Quiet, cautious, like someone walking through the wreckage long after the cameras left. Not trying to rebuild anything grand—just trying not to break anything else.

He wears his dad’s watch now. It’s too big for his wrist, so he’s punched an extra hole in the leather band. Still checks it like it means something. When I asked if it still worked, he said, “Not really. But it still keeps time.”

There’s a difference.

Sometimes, on the walk home from school, Michael stops at the old field just past Ridgeview and stands in the middle of the tall grass. Doesn’t sit. Doesn’t call anyone. Just stands. I don’t know if he’s talking to God out there or just trying to hear something besides the weight in his own chest. Either way, it’s holy.

He hasn’t figured out how to talk to Christopher Nathan lately. Not really. The distance between them isn’t angry—it’s aching. Like the space between high and low tide. Like waiting for one to come back before you drown.

But still, he folds the clean clothes. Still stacks the mail. Still leaves the porch light on—just in case his brother stays out later than he should. Just in case somebody else comes home, too.

There’s a quiet kind of courage in boys like Michael. The kind that doesn’t parade or preach. It just… remains. Stubborn. Steady. Soft where it counts.

I don’t know where his story’s going. But I know this: He’s still here.

And that’s not nothing.

--

Chapter Three: Boots at the Door.

Declan Shaughnessy keeps his Sunday boots by the door, even though he only goes to Mass twice a month. Maybe less since the storm.

He says it’s arthritis, but we all know it’s more complicated than that.

His knees might creak, but it’s his heart that bears the louder groan. Not because he doesn’t believe—but because he does. Fiercely. Quietly. The kind of belief that doesn’t ask for applause and doesn’t need incense to feel like church.

He’s lived in the same house since 1987. The wallpaper’s peeling in the hallway, and the coffee maker only works if you thump it twice, but it’s home. When he brought the Bagsley boys there after the funeral, he moved into the guest room and gave them his room. Didn’t tell them. Just set their bags on the bed and left a clean towel folded like a hotel stay.

That’s how he says I love you. With small, stubborn gestures and leftover pancakes.

He used to drive long haul for a produce company. Clocked more miles than most folks clock prayers. He keeps a rosary in the glove compartment—not out of piety, but habit. He doesn’t recite it out loud anymore. Just fingers the beads on long drives like someone feeling their way home in the dark.

Raising two grieving teenagers wasn’t in the plan. But then again, not much in Declan’s life followed a script.

He never married. Came close once. Her name was Teresa, and she liked books about lighthouses. She left when he wouldn’t talk about his brother’s death. That was 1995. He still keeps her key in the top drawer.

Now he makes his coffee strong enough to strip paint and reminds the boys to check the oil like it’s a sacrament. He leaves cash in Michael’s backpack. Tells Christopher Nathan when his tone’s out of line but never when his eyes are red. It’s not denial. It’s protection. Grief makes boys fragile. Declan doesn’t know how to hold fragile. But he can offer steady.

His favorite song is “Gentle on My Mind” by Glen Campbell. He won’t admit it. But he hums it when he’s working on the truck. He wears flannel year-round, except to bed, and keeps a tin of mint snuff in the garage for when he’s thinking. He writes checks with block letters and still uses a landline.

He doesn’t curse around the boys, even though his natural dialect is about 30% profanity. He holds doors open, pays in cash, and believes in second helpings. Every Friday night, he cooks the boy’s dinner. Spaghetti, usually. It’s the one thing he remembers how to make that doesn’t taste like grief.

He keeps their school pictures on the fridge with old magnets from roadside diners. One morning, I saw him staring at Christopher Nathan’s photo with this look—half heartbreak, half holy reverence. Like he was remembering something too big to carry alone.

Declan doesn’t pray like he used to. But he lives his prayers now.

He prays when he fixes the fence.

He prays when he folds the boys’ laundry and doesn’t comment on the difference between Jockey and Fruit of the Loom.

He prays when he leaves the porch light on even when neither boy’s home before ten.

He once told me, “Ben, there ain’t always answers. But you can still be the one who picks ‘em up when the storm lets go.”

That’s who Declan Shaughnessy is.

A man who doesn’t need to be understood to be steady. A man who builds shelter, not sermons.

A man whose boots wait by the door—not out of habit, but hope.

Most people in town know Declan Shaughnessy as the guy who never misses a hardware store sale and sometimes brings a thermos of chili to school board meetings. What they don’t know is that the man considers grilled chicken over white rice—with just the right amount of cilantro—a spiritual experience.

“I don’t trust food that’s fussy,” he once told me. “I trust meals that say, ‘Come on in and sit down, even if your hands still smell like diesel.’”

When he’s home, he prefers not to wear pants. Not out of protest or disrespect, just comfort. Hanes briefs and t-shirt is his preferred home attire; a flannel robe if company’s coming over. “I paid for this house and my decency is my choice but one of them is negotiable,” he’ll grumble if anyone comments.

His faith is a kind of country Catholicism—scarred, weather-beaten, not always clean, but undeniably present. He still blesses himself when he passes the cemetery. Still keeps a bottle of holy water in the glovebox next to an expired bottle of aspirin and a cassette labeled “Mass ‘96 – Father Joe (Good Homily).”

He believes. Fully. Just doesn’t always practice it in the ways the Church calendar suggests. He’s more rosary-wrapped-around-a-coffee-mug than liturgical colors and processions. But don’t let that fool you. He’ll defend the Sacraments with the same fists he used to break up bar fights back in ‘83.

What most folks really don’t see is how much he adored his older brother.

Nathan Senior was three years ahead of Declan in everything—school, shaving, life. When Nathan told him he was moving to Oklahoma with Maureen and the twins, Declan lit up like a schoolboy on his first day back—new jeans, slicked hair, and a brand-new pack of underwear that still smelled like detergent and plastic hope.

“I didn’t care if they lived in a tent,” Declan told me once, his voice cracking like old leather. “I just wanted them close. I wanted to spoil the boys without askin’ permission.”

When the storm took Nathan and Maureen, something broke loose in him—something he never found the words to sew back in place. But instead of unraveling, he made room. Cleared out drawers. Built shelves in the garage. Started checking expiration dates on the canned goods.

He said yes without knowing what it would cost. That’s what country Catholic love looks like, I think. Unpolished. Unspoken. Unquestioned.

Declan doesn’t talk much about God these days. But every now and then, I catch him whispering a Hail Mary over the sink, right before the boys come down for dinner.

He doesn’t say grace. He sets the plates just so. Forks on the right. Chicken still steaming. Rice fluffed like he means it. And he makes sure they have enough.

Always enough.

That’s his prayer now: enough.

Enough for the boys to eat. Enough strength to keep going. Enough love in the room to drown out whatever the storm tried to steal.

And that’s the legacy of a man like Declan Shaughnessy. Not sermons. Not monuments.

Just boots by the door.

And two boys learning how to breathe again inside a house held up by grace and grilled chicken.

P.S. Why is Declan’s last name different from Nathan Senior’s? It’s not. It’s his mother’s maiden name. He once told me, “Daddy told me after mom passed away to use it as my last name with his blessing because I loved my mother and the sound of her maiden name as a child. And I did.”

-- 

Chapter Four: What I Said to God at 2:47 AM. Christopher Nathan.

I don’t pray anymore. Not like before.

Now I just say stuff to the ceiling. Whispered. Sharp-edged. Like: “Hope You’re proud of Yourself.” Or “This better be worth it.” Or “Screw You,” if it’s past midnight and my heart’s doing that thing where it tries to outrun my ribs.

The weird part is, I think He hears me more now than when I used to fold my hands like I meant it.

It’s been 112 days since the tornado.

I haven’t counted. Michael does. I just overheard him tell Rachel. She asked how he was doing, and he said, “It’s been 112 days.” Like maybe if he could name the length of our unraveling, it might forgive us.

I don’t know how to do that. I don’t count days. I count losses.

Like how the house still exists in my dreams but smells like burnt laundry.

Like how I haven’t heard Dad clear his throat behind me in the kitchen. Or Mom hum “Be Not Afraid” while folding sheets.

And yeah, I’m mad.

Not the punch-a-locker mad. Not anymore. That was week two.

This is the kind of mad where you ignore everything that used to make sense. You let your Bible gather dust on your dresser like it’s an artifact from a place you don’t belong to anymore. You walk out of Mass before the sign of peace. You wear your feelings like chainmail under your hoodie and double knot your laces just in case you need to run.

Here’s what people don’t get about me:

I’m not the “bad twin.”

I just feel everything louder.

Always have.

Favorite color? Electric blue—because it refuses to go unnoticed.

Favorite music? Anything with lyrics that scream softly. Alt rock. Indie bands with too many guitars. Ballads that make your chest ache, even if you pretend, they don’t.

Favorite movie? “Inside Out.” Yeah. That cartoon. Because somewhere in there, Joy stops pretending everything’s okay and lets Sadness take the wheel.

I’m not proud of it, but sometimes I push Michael away just to see if he’ll come back.

He always does. That’s the worst part. I don’t deserve it, but he keeps showing up like I do.

Some nights I sleep in Dad’s old t-shirt. Haven’t washed it. Won’t. The collar’s stretched and the scent’s almost gone, but it’s his. It’s proof he existed.

My underwear drawer is a mess. Fruit of the Loom, all white, some still folded the way Mom used to do it. I don’t touch those. They’re mine, but they feel like hers. Like a folded prayer I’m not brave enough to put on.

I miss her so much it burns.

I skip school more than I should. Hang around the thrift store near the edge of town. The guy at the register thinks I’m stealing. I’m not. I just like the quiet. It smells like stories that haven’t been read yet. Like jackets from people who survived something.

Once I found a hoodie that looked like Michael’s. I almost bought it, but the sleeves were too long, and I was tired of pretending I wanted to match again.

Tonight, I stood on the porch in just socks and stared at the streetlight like it might blink out. Like maybe God was playing chicken. Like maybe the silence would finally say something back.

It didn’t.

But I still whispered: “Where were You?” “Do You even care?” “I don’t want to hate You, but I do.”

That was 2:47 AM.

If this is faith, it’s unraveling.

But maybe unraveling is the first step to being rewoven. I don’t know yet.

All I know is… something has to give soon. Either me—or the silence.

There are some silences you can only hear if you’ve lived through them yourself. And the one growing between the Bagsley boys? It’s not loud. It’s not hostile. It’s worse than that—it’s lonely.

Last Tuesday, Michael stopped by the parish office after school. Said he came to pick up a donation receipt for Uncle Declan. But the way his fingers kept folding and unfolding the edge of his hoodie told me it wasn’t about paperwork.

“Have you seen him?” he asked.

“Your brother?” I said.

Michael nodded. Didn’t look up.

“He was in the thrift store lot yesterday,” I offered. “Didn’t come in. Just lingered. Like he was waiting for the next scene to start and didn’t know if he was in it.”

Michael swallowed hard. Then he said, “Sometimes I think he’s still in the house with me. And sometimes... it’s like I’m living with a ghost.”

He didn’t mean it cruelly. He meant it with the quiet devastation of someone who’s shared every Christmas, every birthday, every mosquito bite—and now couldn’t recognize the person brushing their teeth in the next room.

“I miss him,” Michael said. “And he’s not even gone.”

That’s what grief does. It doesn’t always take people away. Sometimes it just builds a wall of static between the ones who stayed. And you find yourself shouting “I love you” into the static, hoping something lands.

Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded note. Old. Soft at the creases. One of Raelynn’s cartoons. The Saint Syrup one. “He laughed when he saw this,” Michael said. “That was the last time I heard it. His real laugh.”

And then he asked me something I didn’t expect.

“Do you think God still talks to people who don’t want to hear it?”

It took me a second to answer. But when I did, I kept it simple.

“I think silence doesn’t scare God. I think He waits longer than we do.”

Michael folded the paper and tucked it away like sacrament.

Then he said, “Okay.” Not because he believed me. But maybe because he wanted to.

Somewhere in this storm, the brothers are still reaching. One in a whisper, one in a sigh. Each hoping the other is still close enough to feel it.

And maybe that’s how grace works. Quiet. Patient. Folding laundry with trembling hands and waiting for the day someone says, I’m still here, and means it.

-- 

Chapter Five: Mercy on the Move.

David Paul doesn’t advertise.

No fish bumper sticker. No faith quotes in cursive script. Just a coffee thermos with a cross etched into the lid (gift from his dad), and a habit of showing up where people are hungry—physically, emotionally, spiritually, or all three.

He’s Presbyterian. Son of a Presbyterian minister. Grew up steeped in Scripture, sourdough communion bread, and the scent of lemon oil on church pews. His dad preached in a small Oklahoma town for nearly forty years. Retired now, still calls weekly to ask if David has “found a stable calling or just another cause.”

But David’s not chasing causes. He’s following need. Wherever it’s hiding.

Most days, he works part-time for the hospice care network, visiting homes with declining oxygen tanks and rising regrets. The other half of his time? You’ll find him under the north viaduct, near the bridge by 12th and Market, where folks wait for warmth that doesn't come from scripture, but from soup.

He brings sandwiches, hand warmers, bottled water, and stories. Parables, really. The kind you barely realize are about God until you’re halfway home and your heart starts hurting.

He wears old cardigans and jeans with a busted knee seam. Keeps a stash of socks and granola bars in his trunk. There’s always a fold-out chair in his back seat and a dog-eared copy of The Velveteen Rabbit in the glovebox—he reads it to people who think they're too damaged to be held.

The first time he sees Christopher Nathan, the boy is standing under the overpass, kicking a crushed soda can and glaring at the world like it owes him an apology.

He’s not there for food. He’s just… not home. Which is a story in itself.

David doesn’t push.

He offers him a sandwich—PB&J, nothing fancy—and a seat.

Christopher stays standing.

David nods like that’s holy too.

After a silence the length of a weather report, David just says, “My name’s David Paul. People call me both names, though I’ve never asked them to.”

And then he says nothing else. Just eats his sandwich, hums a little old-school hymn under his breath, and waits.

That’s the whole ministry: Waiting. Without fixing. Without proving. Without quoting.

Just presence.

David Paul doesn’t learn the boy’s name that day. Doesn’t ask. But he notices the clenched fists, the tear tracks that haven’t dried fully, the way Christopher keeps glancing up like he’s daring someone to try kindness.

He’ll come back the next day. And the next. A sandwich. A joke. A story about a kid who threw rocks at a stained-glass window and how the pastor invited him inside instead of pressing charges.

Christopher won’t speak at first.

But one day, he’ll sit down.

And that’s where the healing begins.

The Unfolding of David Paul. Chapter 5 (continued).

David Paul was the youngest of three boys. Which meant he got hand-me-downs and hand-me-back-agains. His brothers—Jacob and Ezekiel—were bigger, louder, faster. Jacob’s the family man now, a high school principal with a fondness for blazers and cold brew. Ezekiel runs a tech nonprofit in Seattle and only calls on birthdays and funerals.

David? He was always the one who noticed things. Cracks in drywall. People who sat in the back pew and slipped out before the benediction. He listened more than he spoke, a trait his father once called “both blessing and burden.”

Their dad, Reverend Luke Paul, ran a sleepy little Presbyterian church tucked behind a hardware store in Muskogee before moving to Friendship. Raised his boys on scripture, sermon outlines, and an unshakeable belief in second chances. David didn’t rebel, exactly—he just… wandered. Not from faith. From form.

The turning point came in his twenties, just after college. He was drifting—half-hearted grad school plans, a job at a library, evenings thick with podcasts and solitude. And then he met Alejandro Armando Armand.

Alejandro was nothing like the elders at his father’s church. Couldn’t have been He was Roman Catholic.

He wore mismatched socks, hosted Tuesday night waffle suppers in a duplex near a bus depot, and never quoted Scripture unless it tasted like syrup.

The group was called Waffle & Word, and it changed David’s life.

They didn’t do devotionals. They lived them—biting into buttered waffles while unpacking what it meant to be beloved, broken, and brave in a world obsessed with hiding the cracks.

Alejandro told stories that made people laugh until they confessed something sacred. He had a way of weaving together scripture, Kendrick lyrics, and conversations with gas station cashiers into modern-day gospels.

David Paul fell hard—for the circle, for the mission, for the way Alejandro made space feel like communion.

That was the first time David Paul saw what ministry could look like off the page.

What it meant to show up without a pulpit or a collar and still preach good news with your arms and your groceries and your grin.

So, he traded his grad school letter for a second-hand cooler and a pack of Sharpies.

And he’s been handing out sandwiches and mercy ever since.

His brothers still don’t quite get it. Jacob calls it “service-adjacent wandering.”

Ezekiel once sent him a job listing with the subject line: “For when you’re ready to rejoin capitalism.”

But David just smiles. He knows who he is.

He is his father’s compassion, shaped by a stranger’s table.

He is Alejandro’s legacy, walking the beat with granola bars and scripture stitched into his gut and the occasional underwear waistband along with his name.

He is mercy. On the move.

David Paul’s Unsent Letter and A Boy Sitting Still Chapter 5 (continued).

The letter he never mailed, folded three times, tucked in a journal between a shopping list and a scribbled recipe for sourdough pancakes. It starts like this…

Dear Alejandro,

I keep thinking about your laugh. That deep belly one, the kind that made people feel like they were already forgiven before they'd even confessed what hurt.

I started this work because of you. Not the sandwiches—not exactly. But the sitting. The staying.

I remember how you looked across the table at strangers as if God was already sitting between them. Like the Holy Spirit wore syrup stains and secondhand shoes.

I didn't realize that was ministry until I saw you scrape whipped cream off a waffle with a butter knife and tell a man who’d just come from jail that he still belonged somewhere.

You made belonging feel simple. I’ve spent the last five years chasing that kind of holiness with ziplock bags and water bottles.

Thank you for teaching me to feed people and listen rather than trying to fix them.

You were never a reverend. But you taught me how to show up like the Kingdom had already arrived and we just needed extra chairs.

Miss you every time the coffee burns and someone tells me their story like it’s dangerous to hope.

Still circling. Still staying. Still folding grace like napkins.

Love and friendship,

David Paul

--

He read the letter again yesterday. Didn't cry. Just tucked it back into his journal and zipped it beside the apples and granola bars.

And then he went to the viaduct.

Same spot. Same bench. Same air that smelled like rust and rain-soaked concrete.

Christopher Nathan was already there—standing again, hood up, arms folded.

This time, David didn’t offer a sandwich.

He just unfolded his chair.

Sat.

Waited.

A long, long moment passed.

Then—without commentary or eye contact, Christopher Nathan sat down on the curb beside him.

Didn’t speak. Didn’t scowl. Didn’t run.

He just was.

And David nodded. Like that was enough.

No theology. No answers. Just a boy and a man sitting still in the ache between storms.

Grace didn’t need to speak that day.

It just needed to stay.