Chapter 5 Maurice
The hotel receptionist, whose name Maurice learned was Camora, led him through a portrait-lined corridor that chronicled the hotel’s history. She talked about Spanish colonial architecture and Conquistadors.
At least that was what he assumed she was talking about. Maurice’s mind was elsewhere.
We share more than a name.
Her hand had been warm and soft in his. Her gaze curious, but not in the way his reentry program benefactors sometimes looked upon men like him, who touched him as if they’d dared themselves to.
Monique was simply present. She’d asked for nothing except the same.
He turned his hands one over the other, cataloguing the memory of her touch.
“Senor Martín?”
Maurice blinked into awareness. They’d stopped at a cornerstone polished smooth by time and countless hands standing sentinel beside a set of carved wooden doors.
Camora smiled wide. “If you’d come this way, I’m sure you’ll appreciate what I have to show you next.” She pushed the towering doors open. The hinges creaked with centuries of experience.
The chapel was small. Intimate. The pitched ceiling and dark exposed beams canopied aged wooden pews. Maurice could imagine the colors painted on the white, stucco walls when the sun was high and pouring through the stained glass windows.
Now, in the early morning light, sunlight cast muted colors over the stone floor and white linens that draped the altar.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, stepping closer to the altar. His attention lingered on the stands of candles and holiday décor. A quiet hum fell over him in an awareness of the largeness of the world, of a universe so vast it made coincidence feel like providence.
Like him meeting a woman with his same nickname, whose words flowed without guile.
A woman whose eyes never broadcast fear or pity. With her, he’d merely been a man.
Like so many in prison, Maurice had found religion. Jesus, to be precise. He’d been a young minister and counselor, helping others like himself transition from incarceration to life outside. He’d become desperate to interrupt the recidivism cycle and wanted to, once again, trust himself.
Since returning home, he hadn’t ventured far. There wasn’t any want for more… at first.
His story wasn’t unique. But there had been little back home for him except the tiny storefront church where he held meetings, whose seats were occupied several times a week with sad, angry, and confused men and women who time had passed by.
Maurice was determined to catch up, to find a way to be in the world, not of it.
Regular work that wasn’t the equivalent of slave labor was near impossible to come by.
If not for Fairbanks Construction’s trade program, Returning Home, Maurice would still be walking the razor’s edge of recidivism as hunger and desperation tag-teamed him when fair and stable housing and work were held just out of his reach.
That little church with their meager stipend, and drafty but dry back room, had saved him.
Some cats he knew had racked up so much debt to the Department of Corrections for parole violations because their so-called employers refused to play ball and pay legitimately, that they’d never truly be free.
His sentence, though, had never been eligible for parole.
At least he had that going for him. Not being under PADOC’s thumb from the moment he stepped through those steel doors and onto the street would always be a blessing, despite the twenty years he’d lost to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.
Thank God for Aunt Deb, who’d put the program together through her family’s construction company.
They’d always treated him like a human being.
Now, twelve years later, he’d relocated to New Jersey as Brother Mo, not Reverend, and embraced his role as foreman and counselor for Returning Home, where he helped folks like him build homes for the poor and restore historical homes while simultaneously rebuilding themselves.
We are not our mistakes had become more than a mantra. The phrase played on loop in his mind in new situations when anxiety chose to shout out who he could have been had he chosen differently that day—and so many days since.
Less often than before, he would pace his small apartment and remind himself.
The decisions he’d made that separated him from society weren’t mistakes in the way most people meant: careless, avoidable, correctable.
He’d done what he could with what he’d had.
Fifteen years old, sixty pounds lighter, and no one charging in to save the day but him.
In God’s eyes he’d sinned, and he was repentant. Remorseful, though, would never describe how Maurice felt about what he did.
Maurice searched for words, for prayers, for forgiveness in the hush of the chapel. He stepped closer to the altar, eyes closed and listening for something.
Only silence answered.
Camora’s cautious steps clicked behind him. “We do regret that the wedding cannot be held here. During Navidad, the chapel is busier than usual.”
Maurice turned and offered an apologetic smile. “It’s all good. Tommie does things his way and didn’t want a church wedding anyway. So, don’t feel bad.”
Her tense features softened. “You’ve known Senor Lane a long time?” She turned and led him back down the aisle and out the chapel doors.
“Since we were eleven or twelve.”
“You must be very close.”
Close enough that Tommie knew which lines were sacred and which to cross. Close enough for him to call Maurice out when he’d been dishonest with himself.
“Yeah. We are.” But not close enough for Tommie to have mentioned her before last night.
Or maybe Maurice hadn’t been listening. Maybe he hadn’t been present enough. Still, Tommie trusted him with his family.
Camora’s radio crackled to life, shattering the stillness. She spoke in Spanish to the person on the other end.
“Senor, is there anything else I can help you with? I have to return to the front desk.” She held the great wooden door open for an elderly woman, draped in lace, who shuffled to the stand of candles and lit one before slipping into one of the pews and folding herself to kneel.
With her aged hands folded and head bowed, her lips moved with a quiet flurry of words.
The doors shut in a thud that felt final, closing the woman and her prayers inside. Maurice looked back, the quiet following him.
They walked back through the corridor. Maurice kept his stride measured, unhurried, even though his entire body wanted to move faster, needed an outlet for the energy thrumming under his skin.
Maurice’s watch buzzed with an alert. Five o’clock. Time to wake up.
The lobby had come alive. More lights were on now, revealing the full scope of the fountain and garden.
Holiday decorations accented the space. He hadn’t noticed them when he’d first arrived and the hotel was silent, and the lights dim.
Now, early morning guests trickled through—folks in resort wear heading to their rooms or breakfast or stopping for impromptu photo shoots—people who had been somewhere and people trying to be somewhere else.
Normal people. Living normal lives. Going on vacation for the new year.
“Thank you,” he said as they returned to the lobby. Camora looked puzzled. “For earlier. The room stuff.”
Camora paused. “Is there anything else—”
Her face, Maurice realized, was very young, flushed pink.
This was probably one of her first gigs.
A front-facing job at a place like this, old and iconic, wasn’t easy to come by on the mainland and likely tougher to secure here.
And she might have compromised her ethics at his insistence.
But Tommie’s room assignments were heavy-handed, not to mention dumb.
“Thank you for the tour.”
She nodded, smiling softly.
“I hope I didn’t put you in a tight spot.”
“Oh no, Senor. Please don’t worry.”
“Still, I’m grateful. I appreciate that.”
Back at the front, a young man stood behind the desk, finishing a phone call. Camora joined him and greeted the other guests.
Hotels were things Maurice had only experienced on TV. This place existed outside his imagination. It was both a dream world and a real-life refuge. The riot that usually occupied his nervous system quieted. All at once, he was exhausted.
He’d been up entirely too long—twenty-four hours.
Maurice sat on an ornate bench near the elevators, wishing he’d snagged a couple of those pastries off the table to quiet his rumbling stomach.
He pulled his water bottle from his bag and drank most of it as he watched the flow of guests and staff increase along with the first blue-gray streaks of morning light.
He rested his head against the cool wall and breathed in the delicate fragrance of orchids and age as his nerves settled.
Checking his watch revealed that it was just shy of five thirty. His next alert would come in ten minutes: MORNING REFLECTION. At home, he’d craft his intentions for the day after reading his devotional and before entering his six o’clock prayers.
“Might as well get a jump on it.” He opened the bible app on his phone and navigated to the day’s verse.
Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
The words read like judgment, like condemnation when he worked hard to be righteous and have peace.
He slapped his phone face down on the space beside him, ending his planned twenty-five minutes of reflection and prayer in the span of a few breaths.
The elevator’s bell caught his attention. He hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes.
“I really wish you’d work a different shift,” Monique said, her shapely form draped in a simple, flowing dress as she exited the elevators. Blurry at first but then coming into sharp focus as she walked toward the front desk with her suitcase trailing behind her.
“I wish y’all could have come. The hotel is beautiful,” she continued, shifting her phone to her other hand. “The flight was no trouble. Baby, I’m fine.” She released a laugh. Warm, genuine, and nothing like the careful smiles she’d given him in the café.
He should look away, but Maurice couldn’t stop watching her. In the fullness of the morning light, she looked different. More vibrant.
She glanced up and met his eye. For a second, neither of them moved.
“I gotta go, Jay. Text me when you get in the house.” She ended the call.
Then Monique smiled—small, a little surprised, a little embarrassed —and crossed the lobby toward him.
Maurice stood as she approached and shoved his hands in his pockets, willing himself not to close the gap between them. He wanted to see up close how she’d changed. He wanted to know who she was talking to with such intimacy and care.
None of that was any of his business.
“Shouldn’t you be on a tour or something?” she asked. Half a smile quirked her mouth up.
Words wanted to tumble from his lips to ask a million questions. He tried to be light and casual, but his tongue wouldn’t cooperate.
“Shouldn’t you be upstairs sleeping or something?”
Also, none of his business.
Monique’s smile tightened, and her gaze shifted. “Well, they said my room was ready.”
“That’s good.” Maurice picked up his phone and turned it over in his hands. What could he say to keep her talking without putting both feet in his mouth?
“Hey. You okay?” Monique asked, standing closer to him. She smelled clean and warm, a little spicy and sweet too.
His inhale was greedy. “Yeah. I’m good. Not used to traveling, that’s all. My routine is out of whack.”
“Tell me about it. My kids have been on my ass since before I left the house. It’s like three-thirty back home, but they keep blowing up my phone.” She huffed a laugh. “What nineteen-year-olds do you know who’re all up in their mother’s business. I’m the one who should be sweating them, right?”
Kids. She was talking to her child. “How many children do you have?”
She was texting now. Probably her children. “Me? Two. Twins. Jasmine and Justin. The light of my life and pain in my butt.” Her face brightened with a kind of warmth that Maurice had rarely seen. “You?”
Him what? He had Tommie and a comfortable relationship with his children who called him uncle.
Maurice shook his head.
“Really? That’s rare.”
“How so?”
“Because.” She waved a hand over him and scrunched up her face in a way Maurice read as playful. “As good as you look and as old as you are, you don’t have kids?”
Silence settled between them, thick and heavy.
She shivered as if startled awake.
Maurice didn’t so much as blink.
“Lemme go get my room key and stop letting my sleep-deprived brain run the show.” Monique gave him an apologetic look and took a step back.
She handed him the key cards that he’d given her earlier and walked away.
Moments later, Monique passed again. She held up her new key cards and waved at Maurice on her way to the elevators.
Maybe he was reading too much into it, but her pace slowed. Was she inviting him to join her?
He sat back down.
She cocked her head to one side and shrugged. “I guess I’ll see ya ’round, Mo.” The elevator pinged, and the doors opened.
“See you ’round, Mo,” he said softly, as the elevator doors separated them.
His phone buzzed with a text alert.
TOMMIE
You settled at the hotel?
Absolutely not.
MAURICE
Yeah