Cafe Porca Bello

Café Porca Bello



The door’s jingle admitting or releasing patrons, draws His attention and His head lifts up to face it. When she stumbles in, He can feel the weight of the load on her shoulders that keeps her from walking tall. She lets her purse fall at her feet when she climbs onto the stool at the counter. He almost shakes His head but knows that is not what she came looking for. Instead, He stares, knowing too how thin the line is between welcoming and scaring her off. The café’s wall clock says two twenty-three. She is right on time.

Cinder waits patiently for Natasha to pay her some attention. When she does, Cinder gives a smile first.

“Just filter coffee, thanks.”

“And a blueberry muffin.” He adds. He knows she is hungry.

Cinder offers a puzzled glance.

“I can’t aff-.”

“On me, please.” He smiles now, having engaged her curiosity.

Cinder rolls her eyes and shrugs. She is used to being hit on by dead beats, why would this one be any different?

“JC.” He extends His hand by way of greeting.

Cinder hesitates but meets His gesture. It was only two in the afternoon. Again, what harm could come of it?

“Cinder Evans.” He says before she can.

Panic grips her and her hand jerks back to her person.

“Your name’s embroidered on your blouse – work suit.” He explains with another smile.



Smooth Operator too, she thinks, giving the side pocket of her uniform a flickering glance. Ok, Slick, what do you have for me? You don’t just buy a stranger a muffin at the end of her shift for charity.

“You’re observant. And thanks for the muffin.” She manages politely.

She gratefully turns to her beverage and snack. Oh if only He knew how hungry she was. Breakfast had been yesterday; the last egg and two slices of bread. This morning was a mad rush, she hardly had time and by the time her shift ended food was the last thing on her mind. When she brings her head up to sample the coffee, she finds His eyes intently on her.

“You’re staring.”

“Looking.” He amends.

“Very thin line,” she sips from her mug again then finishes off the muffin.

“Another one? They are really tasty.” He offers.

Cinder shakes her head, wiping the sides of her mouth with a napkin.

“I can’t accept another muffin from you. But they are good, you are right. Thank you.”

“Let’s make it sandwiches then. With butternut soup.”

“Look, I appreciate the kindness but I am not buying what you’re selling.” She tries dismally to control her voice quivering with strains of anger.

And then she was over the edge. No effort at all, she mentally applauds herself.

“It’s just a meal Cinder. Your shift just ended and it’s a long way to get home between now and when your children get out from school. Then you will wait again for your husband to pick you up from the bus stop three blocks from your house…”

Spurned by the gradual widening of her eyes, He says more than He intended. If only she had kept it simple by agreeing to share a meal with Him. The rest was supposed to come later.

He is not my husband; Cinder wants to correct Him, but locks the words in her throat.



“Who are you?” she asks slowly instead.

“JC.”

“And those letters are supposed to mean something?”

She uses random questions to help her process and He finds it sweet. Darling Cinder, He muses, disheveled.

“Not really.” He shrugs.

“Have you been stalking me?”

“No.”

Very direct, Cinder notes. This may mean that what He is saying is true.

The door jangles twice. Sophia walks in, followed by Nate, and Damien and Rosette leave after dropping a tip in the box by the far corner of the counter. Silence rests and settles between Him and Cinder. She drums her fingers on the counter, while He sits patiently. There is no rush.

Nate catches Marylyn’s attention first with a slight movement of his hand.

“Be right with you,” she calls out, running the last transaction on the cash register.

“A skinny and cinnamon rolls?” Marylyn confirms Nate’s usual order.

“Spot on. And I’ll take another couple to go, thanks.”

“Coming right up. How was it today?” Marylyn asks, this time her face focused on his.

“Good,” he shifts nervously. “Good,” he repeats. “I think I will get the call back for the second interview.”

A not-so-discreet glance passes between Marylyn and the stranger who is sitting beside Cinder and Nate turns to look. Cinder, it seems, is also attentive to the conversation which forces him to greet her.



“Cinder, good to see you.”

Cinder jerks her head back, shocked, but wears her best smile and replies softly. “Good to see you too, Nate.”

“Great Nate,” Marylyn grabs his attention. “Really awesome. When do you think you will start?”

Nate takes a moment to gather himself and switch off his curiosity at the stranger, whom Cinder seems utterly comfortable sitting next to. Then again, with a reputation as hers…

“They are looking at early November. It’s August, but they are taking interns.”

“It’s a start.” She hands him his order.

Nate turns around with a shrug, finds a booth by the corner window and burrows in it.

“May I have a couple of sandwiches and the butternut soup please?”

JC snaps Marylyn from her wistful gaze after Nate. In her eyes, pity and empathy. He wants to tell her it will be alright for Nate. A few months and things would be alright. Instead He touches Cinder’s shoulder and startles her.

“Sorry to startle you. I’m usually a proper gentleman. Please have lunch with me.”

“How did you know those things about me? The name thing was a neat trick, but the rest…”

“I apologise. First things first though, I would like it if you shared a meal with me.”

With another resigned shrug, He doubles the order for lunch and nudges Cinder to a table.

“Let’s sit here. The counter is so impersonal.”

Cinder looks around. She is used to gossip and she being the main subject, but sharing a table with this man will place her on lead with the local tabloid. She isn’t sure she can take the fame that will come with this exposure.

He gives her the usual kind smile as she reluctantly follows Him, squeezes into a booth and places her purse on the inside.



He isn’t charming or noticeable in His plain shirt, button open at the top and ordinary haircut. You can easily miss Him or take Him for a pauper than a Prince Charming, she observes. His skin is dark, His face portraying the day-old stubble that adds to the rugged look. No, he is not a looker, she determines, but His aura makes people glance over their shoulders for a second look. He has power in those intense eyes and authority in His voice – His whisper of a voice. He has presence. That’s what Erin would say. And with that thought, she sees the familiar face, now gone and catches on a barrage of memories – especially the least ones – and blocks them again. She tidily packs them away but not before her face betrays the dull ache in her heart.

“What’s wrong?” He invites, wanting – needing – her to talk about it.

“What? Nothing.” Cinder blinks as if it will clear the past in an instant.

“You were staring.” He quips.

“Looking.” Cinder amends then on an afterthought, “Touché.”

“It’s strange,” she adds.

He raises His eyebrows, prompting her to share more.

“You look like you belong here, though I have never seen you here before. Do you -?”

“I lived here once. Before. I travel a lot. Too much sometimes.” He chuckles. “People say I have a familiar face.”

“Then you should fit right into a place, anywhere.”

“Not always.” He says softly.

“I’m sorry to hear that. You’re quite companionable – after the weird prophecies and mind tricks.” She laughs nervously.

It was her first for the day and nervous, but she laughs anyway.

He hears her thought as though she spoke it out loud and watches her. Why has she forgotten their last encounter?



“You come here often, then?” He asks.

“Almost every day. For filter coffee and some solitude. My job at the hospice is not all roses and pie but it pays the bills. Gareth handles the rest.”

“Gareth?”

She hesitates, then as if she realizes she has already spilled too much milk, confesses, “You mentioned him as my husband, but he is my partner.”

“He lives with you?”

Why does His question sound like an accusation, she wonders. And why does His asking it make co-habitation sound so wrong?

“Yes, well…”

“You’re a beautiful and strong woman. Why didn’t he marry you?”

Since when did beauty and strength make for wife material, she wants to ask. Instead she faces Him squarely as if to challenge Him to accept her forthcoming explanation.

“He convinced me that marriage was for religious people. He proves his commitment to me by settling the rent and maintaining the property we live on.”

She knows her response and defense is shallow, but when Gareth had said it, it had sounded true.

He uses silence to wait her out. Soon she will talk. But first, the meal. Natasha, assistant wait staff, ambles over to their table, balancing their meals in each arm. She wishes them a pleasant lunch and scrambles off to wipe down vacant tables.

Cinder waits until one sandwich and half her soup is in her belly before picking up the conversation.



“I married young at nineteen. He was my high school sweetheart and he was impressionable. We attended the same church and our parents were friends. We were very close. Erin used to say I was his ‘Eve’.” She pauses, not sure why she mentioned Erin in that sentence. Why even at all?

“What happened?”

“He died. A headache in the middle of the afternoon. We rushed to the emergency room but he was gone before anyone could attend to him.”

She had asked why but God hadn’t answered. She soon forgot she needed the answer when Brad came along.

“I met Brad a few years later.”

“Husband number two.”

“You make me sound like a Killer Bride.”

He only smiled.

“I was still attending church but he wasn’t a believer. I knew all about being unequally yoked but I was vulnerable and he was there. So we took a marriage license, had a small ceremony but no honeymoon. I was twenty-four and already felt old beyond my years.”

She moves the soup around with her spoon.

“He was good to me. I mean, I persuaded him to join me for church but he never saw the point. As far as he knew he wasn’t a bad person. He swore a bit and got into a fight once but there were worse people out there going to church and playing hypocrites. He held an honest job and provided for his family. That was enough for him.” She stops and watches the street. Time pauses too.

“When he died in a train accident – and he never took the train anywhere – I didn’t ask why. I merely took the news in, held an eventless funeral and got back to my life.”

She bites into the last sandwich, grateful for a satisfied stomach – the first time all week.



“Luke was the hardest to deal with. He died on the eve of my twenty-seventh birthday. We had been married for ten months. One morning he was alive and active; the next he was fading before my eyes, strapped to tubes and monitors. The cancer was swift. I have never seen a man die so quickly and make it seem like it’s happening in slow motion. He seemed better on the days I asked God to relieve him of the pain and worsened each time I asked God to bring him back to full health. I stopped praying when I buried him.”

She clamps her mouth shut, wondering why she said so much. Because He is here and a great listener. She turns to check the time on the café’s clock. Two forty-five. Stunned, she looks at Him as if to confirm she is seeing right. She remembers seeing quarter to three when they left the counter to occupy the booth. They must have been talking for over an hour.

“Something wrong?” He senses the worry just as He sees it plastered on her face.

“The time -,” she scrunches her face. “Does it seem like it’s stopped?”

“No. I hardly watch Time.”

He says Time like an old friend. Not ‘the time’, she notices. Who is this man?

“You don’t watch the time?”

“No. It hardly stands still. But this moment is eternal.”

“I’m rambling.”

“No. Tell me more. You said you stopped praying when you buried Luke?”

She nods, “I stopped saying structured prayers, stopped reading the Bible intentionally and stopped attending service. The wound was too deep.”

“And now?”

“What about now?”

“Now you have Gareth.”

“Yes,” she sighs, “now I have Gareth.” She chants after Him but offers nothing more.



Instead she watches other patrons saunter in, make orders and leave. She watches Marylyn tallying her sales and Natasha wiping down used tables. She watches their own empty plates being cleared away wordlessly. She hears, in a distant voice, Him as He orders herbal tea. She hears Natasha reading off the varieties of blends they have – Green, fruit flavoured, honey and ginger, Ginseng, apple and cinnamon and chamomile. He orders a pot of something but she doesn’t hear what. She wants to check the time again but now knows it is fruitless. Something, she senses, had stopped Time, even though there was normal activity going on around her. Well, either way, she had to leave at quarter past because her children, Lucy and David, get out of school at half-past three.

He waits her mind’s wandering out. Tea will calm her and help loosen her nerves. She is on edge, as if poised for flight at any moment. Restlessness clings to her like stale sweat on a contractor’s work suit. A lot has been said and more yet to come. She hasn’t talked about Erin and Erin is a huge contender in the process – on her journey.

“I haven’t found the words to say yet to God. Part of me thinks He has lost all interest in me too.”

“I don’t think so. God doesn’t turn His back on His children.”

She scoffs but the bulk of it remains lodged in her throat.

“You stopped believing that too?”

Cinder starts to shake her head, then stops. Who was this man? What did He plan on giving her? What did He want from her?

“I killed my sister last year.” She breathes out.

All He does is look. He does not respond.

“I was driving too fast. I went through a red light and smashed into a truck. I was the reckless driver but Erin died. Like God’s best punishment.”

“He doesn’t punish His children.”



“Really?” This time the scoff is complete. “Allowing me to live and taking Erin’s life sure felt like cruel and unusual punishment.”

“It’s just a consequence of your actions. God does not have a little black book.”

“You must be His favourite man.”

He only smiles.

Cinder watches Sophia nestling her coffee. She has been sitting that way since she ordered the coffee. She wonders what Sophia is thinking. She imagines Erin chiding both of them for not spending enough time in Today. You are not here, Cinder shuts her memory down. Your opinion does not matter right now.

“You miss Erin?” He says it like an accusation.

“Only every day. It should have been me.”

“It was Erin and you are here for a reason.”

“I wish you would tone down on the philosophy lecture.”

“One last statement.”

Cinder rolls her eyes. “Ok…”

“God is interested in your pain. You might not get the answer but He can take the questions. After a while the questions stop mattering and the answers even less, but you begin to see something about God in the aftermath.”

Cinder turns. She cannot resist the temptation of consulting the clock. She finds that fifteen minutes have lapsed.

He catches her impatience and moves to address it.

“Do you need to be somewhere?”



Cinder turns back with a vacant gaze. Again the question pops into her mind. Who is this man? He is so unappealing and His questions intrusive. But His voice is so disarming in its softness. It silences most of her questions and gives her complete reassurance that He can be trusted.

“Lucy and David will be out of school in half an hour.”

“You always pick them up? Is that why you chose the morning shift?”

“We have a patient, Macy Grey. She is fussy and I am allegedly the only one who can deal with her. She is our longest staying resident but our strongest. She seems to defy her family’s hopes. They scarcely visit, hoping that their absence will drive the life from her and lead her to an early grave. But she gets up early every day - and even in the freezing morning, she has her summer night clothes on - walking in the garden, muttering under her breath. When I get to her for her morning hand massage, she says to me, ‘Cinder, God is pleased with me.’ I ask her why she seems angry in the morning and she tells me, ‘There’s way too much hurting in the world.’ I don’t ask further because I have to move on but she is fighting and walking the walk, but her family wants her dead.”

He merely pours the tea, now served, into two milk-white china cups.

“Gareth works hard and I finish early, so I get the luck of the draw.”

“Tell me about your children.”

“Lucy is eight years old. She is bright and funny. You would love her. She is a bottle of sunshine. David is six. He loves playing cricket. I don’t know how. I used to think my children would be all-American but Lucy only makes slightly above average in grades. She is so inquisitive but just can’t apply herself in school. And David…well, David plays cricket. I don’t think we even have a national cricket team.”

They both smile.

“Have the tea. It’s brilliant apple and cinnamon.”

“Thank you.” Too stunned to decline, Cinder picks up the cup to sample. Delicious. She glances at Him, not sure if her comment has escaped loudly.



He toasts her with His own cup.

“Delicious right?”

“Amazing,” she agrees.

“So your children are not all-American?”

“No. It doesn’t matter. I love them with all my heart and will do anything for them. If Gareth does not marry me and things turn out nasty, I will fight him for them.”

“You’re expecting things to go wrong?”

“All this town has ever spoken about is my messed up life and the men that have passed by here. They think I don’t know what they whisper about in their holy huddles, but I do. It’s about me and my husbands and the man I am living with now, who is not my husband but has fathered two children with me.”

“Are you ok with this current arrangement?”

Cinder finally cracks and throws the cup down on the table with a clutter.

“Who are you?”

He raises His eyebrows.

“It’s a random weekday afternoon and you’re buying a total stranger lunch. You seem to be new but you look like you know everybody here. No one pays you any mind but they are all aware of you. You are interested in me, even asking follow-up questions when I am distracted and thinking about collecting my children from school. You are talking to me about God as if you have His direct line or you share a chat room.”

“Have I done something wrong?”

“Who are you?”

“Who am I to you?”



“Damned if I know,” she says exasperatedly.

“Angry or upset, Cinder?”

“Upset.”

“Why?”

“I have been looking for, and can’t seem to find, time to sit and talk to someone about the things I am facing every day. Then I walk in here and it feels like you found me ready to open up.”

“Is that why you cannot find the words to say?”

Cinder opens her mouth and shuts it without emitting a word. Prayer. He is talking about prayer. That was three conversation topics ago.

“I know God is not very pleased with me right now. I veered off the straight and narrow, blamed it on unresolved grief and every decision I’ve made since Luke died has been questionable.”

“You walked in cloaked in a garment of sorrow, embroidered with guilt and shame.”

“What do you want from me?”

She asks an evasive question only to escape the memory of the two companions that had dragged her through every waking moment since Luke’s death. It tumbled in with Erin’s death but she knew the moment she was void of words for God; she had turned and walked the other way.

“What are you looking for?”

“A chance. And freedom.”

“For what?”

“To live.”

The tears bubble out then, furiously. They attack her cheeks and wreck her weak body. Instead of wiping her face, she clasps her hands until her knuckles turn white. And just like that, her resolve is shattered.



Marylyn appears at her side and hands her a note. Cinder reads it over and quickly turns to read the clock. 3.45. How had time suddenly slipped speedily by until she was late. With a watery smile, she turns to Him.

“The school called. Gareth picked up the kids as soon as school was out. He took them straight home.”

“God hears you, Cinder. Even when you think you can’t pray. He hears your heart and He responds. He still calls you His child.”

“Wiser words were never spoken.” She hesitates but gets up. “I have to get home to prepare dinner. Thank you for lunch and interesting conversation. Will I see you here again? Or maybe invite you to my house for dinner?”

He only smiles.

“Maybe.”