The Peacock 23

  Father Griffin, for a while, was the sole occupant of this house.  And he could only come here  a couple of days a week", says Carl. We kept in close touch, and then,the following summer, he came to visit us in Switzerland.   I had already graduated and was an apprentice writer for a sports magazine.  Our life in Switzerland had long taken on a rather delicious kind of rhythm, but I was already getting restless.  Plus, I had a girlfriend, and we were already talking about marriage, even though I was just twenty-four.  There appeared to be something different about Father Griffin.  He seemed quieter, more contemplative, and also somewhat haunted.  Or nervous about something.  I asked him about the house and, as we had suspected he was having to sink a lot of money, even more than expected, into repairs and maintenance.  That was when we decided to step in and take over the expenses from there.  Father Griffin then asked me to seriously consider moving over here to join him.  In fact, he was being downright imperative about it.  I could only turn him down.  Katrina, my girl, had become my second priority.  My first priority of course was my career as a writer.  I asked him to give me six months to think about it, but only in order to shut him up for a while.  Which was when Mom chimed in, suggesting that I might put the will of God ahead of my personal ambitions.   Not appreciating that kind of spiritual blackmail, especially coming from my own mother, I opted to move out on my own for a while.  

I found me a nice little apartment in downtown Zurich.  Then two things happened.  First, Katrina was posted in another country as a volunteer in community development in, of all places, New Guinea.  But she would be stationed in Australia.  She wasn't gone less than two months when she emailed me telling that she wanted to break off our relationship.  Apparently she had met someone else, and it was actually the guy she was seeing in university just a little before she met me.   Then the magazine I was writing for folded, if you'll pardon the pun, and before I knew it I was living again with Mom in our little Christian community.  And no she wasn't above offering me a couple of token I told you so's, being my mother of course.  A month later, I was boarding a plane to Vancouver...