Page 75 of When We Were Enemies
“I do,” he says immediately, a touch defensive.
“Not like an aunt or your great-grandma but someone you really loved?”
I loved Nonna. It was painful when she died, and I knew I’d miss her, all the little things, the steadiness of her affection, the way she made pasta for my birthday and grew and dried her own garlic. But she was ninety-four.
With Dean, it wasn’t only about losing what he’d been to me and his family and his fans; it was the vast and unwritten future snatchedaway from his deserving hands. That’s the tragedy of losing someone young—all the “could’ve beens” buried along with your loved one in their satin-lined coffin.
“My fiancée. Magdalene.” He says her name like it’s holy, and I forget our debate. He picks at a loose stitch on the steering wheel, his eyes moist, voice thick. “I met her studying in the States, but we took that trip my senior year, the one I told you about—to France.”
“I remember your saying something about the Louvre.” Conrad interrupted his story—he was relieved; I was disappointed. I nibble on my nail again, eager to know more.
“It was right after that. I’d just met her parents. She was from a little town outside Toulouse. Beautiful.”
“Magdalene or Toulouse?” I ask gently, seeing his emotions gathering like an infection under the skin by a healing wound.
“Both,” he says with a wistful smile, looking up from the steering wheel. “Definitely both.” He clears his throat, and his smile fades. He goes back to tugging at the little string sticking out from the faux leather upholstery.
“We had a few days until we were to fly home for graduation, and Magdalene suggested taking the train to Florence. But I wanted to drive. She didn’t fight me on it. I remember she said, ‘You have to go the slow way at least once in your life. Why not now?’” His voice breaks, but he keeps going; I hold still, not wanting to distract him from his reminiscence.
“We stopped after a few hours at Marseille for a late lunch, and then instead of heading east, we took a short trip into the mountains to the Cathedral Notre-Dame-des-Pommiers. It was a breathtaking drive, the commune nestled in this narrow gap between two long mountain ridges. I’ve no doubt heaven will look like the French countryside in spring.”
He swallows loudly, and I can tell it’s coming—the loss. I’m tempted to spare him the pain of telling it, from reliving whateverhorrible moment hurt so badly he’s been running from it ever since. But I also know that like with an infection, the only way to heal is to drain the wound.
“I didn’t see it because of the hill. By the time I did, the truck was in our lane and only a few feet away. There was a tall wall of rock on Magdalene’s side of the road, a low bank and a river on the opposite.” He flinches as though he’s reliving the impact in his memory.
“I chose the river, but it made little difference. There wasn’t enough time. He hit us without braking. I had a few broken bones, but Magdalene ...” He wipes at his eyes. I angle in, knowing what he’s going to say and wanting to be there to catch all the fragments as they fall once he’s said it. “When I tried to dodge the truck by driving toward the riverbank, I inadvertently put her directly in harm’s way. They said she died on impact, but I swear I heard her last breath after the car came to a rest upside down in the shallows of the riverbed. Trapped in my seat, I held her hand until it grew cold and limp, praying God would change what I knew was unchangeable.”
“And?” I ask, part of me hoping this is a story of a miracle. I’m leaning halfway across the seat, completely engaged.
“She died. Her parents buried her later that week, and I flew home alone.”
“And became a priest?” I connect the dots, and he colors inside the lines.
“I had no interest in marrying anyone but Magdalene, and the only thing that brought me comfort was helping at my parish’s shelter and community pantry. My parish priest, Father Francis, saw how the church had become a balm for my grief, and he suggested I consider the priesthood.”
The thread he’s been messing with snaps, and a bit of the stitching comes undone. He tosses the string and then rubs a spot on his knee.
“And you think God did that?” I ask. It’s a real question, not accusatory or mocking.
“I do—or at least I want to.”
“Because it gives meaning to something too terrible to understand?” I ask, knowing how tempting it is to cover a wound with placations. But those types of bandages never held up for me, always dissolving at the slightest provocation.
“No. More selfish. More—prideful,” he says, taking us full circle to the start of the conversation. “It means I didn’t kill my fiancée. It was God’s will. And I can live with that.”
I understand now that the screen between a priest and his parishioner during confession isn’t only for the confessor. I hope he sees empathy, not judgment, when he looks at me. But he hasn’t looked at me for a while, and if he keeps rubbing the spot on his knee, he’ll damage it as badly as he did the steering wheel.
I cover his restless fingers, wrapping my own around them. He lifts his head and finally sees me. His priestly vestments now look like a hairshirt he’s wearing to punish himself for the accidental death of his beloved fiancée.
I want to tell him that he’s not responsible for Magdalene’s death and that no loving God would kill a twenty-year-old woman to bring a man to his calling. But I don’t because I know he’s not ready to hear that. So I remind him of what I know is true.
“You’re too hard on yourself,” I say like I did earlier, but slowly this time and with added emphasis.
I squeeze his fingers, and he turns them up so they rest against mine. He’s not watching my face anymore; he’s watching our hands, my small, slender fingers running up his palm. He shakes his head without speaking and then grasps my wrist gradually like he’s measuring it. It’s a simple gesture, easily platonic. But as innocent as it seems, it doesn’t feel like the touch of a friend. I run my middle finger over the smooth skin at the joint where I can feel his rapid pulse. He must feel my elevated pulse too.
“Agree to disagree,” he says, withdrawing from our closeness and then readjusting in his seat so his hands rest on the wheel again. My fingers tingle, and it feels like we’re running out of oxygen in the closed car. I think of a billion things I’d like to tell him but know I shouldn’t—like how I worry I’ll never love anyone like I loved Dean, or how sometimes I feel more connection with Patrick as my priest than I ever have with Hunter as my fiancé. So I say nothing other than a thank-you and a “see you again soon” as I slip out of the car, not waiting for a response.
I speed walk to the side door of the hotel and reach for my key card, eager to be alone in my room so I can think. But my pocket is empty. I pat my side for my computer bag and find it missing.
