Page 21 of Priest (Priest 1)
She bustled past me into the kitchen, the late afternoon light shining through her stiff, brick-red wig as she started unloading her cargo.
“You are too clean,” she said by way of greeting, scowling at the fastidiously neat countertops. “Boys your age should be messy.”
“I’m hardly a boy, Millie,” I said, walking over to help her move the food into the freezer.
“At my age, anyone under sixty is a boy,” she said dismissively, shooing me out of the way so she could put one of the dishes in the oven.
Millie was approximately one hundred and thirty years old, but she was not only one of my most active parishioners, but the sharp-as-a-tack bookkeeper for the church. She’d been the one to insist that we upgrade to iPads and Squares for our bake sales and Fish Fry Fridays, and the one who spearheaded the installation of fiber optic internet when nowhere else in town had it yet.
She’d also adopted me as a sort of project when I moved up here, new to town and new to living any place other than a trendy Midtown apartment in walking distance to a Chipotle. She’d clucked her tongue at my age and my appearance (her nickname for me was “Father What-a-Waste”) and showing up once a week with food (even though I’d protested a thousand times that I could cook for myself [mostly ramen noodles, but still.]) And after she’d met my mother and they’d spent an hour talking about the best temperature of water to use in piecrust dough, it was all over. Millie adopted my mother as well, along with my brothers, who got packages of cookies sent to their sleek offices in downtown Kansas City every week.
Except today I felt unworthy of her bustling, fussing attentions. I felt unworthy of everything—this house, this job, this town—and I just wanted to sit here at my kitchen table until I died.
No, that was a lie. I wanted to do something—run or lift weights or scrub the tile until my hands bled—I wanted penance. Funny how many times I had counseled my flock about the real nature of penance, the real weight of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness, and my first reaction to sinning with Poppy was to punish myself.
Or at the very least, exhaust myself so that I couldn’t think actual thoughts any more.
“Something’s bothering you,” Millie decided, sitting at the table and folding her hands together into a bundle of papery skin and old rings. Someone once told me that she’d been one of the first female engineers in Missouri, doing surveying for the government when they built the interstate system through the Midwest. And it was easy to believe now, with the no-nonsense look she was leveling at me, with those sharp eyes searching my face for every detail.
I did my best attempt at an easy smile. I have a nice smile, I admit. It’s one of my most effective weapons, although I lobby it more against congregants than co-eds these days. “It’s just the heat, Millie,” I said, making to stand.
“Uh-uh. Try again,” she said and nodded back to the chair. I sat again, fidgeting like a kid. (Millie has that effect on me. Our bishop once joked after meeting her that she should have been the Mother Superior at an abbey a hundred years ago, and all I have to say about that is that I would feel sorry for any nun working under her.)
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, keeping my voice light. “I promise.”
She reached across the table, covering my large hand with her thin, wrinkled one. “The thing about being old is that I know when people are lying. Now, last time I checked, you were in charge of an entire parish. You wouldn’t lie to one of your parishioners, would you?”
If it was about having almost-sex on the sanctuary floor? A fresh wave of guilt flooded through me as I realized that I was compounding my sins now. I was lying (and lying to a good person who’d done nothing but take care of me.) Suddenly, I wanted to tell Millie about this afternoon, about the past couple of weeks, about this new temptation that was the oldest temptation on earth.
Instead, I stared down at our hands and didn’t answer. Because I was prideful and defensive and furious with myself. And that wasn’t all.
I wanted to do it again. I wanted Poppy again. And if I told someone my sin, I’d be accountable. I’d be bound to obey my vows, I’d be bound to behave.
Nothing about Poppy Danforth made me want to behave.
But I’d be risking everything by not behaving, my job and my community and my duty and my sister’s memory and maybe even my eternal soul.
I lowered my head onto Millie’s hand, careful not to rest the full weight against her fragile bones, but desperately needing comfort. “I can’t talk about it,” I said into the table. I wasn’t going to lie. (Except how often did I tell my youth group about lies of omission? When exactly had I started making the sharp left turn into being a hypocrite?)
Millie patted the back of my head. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the pretty young woman who bought the old Anderson house?”
My head snapped up. I don’t know what my face looked like, but she laughed. “I saw you two at the coffee shop last week. Even through the window, I could see you guys made quite a couple.”
Fuck. Did she suspect? And if she did, did she judge me for it?
“She was looking at the renovation spreadsheets. She’s got a background in finance and an MBA from Dartmouth.” I didn’t mention that she also had a background in seducing wealthy men by dancing on a platform. Or that her cunt tasted sweeter than heaven.
“Maybe she and I will have to get together for coffee sometime,” Millie said. “Since you can barely add two communion wafers together. Unless, of course,” she said, watching my face, “you’d rather keep the meetings just between the two of you.”
“Rem acu tetigisti,” I said, sliding my eyes away from hers. You’ve hit the nail on the head.
“I’m going to assume that means, ‘You’re right, Millie, I am deplorable at math.’”
It didn’t.
“I’ve always said that you were too young and too handsome to lock your life away. ‘Trouble will come of it,’ I said. ‘Mark my words.’ And nobody marked my words.”
I didn’t answer. I was staring at our interlocked hands again, thinking of the silence in the sanctuary after I’d come all over my stomach, the feeling of Poppy’s wet heat pressing down on me. I’d taken two showers, scrubbing myself to the point of pain, but nothing could erase the feeling of her skin on mine. The feeling of warmth splattering on my stomach as she watched with hungry, feral eyes.
