Page 3 of Priest (Priest 1)
“That seems significantly more priest-like.” There was a long silence. “What if…do you ever have people who have done really bad things?”
I considered my answer carefully. “We’re all sinners in the eyes of God. Even me. The point is not to make you feel guilt or categorize the magnitude of your sin, but to—”
“Don’t give me that seminary horseshit,” she said sharply. “I’m asking you a real question. I did something bad. Really bad. And I don’t know what happens next.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and for the first time since I’d been ordained, I felt the urge to go to the other side of the booth and pull the penitent into my arms. Which would have been possible in a more modern reconciliation room but would have probably been alarming and awkward in the Ancient Booth of Death.
But in her voice—there was real pain and uncertainty and confusion. And I wanted to make it better for her.
“I need to know that everything will be okay,” she continued quietly. “That I will be able to live with myself.”
A sharp tug in my chest. How often had I whispered those same words to the ceiling in the rectory, lying awake in bed, consumed with thoughts of what my life could have been? I need to know that everything will be okay.
Didn’t we all? Wasn’t that the unspoken cry of our broken souls?
When I spoke again, I didn’t bother with any of the normal reassurances or spiritual platitudes. Instead I said honestly, “I don’t know if everything will be okay. It may not be. You may think you are the lowest point now and then look up one day and see that it’s gotten so much worse.” I looked down at my hands, the hands that had pulled my oldest sister from a rope after she hung herself in my parents’ garage. “You may not ever be able to get out of bed in the morning with that security. That moment of okay may never come. All you can do is try to find a new balance, a new starting point. Find whatever love is left in your life and hold on to it tightly. And one day, things will have gotten less gray, less dull. One day, you might find that you have a life again. A life that makes you happy.”
I could hear her breathing, short and deep, like she was trying not to cry.
“I—thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”
There was no doubt that she was crying now. I could hear her pulling the Kleenexes from the box put inside the booth for just that purpose. I could catch only the faintest suggestions of movement through the screen, what looked like glossy dark hair and what could have been the pale white of her face.
A really base and awful part of me wanted to hear her confession still, not so I could give her more specific counseling and assurance, but so that I could know exactly what carnal things this girl had to apologize for. I wanted to hear her whisper those things in her breathy voice, I wanted to take her into my arms and kiss away every single tear.
God, I wanted to touch her.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I hadn’t wanted a woman with this kind of intensity for three years. And I hadn’t even seen her face. I didn’t even know her name.
“I should go now,” she said, echoing her earlier words. “Thank you for what you said. It was…it was unnervingly accurate. Thank you.”
“Wait—” I said, but the door to the booth swung open and she was gone.
I thought about my mystery penitent all day. I thought about her as I prepared my homily for Sunday’s mass. I thought about her as I ran the men’s Bible study and as I prayed my nightly prayers. I thought about that glimpse of dark hair, that throaty voice. Something about her…what was it? It’s not like I’d been a corpse since taking the robe—I was still very much a man. A man who’d liked fucking a lot before he’d heard the call.
And I still noticed women, certainly, but I had become quite adept at steering my thoughts away from the sexual. Celibacy had become a controversial tenant of the priesthood these last few years, but I still abided carefully by it. Especially in light of what had happened to my sister. And what had happened to this parish before I came.
It was paramount that I was the apex of restraint. That I be the kind of priest who inspired trust. And that involved me being incredibly circumspect both publicly and privately when it came to sexuality.
So even though her husky laugh echoed in my ears the rest of the day, I firmly and deliberately tamped down the memory of her voice and went on with my duties, the only exception being that I prayed an extra rosary or two for that woman, thinking of her plea. I need to know that everything will be okay.
I hoped that wherever she was, God was with her, comforting her, just as he’d comforted me so many times.
I fell asleep with the rosary beads clenched in my fist, as if they were an amulet to ward off unwanted thoughts.
In my small, aging parish, there are usually one or two funerals a month, four or five weddings a year, Mass almost every day, and on Sundays more than once. Three days a week, I lead Bible studies, one night a week I assist with the youth group, and every day save for Thursday, I hold office hours for parishioners to visit. I also run several miles each morning and force myself to read fifty pages of something not related to the church or religion whatsoever.
Oh, and I spend a lot of time on The Walking Dead reddit. Too much time. Last night I stayed up until two a.m. arguing with some neckbeard about whether or not you could kill a zombie with another zombie’s spinal column.
Which you can’t, obviously, given the rate of bone decay among the walkers.
The point is, for being a holy man in a sleepy bed and breakfast town in the Midwest, I am fairly busy, so I can be forgiven for being surprised that next week when the woman returned to my confessional.
Rowan had just left, and I was also getting ready to stand and leave when I heard the other door open and someone slide into the booth. I thought maybe it was Rowan again—it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d doubled back because he’d remembered some new menial sin that he’d forgotten to tell me about.
But no. It was that husky, knowing voice, the voice that had inspired my extra rosaries last week.
“It’s me again,” the woman said, with a nervous laugh. “Um, the non-Catholic?”
