Page 75 of Priest (Priest 1)
“It is.”
“—there would have to be discipline and definitely relocation—”
I’d expected this, but the confirmation gutted me. I’d have to move. A new parish, new faces, all while the old parish had to sort through a rumor-cloud of my sins. No matter what, no matter if everything else went perfectly, I’d still lost this. My parish. My people.
My fault.
“—and even then, I don’t know how the cardinal would feel about this, Tyler.” The bishop sounded tired, but also something else—loving. It was deep in the timber of his voice. He loved me, and that made me feel even more deeply, unhappily ashamed to be having this conversation with him. “If you are truly committed to staying in the clergy, then we will figure out the next steps.”
I didn’t feel relieved by this, possibly because I was still so unsure of what I wanted, but I said, “Thank you,” anyway, because I knew what a giant clusterfuck I’d created for the archdiocese, and I knew even thinking of staying in the clergy would make it worse.
“Let’s talk tomorrow evening,” the bishop said. “Until then, please don’t talk to the press or even go online—there’s no sense in complicating things until we know for sure where we’re headed.”
We said goodnight and clicked off the phone, and then I drained my Scotch and fell into a dreamless sleep on Jordan’s hard, unwelcoming couch.
I went to Jordan’s Mass early the next morning, which was substantially better attended than my own morning Masses back home. I had called Millie the moment I woke up, to tell her where I was and how to get a hold of me. Millie—who surfed reddit and tumblr even more than I did—already knew about the pictures, but she didn’t say I told you so, she didn’t sound hateful, and so I had hope that she’d forgiven me in her own cranky way. She’d also volunteered to post a sign on the door, saying that office hours and weekday Masses were temporarily suspended, and so, with my church matters taken care of for the moment, I could focus on the here and now.
Although I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you seen Poppy?” before we hung up, hating myself as I did.
Millie seemed to understand. “No. In fact, her car hasn’t been in her driveway since last night.”
“Okay,” I said, heavily and tiredly, not sure how I felt about this news. What I did know was that it did not improve the feeling that there was a giant crater where my heart should be.
“Father, please take care of yourself. No matter what, the parish loves you,” she said, and I wanted so much for those words to be true, but how could they be after I’d ruined everything?
After Mass, I had the sanctuary to myself. Jordan’s church was old—more than a hundred years old—and made almost purely of stone and stained glass. No old red carpet here, no faux-wood siding. It felt like a real church, ancient and echoing, the kind of place where the Holy Spirit would hover, like an invisible mist, sparkling among the rafters.
Poppy would love it here.
I was shaky and empty-feeling from crying last night, like my soul had been poured out of me along with my tears. I should kneel, I knew, I should kneel and close my eyes and bow my head, but instead, I laid down on one of the pews. It was made of unforgiving wood, hard and cold, but I didn’t have the energy to support myself for a moment longer, and so I stayed there, blinking sightlessly at the back of the pew in front of me with its missals and attendance cards and tiny, dull golf pencils.
Tell me what to do, God.
I guessed that a part of me had hoped that I would wake up and it would all be some terrible nightmare, some hallucination brought forth to test my faith, but no, it wasn’t. I really had caught Poppy and Sterling together yesterday. I really had fallen in love just to have the shit kicked out of me (by the very woman I’d wanted to marry.)
Do I leave the clergy and hope Poppy will take me back? Do I try to find her? Talk to her? And what’s the best thing for the Church—for me to stay? Is the Church more important than Poppy?
There was nothing. The distant roar of city traffic outside, the dim light glinting dully off the wood of the pew.
I don’t even get an air conditioner now? Now? Of all the times, now is when I get nothing?
I was quite aware I was being petulant, but I didn’t care. Even Jacob had to wrestle his blessing out of God, so if I had to pout my way into one, I would.
Except I was tired. And empty. I couldn’t keep whining, even if I wanted to, so instead my thoughts wandered, my prayers becoming aimless—wordless even—as I simply just contemplated where I found myself. Here in a church that wasn’t my own, alone and wounded. I’d brought harm to my parish through my actions and had betrayed the trust of my bishop and my parishioners—the thing I had tried the hardest not to do since becoming a priest.
I’d failed.
I’d failed as a priest and as a man and as a friend.
I stared at the stone floor, blinking slowly in the silence. So would I stay? Would remaining a priest be the best way to atone? Would that be the best for the church? For my soul? Quitting now, not on my own terms, felt like a petulant act of self-hatred, an I screw everything up, so I quit kind of act, and whatever decision I made about my future, it had to come from someplace other than that.
It had to come from God.
Unfortunately, He didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood today.
Maybe the real question was, could I still imagine life without the priesthood and without Poppy? I’d decided to quit because of my love for her, but once I had made the decision, I had felt all these other potential futures rolling out in front of me—inspiring, intoxicating, invigorating futures. There were so many ways I could serve God, and what if that was what all of this was about? Not about bringing me and Poppy together, but about nudging me out of the comfortable bubble I’d created for myself? A bubble where I could only do so much, and I would always have an excuse for not dreaming bigger and better, a bubble where it was easy to cultivate stasis and stagnation in the name of humble service.
So many of the things I’d wanted to do when I was younger—things like Poppy had done, such as extended mission trips—had become impossible once I’d settled into a parish. But if I were free, I could go fight famine in Ethiopia or spend a summer teaching English in Belarus or dig wells in Kenya. I could go anywhere, anytime.
