Page 23 of Priest (Priest 1)
Taking the country road out of town to avoid Poppy, I ran farther than I normally did, pushing myself harder and faster, moving until my legs cramped and my breath screamed in and out of my chest. And instead of going straight to my shower, I staggered inside of the church, my hands laced above my head, my ribs slicing themselves apart with pain. It was dark and empty inside the church, and I didn’t know what I was doing there instead of my rectory, didn’t know until I stumbled into the sanctuary and collapsed onto my knees in front of the tabernacle.
My head was hanging, my chin touching my chest, sweat everywhere, but I didn’t care, couldn’t care, and I couldn’t pinpoint the moment my ragged breathing turned into crying, but it was not long after I went to my knees, and the tears mingled with the sweat until I wasn’t sure which was which.
The sunlight poured through the thick stained glass, jewel bright patterns spilling and tumbling over the pews and my body and the tabernacle, and the gold doors glinted in darker shades, somber and sacred, forbidding and holy.
I leaned forward until my head pressed against the floor, until I could feel my eyelashes blinking against the worn, industrial carpet. Saint Paul says we don’t have to put words to our prayers, that the Holy Spirit will interpret for us, but interpreting wasn’t needed this
time, not when I was whispering sorry sorry sorry like a chant, like mantra, like a hymn without music.
I knew the moment I was no longer alone. My naked back prickled with awareness and I sat up, flushed with embarrassment that a parishioner or a staff member had seen me crying like this, but there was no one there. The sanctuary was empty.
But still I felt the presence of someone else like a weight, like static along my skin, and I peered into every dim corner, certain I’d see someone standing there.
The air conditioning powered on with thump and a whoosh, the change in air pressure slamming the doors to the sanctuary closed. I jumped.
It’s just the air conditioning, I told myself.
But when I looked back up at the tabernacle, golden and stained with color, I suddenly wasn’t so sure. There was something anticipatory and sentient about the silence and emptiness. It suddenly felt as if God were listening very intently to what I was saying, listening and waiting, and I lowered my eyes back to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered one last time, the word hanging in the air like a star hangs in the sky—glimmering, precious, illuminating. And then it winked out of existence, at the same moment I felt my burden of sorrow and shame wink out of existence.
There was a beat of perfect completeness, a moment where I felt as if I could pluck each and every atom out of the air, where magic and God and something sweetly beyond complete understanding was real, completely real.
And then it was all gone, all of it, replaced by a deep feeling of peace.
I exhaled at the same time the building seemed to exhale, the prickling on my skin disappearing, the air vacant once again. I knew a thousand explanations for what I had just felt, but I also knew that I really believed only one.
Moses got a burning bush, and I get the air conditioning, I thought ruefully as I got to my feet, rising as slowly and unsteadily as a small child. But I wasn’t complaining. I had been forgiven, renewed, released from guilt. Like Saint Peter, I’d been tested and found wanting and forgiven anyway.
I could do this. There was life after fucking up, after all, even for those who lived without fucking.
The next two days passed without event. I spent Thursday lounging on my couch while watching The Walking Dead episodes on Netflix and eating Cup of Noodles that I’d made by using hot water from my Keurig.
Sophisticated, I know.
And then Friday. I got up and prepared myself for the morning Mass as I always did, a few minutes late, reminding myself for the thousandth time to rearrange the sacristy, and then readied myself to walk into the sanctuary. Weekdays Masses are short—no music, no second reading, no homily—sort of a like drive-thru Eucharist for the extremely faithful. Like Rowan and the two grandmothers and—
Jesus help me.
Poppy Danforth.
She was sitting in the second row, in a demure dress of ice blue silk with a Peter Pan collar and flats, her hair in a loose bun. She looked prim, composed, modest…except for that fucking lipstick, fire engine red and begging to be smeared. I looked away as soon as I saw her, trying to recapture that holy sense of peace I’d been given on Tuesday, that sense that I could master any temptation as long as I had God on my side.
She needed something from this place, from me, something way more important than what we had done on Monday. I needed to honor my office and give it to her. I focused on the Mass, on the words and on the prayers, pleased to see Poppy doing her best to follow along, praying especially for her as I performed the ancient rites.
Please help her find guidance and peace.
Please help her heal from her past.
And please please please help us behave.
When it was time for Eucharist, she lined up behind the grandmas and Rowan, looking a little uncertain.
“What do I do?” she whispered when she got to the front of the line.
“Cross your hands over your chest,” I whispered back.
She did, her eyes still on mine, her long fingers resting on her shoulders. She cast her eyes back down, looking so lovely and yet so frail, and I wanted to hug her. Not even sexually, just a regular hug. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and feel her breathe into my chest, and I wanted to tuck her face into my neck as I kept her safe and protected from her past, from her ambiguous future. I wanted to tell her and have her know—really know—that it would be all right, because there was love and because someone like her was meant to be out in the world sharing that love, like she had done in Haiti. All that joy she had felt there—she could feel it anywhere, if only she’d open herself to it.
