Page 26 of Midnight Mass (Priest 1.50)
I was confused. “What? This gala?”
“Fuck the gala!” she cried. “Of course you have no idea what I’m talking about because you haven’t been anywhere around me when I’ve needed you. It’s like you don’t love me—”
“Goddammit, Poppy, I left my church for you!”
The words, angry and bitter, resounded in the enclosed room, echoing and drowning out every other noise. I hadn’t meant to say it, but it had burst out of me all the same, and once I said it, I knew that the damage had been done. To her and to me, because the party line—the thing we told curious acquaintances and friends—had always been that I’d left the church for me and for no other reason.
And it was more than the party line, it was the truth. Except now I wondered if maybe it wasn’t the whole truth, and if this was just the first time I’d admitted it to myself.
And in Poppy’s eyes, I could tell that I had just confirmed every unspoken fear she’d ever had about us.
She took a step backward into the dark. “I need some time to think,” she said emotionlessly. “Please don’t be home when I go back there tonight.”
No, I wanted to say. I want to fix th
is. I couldn’t imagine spending the night—all night—apart from her right now. I couldn’t imagine letting this wound fester and become infected with resentment and unexplained truths.
God helped me in that moment, the slightest note of clarity in the midst of my pain and confusion. A tiny drop of peace, of you can do this, if only for her sake.
“How long do you want me to stay away?” I asked and then I realized I was crying too.
Poppy’s tears mirrored my own, but her voice was still flat and without affect when she said, “I don’t know. Maybe a week. Maybe more.”
My chest cracked open and my heart fell out.
“A week?” I whispered disbelievingly.
“I’ll call or text when I’m ready to talk.” And without anything more, without an I love you or even a goodbye, she walked out.
I went home and packed a bag. Realistically I knew that she would stay longer at the gala, and that even if she didn’t, she wouldn’t come inside while my truck was in the driveway, but I still hoped that she’d walk in while I was here. That she’d run in, having changed her mind, and then she’d let me apologize. She’d let me fall to my knees and confess, and then after I confessed, she would let me atone. I’d whip myself for her. I’d walk across broken glass and hot coals for her, climb up on a cross for her…although my intentions were still less than Christlike.
Anger shadowed my guilt, anger and blame, and I knew that my desire to atone came not just from guilt, but from a desire to hurt her by hurting myself.
Not Christlike at all.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Poppy never came home. I packed my bag, looked around the townhouse, and then left for the closest hotel, which was a cheap, anonymous place with a squeaky bed and a framed picture of a spoon.
I knew she said she’d call me when she was ready, so out of respect for her boundaries, I didn’t call.
But I wrote.
I wrote by hand, which was something I’d never done in my adult life, writing her my first letter on some Post-It notes I’d found in my laptop bag. I delivered it the next day on my way to Mass, sliding the paper-clipped Post-Its through the mail slot in the door. Her little Fiat was nowhere in sight and I hoped that meant she’d be at Mass, that I could at least fill some of this void with a glimpse of her face.
She wasn’t there. Poppy never missed Mass unless she was traveling or sick, but that day, she was absent, and I knew it was because of me. Because she was avoiding me.
I wrote her another letter during the service, this time on the back of the church newsletter. I delivered that and I went to the library to work the day away and lose my mind in ancient theology. (It didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about Poppy and our fight.)
I fell into the kind of miserable routine that stretches hours into years. At night, I lay between thin, foreign sheets and stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come. During the day, I sunk myself into the final pages of my dissertation, trying to push down the oppressive torment of missing my wife.
We’d never fought like this, never, not in three years of marriage, and I had no idea how to fix things. I had no idea how to prove to her that I would be better, that I would be worthy, because I was still reeling from it all. Poppy had seemed so understanding, so patiently calm, all this year, but had it been a front all along? Had she been gathering this pain and anger under the surface for the last twelve months? Or had something changed just in the last week to ignite her pain?
And how could I possibly ever find out if she wouldn’t speak to me?
On Tuesday, I went to the soup kitchen and worked silently, a zombie. And I was a zombie on the phone with Millie on the way back home, which was fine, because she was quiet too. She didn’t even complain about the food at Pinewoods Village.
“How is Poppy?” she finally asked after an exceptionally long pause.
There was no point in lying. “We’re…we’re having some difficulties.”
