Page 82 of Sinner (Priest 2)
It occurs to me, in a racing shadow of desperate expediency, that I could lie to her. I could say that I’m simply helping with this shelter move and trying to make up for my part in the Keegan deal. I could say that Zenny’s an old friend, that what I feel for her is nothing more than older-brotherly, and I’m merely looking out for her for Elijah’s sake.
But right after the shadow comes a quick slant of light.
I can’t lie.
Not only would lying to the Reverend Mother be—I suspect—quite futile, as she’d see through it immediately and be understandably unimpressed with my deceit, but I can’t help but feel that Zenny wouldn’t want me to lie. That she’d want me to be honest no matter what the consequences were, because she would do the same in my place. Because she has lived honestly, even when it came at the cost of her identity as the model Iverson daughter, even when it brought her parents’ disapproval down around her ears. Here I am, a thirty-six-year-old millionaire taking courage from a college student, but there you are. When the college student is Zenny, you’d be foolish not to use her as an example.
And—cheeringly—I realize that any lecture can only last as long as the drive to Midtown, which is about fifteen minutes in the afternoon traffic.
I finish buckling, start the car, and glance over at the prioress. She’s staring serenely back at me, knobbled hands folded in her lap, the stark framing of her wimple around her head making her eyes behind their glasses look even bigger, inescapable.
“Yes,” I say. I don’t know what else to say after that, though, so I turn back to the road and shift into gear and we pull away.
“And?”
Well, that was definitely not what I was expecting. Does she want some kind of report? Or am I due for a lecture and she wants to start with me accounting for my actions like a schoolboy?
“And what, ma’am?”
She makes a noise—it’s the noise old people make when they think young people are being deliberately obtuse. “How is she? How is she feeling? Where does her heart wander? I might be her mentor but you are her lover—surely you know these things.”
My hand opens and closes on the gearshift as I search for words. Trying to describe Zenny in some kind of bizarre moral report—and within such a short time as the drive allows—is an impossibility. Zenny defies simple observations, simple explanations. It’s part of why I love her so much.
“Try,” the old nun says, seeing my struggle.
I don’t like talking about Zenny like this—when she’s not here—so I decide to talk about her only in the most abstract and broad strokes, so as not to accidentally betray any confidence.
“She’s magnificent and fierce and smart,” I say. I think of the roller-skating rink, of our nights together at the shelter, and then say, “She cares more than I can tell you about the people in the shelter and becoming a midwife for the needy; she speaks about God with reverence and balance. She told me she wanted to take this month to make certain of her path and her upcoming vows, and all I see from her is ironclad certainty.” I give a smile that I mean to be lighthearted but it twists bitterly on my mouth instead. “She’s more committed than ever.”
“Ah. You love her.”
What’s the point of denying it? “Yes,” I say, helplessly. “Yes, I love her.”
“And you don’t understand why she chooses this path.”
I shrug with one shoulder as I shift gears. “I understand it better than I did two weeks ago, but…you’re right. I still don’t understand. Not all the way.”
The nun is silent for a moment, and I get the impression she’s more comfortable in silence than she is in words, and it’s not as awkward as I would have thought it might be, sharing a car with someone who prefers quiet.
It’s actually quite soothing, the silence not heavy or demanding or smothering. It’s restful, and everything takes a kind of bluing, quieting hue like this. Zenny and my unrequited love for her, my mother in a hospital bed right now, getting scans and tubes and medicines.
Images of empty sanctuaries flit through my mind, the kind of reverent hush that comes with a sacred space. The calming way candles flicker and dance along the edges of the room.
“Zenny told me about your sister. It was a terrible thing that was done to her. A terrible, evil thing.”
And suddenly, like a key turning in a lock, I trust this woman. I trust her because she didn’t give me some blandishment about God’s will or how Lizzy is “in a better place” (although even the last phrase was only sparingly handed out following Lizzy’s suicide, given the uneasy Catholic attitude toward self-destruction and its implications for the immortal soul). The Reverend Mother didn’t offer up an empty apology or murmur something about praying for our family or Lizzy’s soul.
She simply said the truth. And having the truth acknowledged feels like an embrace and comfort all on its own. I thought of the night last week when I prayed; when I decided to believe in God just long enough to accuse and censure Him, when I realized I wanted Him to sit and listen to me roar and scream until my voice was hoarse. Because having God listen to the truth, to really hear it, to really see it, was the only thing that could heal the sister-shaped gouge in my soul.
I’d tried disbelief, I’d tried scorn, I’d tried every kind of nonbeliever’s stance and sinner’s trick, and I tried them for a decade and a half, and still there was this ragged, infected wound somewhere inside me. The only thing left to try was going back to God and informing Him of the mess He’d made.
“It was terrible,” I echo. My voice is barely there when I say it.
“And so you wonder how anyone can believe in God after that? After what She let happen?”
That catches my notice. “She?” I taunt, gently. “That’s not very devout.”
The prioress smiles. “Biblical metaphors for God include a laboring woman, a breastfeeding mother, even a mother hen. And man and woman were both created in God’s image, were they not? Why use Him and not Her? In fact, why even say God instead of Goddess? Both Him and Her are not enough to contain the fullness of God, who is outside the construct of gender, who is so much more than the human mind can conceive.”
