Beauty and the Blitz (27 page)

“I understand that, Father.”

“You don’t.
I
know you are a faithful man. But the diocese?” He frowned. “You wanted a home, and so I spoke with the bishop and made it happen. Three years is a long time in a single parish, especially for a man…like you.”

“I know, Father.”

“When I am gone, you will be moved. Frequently. To avoid any…”

“Scandal?”

“
Sacrilege
.”

Right. Like what occurred last night. Like the thoughts and desires and
need
that still surged through my body and blood.

Maybe it was for the best. Maybe a change in diocese would shield Honor from my intentions, my presence.

Or maybe she was sent to me because I was the only one who could save her?

Maybe we’d save each other.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “You’ve taught me well.”

“You still have many lessons to learn. Unfortunately, they’ll be the toughest you’ll face. Please…don’t do this alone. I know you, and I know how you sink into your head. If you find yourself struggling—”

“I won’t falter.”

“If you do…don’t internalize. Pray, seek guidance, and don’t be afraid to
retreat
. Life is not all action, and sometimes having faith means accepting what you can’t fight. During those times, let the Lord lead those battles for you.” Benjamin swallowed, his voice fading. “Where you lead, others will follow.
The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray
.”

I didn’t need proverbs thrown at me. I’d spent the night reading anything that might have given me wisdom. When that hadn’t worked, I’d prayed in silence. When that made it worse, I depended on a cold shower to rid myself of Honor’s candied apple scent and mewed groan, captured by her bitten lip.

If I were a weaker man, I’d have tasted that lip.

Bitten it myself.

Caused that tiny gasp that cried for me as she slid her fingertips over that sacred secret.

I faked another smile for my friend. “Thank you, Father. You’ve…relieved me.”

“No, I haven’t.” He waved a hand. “Go, you have an evening mass. You know I hate when you’re late to your own celebrations.”

“I’ve been on time to all three this week.”

“I’ll nominate you for Pope.” He coughed. “Go. I’ll be here when you come back.”

He always said that, but I had no idea how much longer it’d be true. I squeezed his hand.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Stay out of trouble.”

“Always.”

Never.

Becoming a priest was never meant to be an easy path. We abandoned most earthly concerns to serve all of humanity, and the cost was too high to fail.

But I was close to failure now.

That meant I had to work harder, not just to protect myself, but to shield Honor from any further evil that would target a girl too innocent to realize when the world conspired beyond her control.

She was young—only a senior in college. And her family had endured enough tragedy without me inflicting any spiritual scars.

I drove back to the church, heart pounding as I thought of her. I wished the elevated pulse was my only concern. I had no idea how to soothe my uncomfortable, persistent erection. The only logical and sinful way to relieve the strain was forbidden to me. I wasn’t celebrating Mass distracted.

I slipped into the back of church and splashed cold water on my face. It was the best I could do in the church bathroom. But it worked well enough, especially as I only had ten minutes to prepare for the one evening Mass we held each a week.

Usually Mass comforted me, put me at peace. It didn’t matter if I celebrated it with the full congregation on Sunday, the fifteen or so people who attended during the evening’s mass, or the few lonely times when it was just me and the Lord.

Tonight, I didn’t enjoy the Mass.

I felt it. I believed in it. I concentrated on the words, read out the prayers, and delivered my homily as a dire warning.

The most important prayer and speech I’d ever given, and the congregation wasn’t in attendance to hear it.

But I could. And I’d learn from every word of it.

“
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man - 1 Corinthians 10:13
,” I recited to the church, the altar, the world, myself.

And to the woman hidden in the back of the sanctuary.

She waited. Watched. Honor threaded her rosary through her fingers as she stared at me, too torn to step foot within the sanctuary to take the gift of the Host that I offered to all
penitent
souls.

I caught her gaze. We both stilled, silent.

And she turned, leaving the church. Honor ran before the Mass had concluded and I could follow and find her, bless her as I blessed the others.

She left before she accepted forgiveness for the mistake last night.

I wouldn’t allow that. Not when she’d returned to me and sought that promised absolution.

It was mine to give, and she would receive it.

Honor Thomas was my greatest temptation, but I was her darkest sin.

Together we would heal.

Or together we would be damned.

H
ow many chocolate
chip cookies did it take to redeem a sinner’s soul?

Probably more than the two dozen I baked for the weekly women’s group meeting. Good thing I also brought a carafe of coffee.

But was it really penance if I made the cookies and coffee because I knew the women’s group had a loose definition of medium roast and dessert? I had only attended one meeting so far, but once was enough to know I should serve my community with a plate of freshly baked guilt.

I probably couldn’t bribe my Lord and savior with any form of chocolatey cookie—even if they were made from scratch. I didn’t even use the egg beaters. I did everything by hand, and I doubted it made the least bit of difference to my soul. But at least I felt somewhat prepared to face St. Cecilia’s parish if I came bearing treats.

Besides, it gave me something to hold so the women didn’t see me shake. My hands hadn’t stopped trembling since I pulled into the church’s lot. Every hallowed step echoed in the stone halls and chiseled that fracturing courage in my soul.

I was scared, and that wasn’t what the church taught. I shouldn’t have been nervous in the hall, shouldn’t have twisted when I cast a side-long look at the confessional.

And yesterday I shouldn’t have run from the evening Mass.

Mass was supposed to be a gift to the faithful, a way to commune and meditate on matters beyond ourselves. I’d even corrupted that. I’d attended to try and understand why I acted the way I did in the confessional, but Father Raphael’s sermon, his prayers, his soothing baritone had stirred too many feelings in me.

The feelings weren’t holy. They weren’t pure. Those shivers delighted me and nearly made me squirm in the back pew. When I closed my eyes in prayer, I imagined him there, with me, beside me.

Over me.

Even now, I fantasized about it. I took a breath. It didn’t soothe me nearly as much as that last touch, that secret sin within the shadows of the confessional. In that moment, everything had calmed, quieted, and blessed me in a simple peace.

If only I could feel that way again. Was wanting that peace a sin?

Was
anything
I wanted not a sin? Even self-doubt and insecurity was dangerous. I was supposed to be filled with grace. Instead I had cookies and coffee.

And waiting outside the women’s meeting did nothing when my mother was already inside.

Laughing.

Grinning.

Preaching the good news of her sobriety to anyone who would listen…and those who hadn’t asked to hear.

“There she is!” Mom grinned and patted the wooden folding chair at her side. “Honor, baby, I saved you a seat.”

The vivacious and grinning woman was thirty pounds heavier, ten decibels louder, and three hundred and ninety days soberer than the mom I remembered just a few years ago. Her skin had cleared, though the dark was still a bit splotchy over her arms and legs. She chose vibrant outfits to cover up instead. Her hair grew back, styled with more enthusiasm than gel. She wore bright red lipstick—so she could smile and our Lord could see it all the way from Heaven, she said.

The chairs on either side of her remained unclaimed. It didn’t surprise me. The dozen or so other women clustered tightly on the opposite end of the circle, politely nodding as Mom enthralled them with a story from rehab. The radio played a quiet song, and Mom yelled over it, waving with an animated gesture to ninety-year-old Mrs. Ruthie.

“There she is.” Mom pointed at me.

Ruthie grunted. “
Eh
?”

“There! That’s Honor. That’s my baby.” She frowned and shouted louder, her voice echoing through the small room. “My
daughter
! All grown up.”

If Ruthie could see past her cataracts, she was certainly blinded by the brim of her burgundy hat—complete with a lace nest and beads. She nodded just the same.

“Lovely girl.” Ruthie said. “Just lovely.”

Mom patted her hand over her heart. “She looks just like her father, God rest his soul.”

That comment gained the attention of the women in the circle. I should have remembered most of them, though my family had stopped attending most of the public events when I hit high school, when Mom’s addiction got worse.

They appraised me, murmuring about my curly hair or the polite shade of my lipstick. At least I wore the professional, responsible, knee-length skirt, though it meant nothing. I could just as easily pull up the pleads and shed whatever virtue I had left.

They murmured something about my father. I knew I looked like him. So did Mom. She mentioned it every day, every time she looked at me. She saw Dad in the mocha shade of my skin, the dramatic arch of my eyebrows, and our shared, silly smile.

I was better than a picture to her, she said, but I doubted she
really
remembered Dad towards the end. Most of that time was still a blacked out blur to her.
Another life
.

She didn’t even remember the day Dad died.

I did.

Mom gave me a kiss on the cheek. I shrugged her away as I nearly tipped the cookies and coffee.

“I’ll be right back,” I said. “Just dropping this off.”

“You brought cookies!” Susan, one of the youth group troop moms clapped her hands. “Your mom was right. What a blessing you are, coming home and helping her and us like this!”

Now I wished I had baked a cake. I offered her a cookie and passed the tray around as she murmured her praise. The leader of the woman’s group, Judy Galbraith, scrunched her nose and gave me a sheperding smile. She loved cookies almost as much as she enjoyed moderating the parish’s drama, and, as head of four separate organizations, she earned plenty of both.

“Oh, what a sweetheart.” Judy seemed relieved to have another Thomas to address. “Look at you. Getting involved in your community. Just like your…mother.”

I recognized the tone. I would have thought a redeemed member of the parish would be welcomed home. Mom wanted so much to join the groups and sing the praises and help the community that she sometimes forgot just why she’d left in the first place. St. Cecilia’s didn’t. The collective memory was a little too long.

They all meant to do the right thing, but their philosophies sometimes did more harm than good. To them, some people belonged in the community. Others were remembered as lying in the gutter when the parish offered a blanket and a few dollars. Mom insisted on giving back, and the women had no idea how to accept her gratitude.

I set the cookies and coffee on the table, and two women stole me away. I recognized their giggles. One perk of returning home after attending a college across the country was the high-school reunion with old friends.

Of course, the two giggling women who welcomed me home weren’t the…established members of the church. Last I saw them, they owned the cool kids’ section of the choir. Alyssa and Samantha had stayed in the area after high school, attending the local Catholic college in the city. Neither had changed. Alyssa dyed her hair a brighter shade of blonde, and Samantha still didn’t fasten the top two buttons on her blouse. But it was nice to have friends my age in the church. My generation rarely stayed in the congregation once they were able to order a drink at the bar.

“We really ought to start making the coffee Irish around here.” Alyssa dumped four sugars into her cup. “Even Jesus brought wine wherever he went.”

Samantha giggled. “Could you imagine these old bitties drinking on a weeknight—or at all?”

I said nothing. It was still too easy to remember Mom drinking at all hours of the day. I glanced at her, hooting at her own joke with Judy and Susan. The program’s chip, the year-long declaration of sobriety, hung around her neck.

“You don’t often come to these meetings, Honor,” Alyssa said. “Don’t tell me you’re bored now that you’re home.”

“I wish,” I said. “This summer is killing me. I don’t have time to be bored. I’m taking three classes to make up for the credits that didn’t transfer, and I need to do a ton of community service. Plus I’m trying to get a couple extra hours of work in each week. But you know how it is.”

They didn’t. Both Alyssa and Samantha were endowed with more than what they stuffed into their size-too-small blouses. Their trust funds grew by the hour.

I nibbled on a cookie. “Besides, Mom wanted me to come. She said it’d be…fun.”

That wasn’t quite it. Mom asked for me to join her so that we might
experience life together
. It was part of her programs and therapies, and it was a good way to get to know my new, sober mother. I thought it’d be easier when we were in a group. Less pressure that way. Fewer questions.

Not as many awkward silences.

I didn’t trust my friends’ eager giggles and glances to the door. “So…why are you guys helping the woman’s group? I thought you hated most of these church functions?”

“Oh…” Samantha bit her lip and gave Alyssa a side-long glance. “We have our reasons.”

“Solemn reasons,” Alyssa agreed.

Samantha sighed. “And brooding.”

“Very brooding. And
so
worth the hour or two a week.”

“Three if you count Mass.”

“Six or more if we do the festival.”

I counted with them but had no idea what they meant. “Well, that’s a lot of church activities…”

Alyssa twisted her finger in a lock of spiraling blonde hair. “Oh, come on. Like you don’t know.”

I shrugged.

“
Daddy El
?”

How long had I fallen from grace? Was I missing
another
new phrase? It was hard enough remembering
And with your spirit
, but as far as I knew, the Vatican hadn’t changed anything else. All the lessons taught by the church were set in stone—or papyrus—centuries ago.

“Daddy El?” I asked.

Samantha rolled her eyes. “Daddy El? Father Rapha
el
? Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed him.”

Oh
.

I shuddered, wishing my heart would beat steadily instead of flaring to life in a dramatic rush every time his name was mentioned.

“I don’t know…” I said.

Alyssa’s smile was wicked and completely unapologetic. “Oh, Daddy El. He brings out the Mary Magdalene in me. Don’t tell me you haven’t looked.”

“I don’t…we can’t think about him like
that
.”

“Why not? He’s absolutely
divine
,” she teased. “Those dark eyes? His voice. God. I could listen to him preach for hours.”

Samantha gave a wiggle. “He’s the best thing that’s happened to Mass since Vatican II.”

They laughed. I forced a smile, but I didn’t
dare
indulge in speaking of him that way, thinking of his eyes, his commanding voice that had demanded my confession and so much more.

It wasn’t harmless fun. I feared my desires had become a dark obsession.

I couldn’t
stop
thinking of Father Raphael, and he wasn’t just a danger to my fleeting attention span. Surrendering to any indecent, wicked, or alluring thoughts of him would only unravel me more.

I was better than this. Stronger. I vowed to fight that attraction.

So why did my skin pickle as they giggled over his name? I silently chastised them, but the true shame centered solely within me.

“Yesterday?” Samantha lowered her voice, hiding her lips behind her coffee cup. “He played basketball in the courtyard with the youth group.”

“In the cassock?” Alyssa’s eyes widened.

“And
sunglasses
,” Samantha said.

“Oh, that man. Nothing is as sexy as the cassock, but under those robes? He’s totally ripped. Who’d have thought a priest would put so much effort into his appearance.”

Samantha winked. “Our body is a temple.”

“I’d worship his all night.”

“What a waste.”

I bit through the cookie so hard I was lucky I didn’t shatter a tooth. Father Raphael’s cassock symbolized something impenetrable and mysterious and
intimidating.
It hid what was once the man and presented only the priest.

And they were right. It was unbelievably sexy.

I shrugged. “It’s certainly…formal.”

“He says he likes it that way,” Alyssa whispered. “He’s strict about almost everything, including his presentation.”

“Wonder if he’s strict in other places besides the church?” Samantha asked.

“I bet he has other uses for that cincture around his waist.”

Thoughts blinded me. Desperate, unholy images of silks and bindings, bodies and heat.

“We really shouldn’t…” I didn’t even want to speak it aloud. “He’s a
priest
.”

Alyssa laughed. “So what? Priests are like the Queen’s guards in England. They’re not allowed to react. You can do anything you wanted to Daddy El, and he couldn’t flirt back.”

“I don’t think that’s true—”

“You know what she needs?” Samantha winked. “Honor should spend more time at St. Cecilia’s.”

Oh, I knew what they wanted. I wagged a finger. “I already said I couldn’t.”

“Come
on
. The choir was so much more fun in high school. Now everyone’s moved on and gone to college. It’s not the same.” Alyssa pouted. “And you used to love to sing. It’s perfect. You moved home just in time to form our trio.”

Samantha didn’t let me protest. “It’s settled. You’re in. Auditions are later this week for the competitive group. You
have
to do that too. During the summer festival, we’re holding a Battle of the Choirs. We thought it was kinda lame at first, but Daddy El is excited about it. He wanted to start a new tradition, and he’s already talked to a bunch of other parishes to participate.”

Alyssa bit her lip. “It’s a chance to make him proud. He can show us off to the other churches.”

Yes, exactly what Jesus would do. “I don’t know. My college’s choir wasn’t really formal, and I think the director was just fulfilling some sort of court mandated—”

“The choir?” Mom spoke loud enough to ensure all the women heard her. “Oh, my baby has the sweetest voice. Absolutely heavenly. Go on, honey. Join the choir. You loved it when you were little.”

True, but I had also loved the opportunity to leave the house when I was young.

The women took their seats as Judy cleared her throat with the expectation of quiet. Mom missed the hint. She pulled me into the seat next to her and took my hand, squeezing it with a smile so wide and
proud
.