The Confessions (5 page)

“Stuart, tell me the truth—if she and I become lovers at some point in the future, would it truly interfere with my ability to be a good priest?”

“Not if you don’t let it. I know far too many Protestant pastors and ministers who are married with children and do God’s work to believe that. There’s a reason the hierarchy is notorious for looking the other way when priests have lovers, but excommunicate those who get married. Half the priests in Rome have lovers—openly. The bishops don’t care who you’re fucking as long as the Church comes first and they can still move you around like a chess piece. You get married and have children? Then the Church isn’t first in your life anymore.”

“Eleanor makes it so easy to wake up in the morning. Knowing there’s the merest chance I’ll see her that day compels me to church knowing at some point that day she’ll be standing in my doorway telling me off about one thing or another. I am lost in my love for her.”

“I want to stop you, find you, bring you back. And yet…” Ballard said, aching with sympathy for Marcus, for himself, for all the priests he knew who were good men who’d chosen the Church over their own hearts. “If I were your age and had it to do all over again…”

“Yes?”

“Well, let’s just say poor Miriam would wear out her knees from a certain activity that is not related to praying.”

“I didn’t need that image in my head.”

“Turnabout is fair play, my boy.”

They talked of other things all the way back to the church. Music mostly. Marcus had been invited to join a chamber orchestra. Ballard had been given tickets to an Aerosmith concert by a friend. Marcus asked him if he knew anything about a band called Pearl Jam. Better guitar-playing than Nirvana, Ballard informed him, but that wasn’t saying much. When they arrived back at church they stood in the narthex by the altar. Ballard lit a candle and raised it in a salute.

“For her. I’ll be praying for her,” Ballard said.

“I thank you on her behalf. I have yet to stop praying for her.”

Marcus lifted a match and lit a candle of his own.

“Who is that for?” Ballard asked.

“Your Miriam,” he said.

Ballard swallowed a sudden lump in his throat. Miriam O’Donnell—red hair, blue eyes, a dirty laugh, a wide smile, and a heart that was born to love him. As much as he’d loved her, when he had to choose, he’d picked the Church over her. As much as he’d pined for her, questioned his choice, wished things had been different, when the time came to look God in the face, Ballard would say if he had to do it over again, he still would have become a priest.

“I dream sometimes about going back in time, marrying her, having children. When I imagine having a son, he’s very much like you,” Ballard said. “Only shorter. Less arrogant. Not blond.”

“So nothing like me then?”

“Not a bit. Now get out of here before I do something foolish like hug you and tell you I’ll always love you no matter what happens.”

“You have to absolve me first. Don’t forget that part.”

“I can’t absolve you until you actually tell me a sin you’ve committed. Wanting to commit a sin isn’t the same as committing one. Tell me something you’re sorry for even if you have to make it up.”

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” Marcus said, and his eyes showed his sincerity. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I’m sorry for any scandal I might cause the Church. But I’m not sorry for finding her and loving her. I will never repent of accepting the gifts God gives me. Even if they do come with strings attached.”

Marcus stood up straight again and took a step forward. Ballard looked up and into his eyes.

“I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he said, blessing the young priest who stood before him.

“Thank you,” Marcus said.

“Don’t thank me. I’m only doing my job.”

“Penance?” Marcus asked.

“No penance.” Ballard gave him a sad and knowing smile. “Something tells me that loving your Eleanor will be penance enough.”

F
ather Stuart Ballard
, S.J., was 81 years old, but even if he were 91, 101, dead, he’d still notice the gams on that gal. He paused in the hallway by the door to the men’s room and stared at the legs in question for a few extra seconds. Anyone who walked past him would assume poor Father Ballard needed to take a little breather.
Getting on in years, wasn’t he?
Well, let them think he was too tired to walk down a long hallway without taking a break. They didn’t need to know he had his eye on the nicest pair of legs he’d seen since the Clinton administration. Funny that no one ever told him when he was a kid that at 81 he’d still feel like a kid. In his mind he might as well have been 21 for the thoughts he had sometimes, especially when confronted with two shapely legs in black stockings and black high heels. He was sure there was a fancy name for the shoes she wore—slingbacks or stilettos or something like that—but it didn’t matter to him what brand they were or what style. He just knew he liked what he saw. Especially since it was late-November and every good pair of legs in the city was hidden under long skirts and boots. A woman who wore high heels in the snow—he liked her already.

Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof
, he prayed the old prayer in his mind.
But only say the word and my soul shall be healed. And while you’re at it,
he added,
say the word and get my mind out of the gutter too, if you would, please.

Father Ballard reminded himself that even ladies with nice legs were beloved children of God deserving of all respect due God’s only Son. With that thought in mind, he straightened up and walked toward the door at the end of the hall. He tried not to look at the woman sitting outside the confessional—at her short skirt, at those legs that could make a man forget a few of the vows he’d taken over the years. Images became thoughts and thoughts became desires and desires became actions. Ah, who was he kidding? He was 81. He could look at a pretty girl if he wanted to and if anyone caught him staring he’d blame it on his old eyes (without mentioning his old eyes could still see 20/20).

“You here for me, Miss?” he asked, after unlocking the door.

She looked up from the book she’d been reading, took off her glasses, and smiled at him. No girl this one. Oh no, this was a woman, a grown woman, and a beautiful grown woman at that. Black hair pinned up in a style he hadn’t seen on a woman since he was a boy, dark eyes, and a full bottom lip that surely had survived its fair share of kisses. He guessed she was in her mid-30s but these days any woman between 30 and 50 looked about the same age to him.

“I think you’re here for me,” she said, gathering her handbag and coat.

“Am I?” he asked.

“Saturday, four o’clock, the sacrament of reconciliation, yes?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Pull up your sins and make yourself at home.”

She followed him into the small room that served as the Church’s confessional. The old two-parter booths weren’t in use much anymore. It wasn’t “confession” so much anymore but “reconciliation.” Priest and penitent sat in chairs facing each other and Stuart had gone to great lengths to make sure his confessional was as comfortable and inviting as possible. Priests liked repeat customers after all.

“Leather chairs,” the lady said, nodding her approval. She ran her hand over the back of the chair, scarlet red fingernails stark against the chocolate brown. “Very nice.”

“Have a seat, please,” he said as he took his chair by the floor lamp. “Oh, could you put the sign on the door first? You can lock the door if you like, but you don’t have to. No one will interrupt.” As she walked to the door, he lit a handful of votive candles on the low altar of the prie-dieu and switched on his iPod.

“Mood music?” she asked. “Never had mood music played during confession before. What do you have there? Gregorian chant? Bach?”

“Enya,” Father Ballard said.

The woman burst out laughing. It was such a wide open laugh that it made him sit up straighter.

She pointed at him and shook her finger. “You surprise me. Takes a lot to do that. Now I have to revise a few mental pictures I had...”

“I like to make my penitents comfortable,” he said. “Plus, it’s pretty, relaxing, and masks our voices. Speaker’s by the door. If anyone wanted to listen to us, all they’d hear is music.”

“I like it,” she said. “I play music during sessions with my clients. It does help them relax. Never Enya though. I’ll try that next time.”

She took the sign off the back of the doorknob, read it, and raised her eyebrow.

“‘Do not disturb’, ” she read the sign. “ ‘Courtesy, The Sauveterre.’ That’s a five-star hotel, Father. What’s a Jesuit priest doing with a hotel sign from a five-star hotel?”

“Stole it,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ve confessed that sin and been absolved.”

“Met your girlfriend there?” she asked as she hung the sign on the outer doorknob. She shut the door and locked it.

“I wish,” he said, watching as she took her seat across from him. He tried not to watch as she crossed her legs.

But he did anyway.

“Yes,” she said with something like sympathy in her voice. “I bet you do.”

“Conference,” he said quickly. “The Ecumenical Council of America met at the Sauveterre three years ago. They asked me to speak there. Free night at a five-star hotel? Couldn’t turn that down, could I? Stole the sign, but I left the towels.”

“Sauveterre—it means ‘safe haven’ in French.”

“That’s where you are right now, dear. A safe haven. You seem to know the Sauve well.”

“Very well,” she said, sitting back in the chair. “I’ve met clients there before.”

“Second time you’ve mentioned clients,” he said. “You’re a therapist?”

“We’ll get to that. Should we begin?”

He looked at her a moment before leaning forward and meeting her gaze again. She looked back at him with wide eyes, a slight smile on her lips, and not a blush to be found on her pale cheeks or a tear in her eyes. If he had to describe this woman’s expression, he might pick “confident” or “fearless”…but if he could choose only one word, he’d probably pick “shameless.” Interesting expression on the face of a woman who was ostensibly here to confess her sins.

“We should begin, yes,” he said. “Let’s pray.”

Obediently she crossed herself, closed her eyes and bowed her head.

“Glory be to the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end,” he said. “Amen.”

“Amen,” she said, crossing herself and raising her head. “I like it better in Latin though.”

“Say it,” he said.

“
Gloria patri
,” she began without a moment’s hesitation, “
et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.”

“Very good.” Father Ballard clapped. “Accent could use some work.”

“Considering Latin’s a dead language, isn’t my guess at an accent as good as anyone’s?”

“Not a bad point. You’re too young to have grown up with the old Latin Rite. Where’d you learn it?”

“My priest,” she said. “He can be a little old school.”

“Nothing wrong with the old school,” he said. “I can be a little old school myself.”

“You’re playing Enya on an iPod Nano in a confessional that looks like a Park Avenue psychotherapist’s office. Leather chairs, candles, and if I’m not mistaken...that’s a bowl of Jolly Ranchers on the table next to you.”

“So I’m a little old school and a little new school. I know Latin, I wear a cassock, but I can still appreciate the power of a little candy to get a nervous child talking.”

“Or a nervous woman?”

“Or that,” he said, passing her the bowl of candy. She took one—cherry—but didn’t eat it. “Although something tells me you aren’t nervous. Am I wrong?”

He set the bowl back down on the table and faced her. Funny, he thought she had dark eyes, dark brown eyes, but now her eyes looked green. Not hazel, no. Real green. Contact lenses? A trick of the light?

“No, not nervous. I’d rather not be here, but here I am.”

“If you don’t want to be here, why are you here?”

“To keep a promise I made to someone,” she said. “I’ve been putting off coming here.”

“Tell me about this promise.”

“My mother died two years ago. On her death bed, she asked me to go to confession and be absolved and reconciled. She was very specific about what sins I needed to confess. So here I am doing as my mother asked. Mom, I hope you’re happy.” She glanced up at the ceiling and shook her head in amusement. Looking up was a good sign. Meant that this lady thought her mother had gone to Heaven.

“I’m very sorry about the loss of your mother. What’s her name? I’ll pray for her.”

“Sister Mary John,” the woman said.

“A nun?”

She nodded. “She joined the Monican Order when I was in my twenties. It had been her lifelong dream. She was happy there. First time in her life she was truly happy.”

“She wasn’t happy before then?”

“No, but a lot of that is my fault. I was a disappointment to her.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe it,” she said. “I’m being unfair really. She got pregnant with me as a teenager and that ended her convent dreams. I suppose she was a disappointment to herself, and I was the living manifestation of that disappointment. But we were...better? I suppose you could say we were better by the end. I knew she loved me. That’s why I made her the promise. My sins weighed very heavily on her.”

“Is this your first confession?”

“Not by a long shot. I have a priest I confess to once every few months.”

“But that wasn’t good enough for your mother?”

“She didn’t like my priest. Thought he was a sinner.”

“Doesn’t matter.
Ex opera operato
. The sacrament works because of Christ and
through
the minister, not
because
of the minister. As long as your priest is a priest, he can administer the sacraments, no matter the sins on his conscience.”

“Mom knew all that. But this case was a little different.”

“How so?”

“Because I’m sleeping with my priest.”

Clients.

Hotel.

Black eyes that turn green.

Black hair.

Shameless.

“Well, well, well,” Stuart said, leaning back in his chair. “We meet at last, don’t we? I have to say...I thought you’d be taller.”

“I get that a lot. I have a tall personality.”

“You are as beautiful as he said you were. I give him credit. To think I accused him of exaggerating. Then again, he’s not so bad himself, is he?”

“If you’re into six-foot-four blond men with perfect faces and asses you can bounce quarters off of.”

“I hope you’re being literal.” He laughed at the image of this lovely lady flicking coins at Marcus’s backside.

“It was a half-dollar actually. I like a challenge.”

“So...” he sat back in his chair again, crossed his ankle over his knee. Usually arthritis prevented him from sitting so casually but he was feeling good today and even better now. “Do I call you Eleanor? Or do you prefer Nora?”

She grinned broadly, brightly, and laughed. “What does he call me?”

“Eleanor.”

“Does he talk about me much?”

He ran his fingers over his lips as if zipping a zipper, then turned the imaginary key in the imaginary lock and threw the key back over his shoulder.

“I know, I know,” she said. “You aren’t allowed to tell me anything Søren said during his confessions. Trust me, I know the rules by now. He and I have been sleeping together, oh...almost eighteen years?”

“Søren. I could never get used to calling him that. He’ll always be Marcus to me.”

“Whereas I can’t imagine calling him Marcus. It’s not his name to me at all. Never has been. He told me his name the day we met.”

“The day you met? Took him years before he told me what his mother named him. By then it was too late—it was Marcus.”

“No, he’s definitely Søren. Good Danish name. Means ‘stern.’ Fitting name.”

“Marcus, from the Roman god of war, Mars. Even more fitting.”

“For a pacifist priest?”

“He’s been at war with his own soul since the night he was born, and you know it.”

She glanced at the orchid on the windowsill, and then raised her hand to touch its fragile petals.

“I know it,” she said softly and lowered her hand.

“And perhaps,” Father Ballard continued, “you have been a casualty in this war?”

“A few cuts and bruises. Nothing fatal.”

“Pressed but not crushed,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“Although…” He paused and narrowed his eyes at her. “Maybe a little crushed?”

“Maybe a little.”

She took a breath and turned to face him again. She crossed her legs and sat back in the chair. They stared at each other.

“Tell me your sins, Eleanor. Let me help you find peace.”