Beauty and the Blitz (39 page)

I couldn’t take it. I wasn’t cleansed. I hadn’t confessed. To celebrate communion would only cause further sins.

I clenched my jaw and broke it again. Smaller.

The congregation didn’t notice. Maybe they wouldn’t see my shame.

I mimed the motion, pretending to take the Host upon my tongue. I drew the chalice to my lips but refused to taste the wine.

Did anyone notice?

I glanced over the pews. None whispered. No one thought any differently of the motions, my prayers, my
guilt
. Hardly anyone paid attention.

Only one person saw what I had done.

Honor looked away the instant our eyes met.

My heart had opened for her. Now it shattered.

If she asked, I’d have forgiven her. The question remained. Could I forgive myself?

That answer wrenched from the depths of my crumbling soul.

No
.

Mass ended in praise and song, announcements and a few pleas for more volunteers for the Summer Festival. Deacon Smith praised the current volunteers. Apparently they had signed more vendors and brought more food, games, and activities into the parish.

They thanked Honor Thomas especially for her tireless work, and then the faithful filed out.

One ceremony done. One more to go, the Mass at noon. Larger than the early morning one.

How was I to get through another ceremony?

I had an hour to prepare, and I stripped of the alb and chasuble to collapse at my desk. My rosaries hadn’t offered me comfort last night. They weighed heavier in my hand now.

The knock was soft, too light and patient for Deacon Smith. I looked up as the door opened.

I’d expected her.

Honor dressed in black for the choir, a simple and modest skirt and long-sleeved shirt that hid everything I had cherished last night. Her hair was loose. For some priests, in some Masses, we asked woman to wear a scarf over their hair. Not in my church. Honor’s ebony curls bounced, soft and perfect over her delicate form. She looked no less holy, no less
innocent
than she had while resting in my bed.

She didn’t let me speak. She came forward, holding her fist out to me.

Her fingers unclenched.

The communion wafer waited in her palm.

“I’m sorry, Father Rafe,” she whispered. “I couldn’t. Deacon Smith handed them to the entire choir, and I would have made a scene if I refused. I didn’t know what to do.”

My voice rasped, hoarse, a harsh and graveled sound. The same tone I took with her in bed. The grunted and masculine dominion over her.

“You aren’t supposed to take that,” I said.

“I know.”

I had options. Return it to the tabernacle. Use it in the next service. The body of the Lord wasn’t something that could or should be smooshed within the penitent hand. But I knew what I was to do.

I took her palm, pulling it close. Her heat stirred me once more, and I caressed her fingers in mine. I murmured the blessing and took the wafer in my mouth, allowing it to dissolve upon my tongue as I was permitted to do.

A crumb remained on her hand.

I drew her fingers to my mouth and kissed her skin.

She trembled.

“Honor—”

My angel ripped her hand from mine and bolted from my office.

I hated to swear, hated the vulgar words and profane meanings, and yet nothing expressed my frustration more. I bit my tongue and clutched my rosaries before my temper overwhelmed me.

No.

Not temper.

Guilt
.

Hell wasn’t a place or an idea. It was guilt. The realization of my sins and of the sins I’d committed against those innocent to my desires.

And yet, even as I stood, even as I dressed for the second Mass and prepared myself to lead yet another ceremony, my mind raced with the guilty thoughts.

Not for what I had done.

Not for the vows I broke.

Not for the woman I lost.

But because no matter what prayers I whispered or confessions I gave, I’d never forget last night.

She was a sin I would never regret.

“
I
really hope
Jesus is tone-deaf.”

Alyssa declared it after a particularly poor rendition of the
Alleluia
. Deacon Smith shushed her.

Samantha giggled. “Was that blasphemous?”

God only knew. Everything was a sin—or at least, it looked that way to a sinner.

“Look, guys.” Deacon Smith sighed. “We have three weeks until the festival. Can we
please
pick a song so that we can practice said song so we aren’t humiliated at our own Battle of the Choirs? You know. The one
we
organized?”

Alyssa sighed. “I vote
Ava Maria
.”

Deacon Smith would pop a vein. “
Everyone
will sing
Ava Maria
! We need something stellar. Something that will really show up those other choirs.”

Samantha giggled. “Amen.”

I couldn’t fault Deacon Smith. We rehearsed a dozen different songs, but nothing felt right. And our latest piece was scrapped after we encountered a bit of…competition.

“This is getting real,” I said. “The other churches we invited? They’re taking it a little too seriously.” I crinkled the paper in my hand. “The Lutheran Church down the road just
stapled
their set-list to our doors.”

Most of the choir groaned and laughed.

Samantha tilted her head. “I don’t get it?”

Deacon Smith smacked the piano and ordered us to open our hymnals again. “We just need more practice. I’m thinking of scheduling another night.”

The choir grumbled. I opened my phone’s calendar. Every day had an event or a crisis or a class or a job of some sort. Women’s group. Choir practice. Festival organization. Food Pantry. Classes. Part-time hours I’d begged to work at the library for extra money.

Mass.

Four days had passed since my night with Father Rafe and the Mass that followed. I tried not to think of the passionate moments I’d spent in his arms, but my memories burned for him. I closed my eyes and saw his body. I knelt in prayer and remembered his touch. I sang, and I felt the press of his lips against mine.

Lust had blinded me to everything but him, and longed for more. He had filled me so impossibly, so perfect that without him I suffered in a terrible loneliness.

No penance was this cruel.

Deacon Smith clapped his hands, and everyone stood.

Uh-oh. Had he been talking?

Yes.

I stood in my place and tried to peek into the hymnals of those near me. No dice. I’d have to guess.

“Let’s try again.” Deacon Smith counted off the song. He gestured for us to hold the first note before moving to the next chord of the song.

I sang a perfect C. Everyone else started on an A#.

And
that
sounded unholy.

“Whoa.” Deacon Smith blinked. “Honor, what song are you singing?”

“I…” My mind blanked. “
Amazing Grace
?”

“Yeah…” Alyssa snorted. “We’re on
Mary The Dawn
. What’s gotten into you?”

Good question.

The choir groaned. After I sang another three ear-piercing mistakes, the cell-phones whipped out and everyone whined for a break. Deacon Smith finally relented, giving us fifteen to banished whatever it was that keyed us so out of tune.

It was me.

Alyssa and Samantha collapsed in the pews, but they waved me over with a smirk.

“Part of me almost wants to do badly at the festival,” Alyssa said. “Just so I could repent with Daddy El in private.”

Samantha shook her head. “Not me. Daddy El’s been a bit too grumpy lately. I’d rather be the one who makes him smile again. I hate to disappoint him.”

I did too. And I feared I had in the best possible way.

“Why are you so quiet?” Alyssa offered me a licorice whip from her bag of snacks. I took it, but I forgot to take a bite. “You’ve been weird all night.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just running myself ragged.”

“No wonder. You’re acting like a little Mary. Save some good works for the rest of us.”

No faith or works would save me now. “Just trying to stay busy.”

Samantha dug through the snacks until she found the Skittles. “Even God rested on the seventh day.”

But I hated to think what would happen if I finally rested, let my guard down, realized the truth of what I’d done.

“Hey…” Samantha tossed a Skittle at me. It thunked off my forehead. “Everything okay?”

I frowned and bent to pick up the candy before Father Raphael had a fit that we were eating in the sanctuary. “I’m fine.”

My friends shared a worrisome glance. Alyssa leaned close, her voice low.

“Is this about your Mom?”

I stiffened. Samantha touched my arm.

What was going on?

“What about my mom?” I asked.

“You know…” Alyssa shrugged.

I didn’t.

“In the bathroom?” she asked. “After the women’s group meeting?”

I slowly shook my head. Samantha smacked Alyssa’s arm, and they both silenced.

No, no, no. They weren’t keeping this from me. My chest tightened, but I didn’t let it show.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It was nothing.” Alyssa faked touching-up her perfect ponytail.

Samantha downed a fistful of Skittles to avoid talking. “Yeah. It was probably just an aspirin.”

Now I did panic. My jaw tensed so much it popped, and I clutched the pew with trembling fingers.

“What are you talking about?”

Samantha twisted her fingers in her skirt—too inappropriate for the church and entirely too short for anything that would tempt Father Raphael. “Okay.
Some
of the women said they saw your mom take a pill in the bathroom after the women’s meeting.”

Oh God.

She rambled a little too fast. “But they didn’t know what it was. And your mom scooted out of there pretty quick once the others came in.”

My stomach pitted. “Have they…told anyone?”

Alyssa looked sheepish. “It’s nothing. Things have been pretty boring around here, and you know how these old ladies get. It was just gossip.”

Gossip that would turn us homeless.

The help we received from the charities were only offered to those who were clean. Recovering.
If Mom had started using again…

But she wasn’t.

I’d have known. I’d have seen it. Heard it in the slur of her speech. She still felt like the clean and sober stranger in our home, not the lazy and disjointed mother I remembered.

I hoped.

I hadn’t been paying that close of attention. And I had been busy, running back and forth between classes and meetings and work and volunteering. I was hardly at home, even though I’d specifically returned to help her.

And I
hadn’t
.

I’d been home for
two
months, and I hadn’t done a blessed thing for her besides cleaning the apartment, organizing the bills, and begging favors from others so I wouldn’t have to help her myself.

I clutched my phone and stood. “I…I’ll be back.”

“Wait,” Alyssa said. “I’m sorry. Really. It was probably nothing.”

Or it might have been something.

I escaped the sanctuary, and my heels clipped against the stone. I didn’t escape through the front of the church. I darted out the side entrance, into the back of St. Cecilia’s second lot. The corner property was large enough for picnics and events—or for an entire festival that was coming too fast.

I followed the path to the shrine surrounded by meticulously trimmed roses blossoming around a bench. The Mary garden was a small section of earth tended for the Holy Mother, where the remnants of the communion wine was often poured after Mass.

I plunked onto the bench, breathing in the cool night air. His footsteps carried behind me. I recognized them, and that only made the guilt worse.

I didn’t look at him.

“Do you think Mary ever embarrassed Jesus?” I asked. “One of those
mom
moments?”

Father Raphael hadn’t expected the question, but he thought only for a few silent seconds.

“I think everyone has
mom
moments.”

“Some are worse than others.”

“Do you remember the story of when he was a boy, and he was lost for three days in Jerusalem? Mary found him sitting in the temple with the other teachers.”

“Yeah.”

“It wasn’t written, but…” He smirked. “I bet she had some choice words for him in front of the rabbis before she dragged him away.”

I shrugged. This was a different humiliation. Not the imagined scoldings of a worried mother, but the pained revelation of a hurt daughter.

Mom wouldn’t give up her sobriety.

Would she?

“Honor, what happened?”

I didn’t look up as he approached. “Do you think we’re being punished?”

“Why would you think that?”

“I deserve it.”

“Do you?” His voice lowered to the wonderful and soothing growl I expected from him.

The night pressed close around us, darker yet with the sway of his black robes. I feared looking at him, wondering if I would see the proud priest cloaked in humility or the sensual man, naked and fierce, tattooed with his faith.

“I won’t confess to anything, Father Rafe.”

“What happened…what I did to you, it was…”

I expected him to feel this way. “Don’t mourn for my virtue. And don’t try to save me.”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t pretend that night didn’t happen.”

His temper was short tonight. He baited me, poised on the edge of his own patience. I turned, facing the same man who had invaded my dreams to comfort me in the time we spent apart.

“Why won’t you let me help you?” He stepped closer. I stood to retreat into the shadows as he loomed over me. “I took your virginity. I’ve left you in a state of sin. I…” He lowered his voice. “I came inside you, Honor.”

“Like a proper Catholic.”

“I’m serious.”

“And I’ll confess to being a little more modern than the teachings.” This was the awkward conversation, but it was good to have. “I’ve been on birth control since high school. It was meant to help regulate my cycle. We didn’t see a problem with it.”

“And the sins mount.” He sighed. “Though this one is prudent.”

“Sorry.”

“Honor, I would apologize to Christ for everything I did, but first I must apologize to you.”

“Why, Father?”

He breathed deep, through gritted teeth. “I’ve ruined you.”

“Again…I’m more modern than that. My virginity was mine to
give
, not a man’s to
take
.”

“Wouldn’t you have preferred to save it? To offer it to someone who could love you, marry you, give you all that you desire?”

He wouldn’t hear my honest answer.

“Instead I seized it. I desecrated it in lust.” His voice lowered. “And if you hadn’t left when you did, I’d have done it again.”

Silence.

I stared at him, trembling. He confessed under the moon, the stars, before me and God and the whole of creation. My voice was a whisper, its own secret and willing admission.

“Father…now that we’ve been together…can you imagine letting me go?”

Silence. He didn’t answer. My soul spoke for us both.

“Can you imagine me with another man? Someone who would hold me as you have? Spoken those words? Kissed me like you did?”

He turned from me. There was my answer.

“Father…can you imagine another man ever taking me as you did?”

I expected his hands, his kiss, the fierce closeness of his grip as he dragged me against his body. Father Raphael kissed me, his tongue stealing my words and transforming the horrible, ugly truths I might have uttered into a soft mew of desire.

“
No
,” he hissed. “I can’t imagine it. I
won’t
. It pains me, my angel. Taking you was a sin, but keeping you will be my final damnation.”

“Then you understand why I can’t confess.” I clung to him, meeting the fire of his gaze and expecting brimstone. I saw only haloes of perfect light, etching him in quiet reflection. “The only sin from that night is regretting anything we did.”

His kiss overwhelmed me once more, and a shared shudder rolled through our bodies. It demanded forgiveness, a peace, a
sanctity
only we could give each other.

“Meet me here tonight.” His words were a solemn command. “Midnight. Promise me, my angel.”

“We can’t.”

“You will meet me here.”

“Why, Father?”

“Because tonight…” He looked upon me with such adoration, such fierce possession, I feared what would happen to my own sanity if I denied him this wicked meeting. “I will restore you, Honor. Tonight…I will show you how truly holy you are.”