Priest

by Sierra Simone

  I confessed right there in Jordan’s living room. It was fucking miserable.

  Unsure of where to start or how to explain it all, I simply told him about the first day I’d met Poppy. The day I’d only heard her voice. How breathy it was, how layered with uncertainty and pain. And then the story unspooled from there—all the lust, all the guilt, all the thousands of tiny ways I’d fallen in love, and all the thousands of tiny ways I’d crept away from being a priest. I told him about calling Bishop Bove, about my handmade bouquet. And then I told him about Sterling and the kiss, and how it was as if every fear and paranoia I’d ever had about them had been birthed into something monstrous and snarling. Infidelity was terrible, but how much worse was infidelity when you’d suspected all along that there was something between the two parties? My brain wouldn’t stop screaming at me that I should have known better, I should have known, and what had I expected to happen? Had I really expected a happy ending? No relationship with such a sinful start could lead to happiness. That much I knew now.

  Jordan listened patiently the entire time, his face devoid of any judgment or disgust. Sometimes his eyes were closed, and I wondered what else he was hearing besides my voice—who else, rather—but I found I no longer had the energy to care about anything, even my own story, which ground to a slow, painful halt after I got to the part where I found Sterling and Poppy. What else was there for me to say? What else was there for me to feel?

  I buried my head in my hands, but not to cry—anger and grief still hovered elusively out of reach—there was only shock and emptiness, the blank stunned feeling one might have after stumbling out of a war zone.

  I breathed in and out through my palms, and Jordan’s voice drifted in, like it was coming from someplace remote, even though we were sitting close enough that our knees touched.

  “Do you truly love her?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said into my hands.

  “And do you think it’s over between you?”

  I took a moment to answer, not because I didn’t know, but because the words were so hard to speak. “I don’t see how it can’t be. She wants to be with Sterling. She’s made that abundantly clear.” Of course, if she showed up on Jordan’s doorstep, I’d take her into my arms without a single word.

  Less the unconditional love of God than the keening need of an addict.

  “Without her…” Jordan met my eyes. “Do you think you still want to leave the priesthood?”

  Jordan’s question hit me with the force of a cannon. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted now. I mean, I’d never wanted to be with a woman rather than be a priest, I’d wanted to be with Poppy rather than be a priest. I didn’t want the freedom to fuck, I wanted the freedom to fuck her. I didn’t want a family, I wanted a family with her.

  And if I couldn’t have her, then I didn’t want this other life. I wanted God, and I wanted things the way they were.

  I supposed I could call the bishop and explain and hope that he would allow me to stay in the clergy. It would be hard to stay in Weston, knowing Poppy was there too, seeing all the places we’d been together, but then again, at least I’d have my parish and my missions to fill my time. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded—at least I could keep a sliver of my life the way it was. I could keep my vocation, even if I lost my heart.

  “I don’t think I still want to leave,” I answered.

  Jordan was quiet for a minute. “Are you ready for your penance?”

  I nodded, still not bothering to lift my head.

  “You will offer God one day in its entirety, a day of complete and utter companionship with him. He wants to talk with you, Tyler. He wants to be with you in this time of suffering and confusion, and you should not shut Him out in your grief.”

  “No,” I mumbled. “That penance isn’t enough. I need something more—I deserve something harder, something worse…”

  “Like what? A hair shirt? Walking barefoot for three months? A thorough self-scourging?”

  I looked up, so I could glare at him. “I’m not being funny.”

  “Neither am I. You came to me for absolution and I’m giving it—along with God’s message for you. In fact, this day of penance should be tomorrow. Stay here with me tonight, and no matter what happens, you spend tomorrow here. You’ll have the church to yourself after the morning Mass, so plenty of time and space to pray.”

  Jordan’s face was as it always was—calm and beatific at the same time—and I knew without a doubt that he was right. A day of reflection after the heady exhilaration of the past three months was no small thing for me to muster, and it was also the exact thing I needed. It would be painful, to spend hours examining myself honestly and conversing openly with God, but necessary things are often painful.

  “You’re right,” I conceded. “Okay.”

  Jordan nodded, and he said a quiet prayer of absolution, and then we sat in silence for a few minutes. Most people were uncomfortable with silence, but Jordan wasn’t—he was at home in it. At home with himself. And that made it slightly easier to be with myself, even with all the unfelt feelings still looming above me.

  At least until the phone rang.

  Jarred out of our reverie, we both stared at Jordan’s phone on his kitchen counter. By this point, it was almost two in the morning, and Jordan stood quickly, because phone calls at this time of night were generally of the bad kind—car crashes, unexpected turns for the worse, hospice patients finally gasping their last breaths. The kinds of things where people needed their priest by their side.

  I watched him answer the phone, silently saying a prayer that nobody was seriously hurt—a prayer purely out of habit, words spoken from rote—and then watched as his eyes flicked over to me.

  “Yes, he’s with me,” Jordan said quietly, and my heart started beating in erratic staccato thumps, because it couldn’t be Poppy, it couldn’t be, but what if it was?

  Oh God, what I would give if it were.

  “Of course, just a moment,” Jordan said and handed the phone to me. “It’s the bishop,” he whispered.

  My heart stopped beating then, plummeting down into my stomach. The bishop at two in the morning?

  “Hello?” I said into the phone.

  “Tyler,” and all it took was that one word for me to know that something was deeply, troublingly wrong, because I had never heard my mentor sound this upset. Could it simply be about me quitting?

  “About that voicemail,” I said, “I’m so sorry for not waiting to speak to you properly. And now that I’ve had some time to think, I’m not sure that I do want to leave the clergy. I understand that I have a lot to explain and a lot to atone for, but things have changed for me today, and—”

  The bishop’s voice was heavy as he interrupted me. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid that some other things have come to light…rather publicly, I’m afraid.”

  Shit. “What things?”

  “I tried calling you all day, and I called your parents and some of your parishioners, but no one knew where you were, and it wasn’t until tonight that I thought you might have gone to your confessor.”

  It felt like he was stalling, like he was hesitant to tell me about whatever happened, but I had to know. “Bishop, please.”

  He sighed. “Some pictures were released. On social media. You and a woman—your parishioner, I believe, Poppy Danforth.”

  The pictures. The ones Sterling had blackmailed me with.

  I knew that I was in serious trouble, that Sterling had made good on his promise and burned my life down, but at the moment, the chief thing that stuck out was the sound of Poppy’s name on someone else’s lips, as if her name spoken aloud was an incantation, and it was that incantation that finally ripped me open, punched a hole in my chest like bullet going through a pop can.

  Tears started rolling down my face, hot and fast, but I managed to keep my voice steady. “Okay.”

  “Okay, as in you already know about these pictures?”

  “Yes,�
�� I managed.

  “Dammit, Tyler,” the bishop swore. “Just—dammit.”

  “I know.” I was actively crying now and then something was nudged into my hand. A tumbler of Scotch, amber-colored and with a single spherical ice cube in the middle. Jordan was standing over me, and he nodded his head at the glass.

  Things were bad indeed if Jordan Brady was giving me a drink. I wouldn’t have even guessed he owned a single bottle of liquor to begin with.

  “Tyler…” the bishop said “…I don’t want to have to fire you.”

  His meaning was clear. He wanted me to quit. It will be that much cleaner for the press releases, I thought. The repentant priest who had already turned himself in made a much better byline than the sexually rapacious priest who had to be fired.

  “Are those my only two choices? Quit or be fired?”

  “I suppose…if the relationship were over—”

  “It is.”

  “—there would have to be discipline and definitely relocation—”

  I’d expected this, but the confirmation gutted me. I’d have to move. A new parish, new faces, all while the old parish had to sort through a rumor-cloud of my sins. No matter what, no matter if everything else went perfectly, I’d still lost this. My parish. My people.

  My fault.

  “—and even then, I don’t know how the cardinal would feel about this, Tyler.” The bishop sounded tired, but also something else—loving. It was deep in the timber of his voice. He loved me, and that made me feel even more deeply, unhappily ashamed to be having this conversation with him. “If you are truly committed to staying in the clergy, then we will figure out the next steps.”

  I didn’t feel relieved by this, possibly because I was still so unsure of what I wanted, but I said, “Thank you,” anyway, because I knew what a giant clusterfuck I’d created for the archdiocese, and I knew even thinking of staying in the clergy would make it worse.

  “Let’s talk tomorrow evening,” the bishop said. “Until then, please don’t talk to the press or even go online—there’s no sense in complicating things until we know for sure where we’re headed.”

  We said goodnight and clicked off the phone, and then I drained my Scotch and fell into a dreamless sleep on Jordan’s hard, unwelcoming couch.

  I went to Jordan’s Mass early the next morning, which was substantially better attended than my own morning Masses back home. I had called Millie the moment I woke up, to tell her where I was and how to get a hold of me. Millie—who surfed reddit and tumblr even more than I did—already knew about the pictures, but she didn’t say I told you so, she didn’t sound hateful, and so I had hope that she’d forgiven me in her own cranky way. She’d also volunteered to post a sign on the door, saying that office hours and weekday Masses were temporarily suspended, and so, with my church matters taken care of for the moment, I could focus on the here and now.

  Although I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you seen Poppy?” before we hung up, hating myself as I did.

  Millie seemed to understand. “No. In fact, her car hasn’t been in her driveway since last night.”

  “Okay,” I said, heavily and tiredly, not sure how I felt about this news. What I did know was that it did not improve the feeling that there was a giant crater where my heart should be.

  “Father, please take care of yourself. No matter what, the parish loves you,” she said, and I wanted so much for those words to be true, but how could they be after I’d ruined everything?

  After Mass, I had the sanctuary to myself. Jordan’s church was old—more than a hundred years old—and made almost purely of stone and stained glass. No old red carpet here, no faux-wood siding. It felt like a real church, ancient and echoing, the kind of place where the Holy Spirit would hover, like an invisible mist, sparkling among the rafters.

  Poppy would love it here.

  I was shaky and empty-feeling from crying last night, like my soul had been poured out of me along with my tears. I should kneel, I knew, I should kneel and close my eyes and bow my head, but instead, I laid down on one of the pews. It was made of unforgiving wood, hard and cold, but I didn’t have the energy to support myself for a moment longer, and so I stayed there, blinking sightlessly at the back of the pew in front of me with its missals and attendance cards and tiny, dull golf pencils.

  Tell me what to do, God.

  I guessed that a part of me had hoped that I would wake up and it would all be some terrible nightmare, some hallucination brought forth to test my faith, but no, it wasn’t. I really had caught Poppy and Sterling together yesterday. I really had fallen in love just to have the shit kicked out of me (by the very woman I’d wanted to marry.)

  Do I leave the clergy and hope Poppy will take me back? Do I try to find her? Talk to her? And what’s the best thing for the Church—for me to stay? Is the Church more important than Poppy?

  There was nothing. The distant roar of city traffic outside, the dim light glinting dully off the wood of the pew.

  I don’t even get an air conditioner now? Now? Of all the times, now is when I get nothing?

  I was quite aware I was being petulant, but I didn’t care. Even Jacob had to wrestle his blessing out of God, so if I had to pout my way into one, I would.

  Except I was tired. And empty. I couldn’t keep whining, even if I wanted to, so instead my thoughts wandered, my prayers becoming aimless—wordless even—as I simply just contemplated where I found myself. Here in a church that wasn’t my own, alone and wounded. I’d brought harm to my parish through my actions and had betrayed the trust of my bishop and my parishioners—the thing I had tried the hardest not to do since becoming a priest.

  I’d failed.

  I’d failed as a priest and as a man and as a friend.

  I stared at the stone floor, blinking slowly in the silence. So would I stay? Would remaining a priest be the best way to atone? Would that be the best for the church? For my soul? Quitting now, not on my own terms, felt like a petulant act of self-hatred, an I screw everything up, so I quit kind of act, and whatever decision I made about my future, it had to come from someplace other than that.

  It had to come from God.

  Unfortunately, He didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood today.

  Maybe the real question was, could I still imagine life without the priesthood and without Poppy? I’d decided to quit because of my love for her, but once I had made the decision, I had felt all these other potential futures rolling out in front of me—inspiring, intoxicating, invigorating futures. There were so many ways I could serve God, and what if that was what all of this was about? Not about bringing me and Poppy together, but about nudging me out of the comfortable bubble I’d created for myself? A bubble where I could only do so much, and I would always have an excuse for not dreaming bigger and better, a bubble where it was easy to cultivate stasis and stagnation in the name of humble service.

  So many of the things I’d wanted to do when I was younger—things like Poppy had done, such as extended mission trips—had become impossible once I’d settled into a parish. But if I were free, I could go fight famine in Ethiopia or spend a summer teaching English in Belarus or dig wells in Kenya. I could go anywhere, anytime.

  With anyone.

  Well, not anyone. Because when I closed my eyes and summoned the dusty plains of Pokot or the forests of Belarus and lost myself into wordless fantasies of the future, there was only one person I imagined beside me. Someone short and slender, with dark hair and red lips. Carrying water with me, or maybe it was fresh notebooks for the children, or maybe it was just her sunglasses as we laced fingers to walk to a community meeting together. Maybe she was in the hammock above me, where I could see the diamond-shaped trace works the hammock had made on her skin, or maybe we were sharing a stark, unheated dorm together, curled like twin commas on a hard bed.

  But wherever we were, we were helping people. In the kind of direct, physical—sometimes intimate—ways that Jesus had helped people. Healing the sick wi
th his hands, curing the blind with mud and saliva. Getting his hands dirty, his sandals dusty. That was one of the real differences between Jesus and the Pharisees, wasn’t it? One went out among the people and the others stayed indoors, arguing over yellowing scrolls while their people were casually brutalized by an indifferent empire.

  I remembered the moment I’d chosen to be a priest, the excitement, the burning anticipation I’d felt. And I felt it now, like the brushing of dove’s wings and a baptism of fire all at the same time, because it was becoming clear. Not just clear, but obvious.

  I sat up.

  God wanted me in the real world and in the midst of the ordinary lives of His people. Maybe the plans He had for Tyler Bell were so much more exciting and wonderful than I’d ever counted on.

  Is this what You want? I asked. For me to leave—not for Poppy, not for the bishop, but for me? For You?

  And the word came into my mind with a calm, resonant authority.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  It was time for me to stop. Time for me to leave my life as a priest.

  Here was the answer I’d wanted, the path I had asked for, except it wasn’t really what I had asked for, because before, I’d been asking the wrong question.

  This time there was nothing showy—no burning bushes, no tingly feelings, no beams of sunlight. There was only a quiet, contemplative peace, and the knowledge that my feet were now pointed to the path. I only had to take the first step.

  And when I called the bishop later that night to tell him my decision, my newfound peace remained. We both knew that it was the right decision—for me and for the church—and just like that, my life as a priest, as Father Tyler Bell, came to a subdued and solemn end.

  That next weekend was Irish Fest, and I’d already said goodbye to my parishioners and cleared out the rectory, so there was no reason for me to drive up there, even though I hated missing out on the kickoff for the church’s fundraiser.

  “Afraid they’ll stone you?” Sean said when I mentioned I wasn’t going. (I was staying with him until I found a place of my own.)