This Gorgeous Game

by Donna Freitas

  The chapel is empty and dark, save for the filtered rays of sun that leave a colorful glow along the ends of the pews, and the occasional station of lit candles, flames flickering.

  My knees begin to ache and I sit back onto the bench, staring at the altar. I try to imagine what I’ve been told all my life is real, that God loved us enough to become human, to be closer to us, to walk among us. That a Catholic priest stands in for this God-become-human among the faithful and is treated like God come down from heaven by them, too. By us. By me. Ever since I was a little girl.

  Though I don’t know that I can count myself among them anymore. The thought of losing this faith, my place in this church that has been with me and everyone I love all my life, feels like facing an earthquake, one that might swallow me into the ground and take me away from Greenie and Luke, my mom. Maybe even Jamie. I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want to betray all of these people. Father MacKinley. It doesn’t seem fair.

  I can’t. It’s unimaginable.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Olivia.”

  I spin around. Sister June is standing in the aisle, watching me.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Her voice is soft. “Can I sit with you awhile?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  Sister June slides into the pew, a rustle of fabric against wood. She doesn’t speak. Just sits near enough that I am aware of her presence. Minutes tick by. I feel the need to explain why I am here. “I needed to think,” I say without turning my head.

  “Is everything okay?” The sound of her voice is quiet amid the vaulted ceilings, the wooden buttresses above.

  “Sure. I think so. Am I not supposed to be here? I know school is technically closed. But I wanted to come to a place where I felt comfortable. Safe. And I ended up here. Are you going to—”

  “I came here to pray. So no.” She turns to me. “I’m not going to tell you to leave.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “Are you?” Her eyes fill with concern. “What are you not telling me, Olivia?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Everything is fine,” I lie. I lie because I just…I have to.

  Sister June’s face fills with skepticism. She puts one sensible, thick rubber-soled shoe onto the kneeler—I always get yelled at for doing that—and crosses her legs, her tan skirt just long enough to cover her calves.

  “Can you hear confessions?” I hear myself asking.

  “It depends how you mean, Olivia,” she says, hands clasped in her lap, eyes turning from me to gaze up at the altar. “You’ve been at Sacred Heart long enough—since when, kindergarten?—to know that only priests can perform the sacraments.”

  “I know, but I thought maybe—”

  “There are no exceptions. We are Catholic, dear.” She chuckles.

  “What if there is something I don’t feel comfortable telling a man? I mean, it doesn’t seem fair that we can only go to priests. There are certain things that I don’t think men can really understand, or be unbiased about.” I stop, before revealing anything more.

  “Technically you are confessing your sins to God when you confess to a priest. But believe me, I know it doesn’t always seem that way. Or ever seem that way.” Sister June sighs. “I try to keep this in mind, though, every time I go to confession—that ultimately whatever I say is between me and God.”

  “I don’t think that will work right now,” I say, and wonder whether Father Mark goes to confession, if he has told anyone what he does, if he goes daily, confessing then getting absolved, confession then absolution, over and over and over and over and over and over so he can do it again, free of guilt. God’s forgiveness at my expense. Wouldn’t his confessor think something is wrong? Do something to stop him from continuing? Or is it that nothing is wrong at all? That it’s only in my head? Maybe Father Mark doesn’t even think about it. Maybe it never occurs to him that he has anything to confess. Maybe I am being melodramatic.

  “Olivia, if there is anything you want to tell me, you can tell me in confidence. I cannot absolve you of whatever it is you want to be free from—I do not have that formal capacity. But I can listen. I am here. I’m not just a teacher or your principal. I minister to anyone in need. I’ve known you since you were small and if anything was wrong, is wrong, I would want you to tell me. I wouldn’t want you to go through anything alone,” she says, turning to face me, the creaking wood loud in the quiet sanctuary. She lays a hand on my shoulder. “No one should ever feel alone in their pain and worry and you are no exception. You are never alone.”

  Tears spring to my eyes and I wipe them away. They leave a wet trail across my cheek.

  “You can always tell God, Olivia. You can pray to God. God is always there for us. I believe that.”

  “What if I don’t want God to know, either? What if I don’t want anyone to know?” My voice is barely audible. A knot expands in my throat.

  “You never have to keep anything from God. I promise. God will love you no matter what. God can help.” A sob.

  “What if God’s the problem? What if it’s God’s fault?”

  “Oh, Olivia. Can’t you tell me what’s wrong? I’m so worried.”

  “I can’t,” I whisper. “It’s probably nothing.”

  With gentle hands Sister June takes both of my shoulders, shifting so she can look straight into my eyes. More tears, big tears, pour down my face and I realize this is the first time I’ve let myself cry over this in front of someone else. “Olivia, I promise you, I promise that I will hear whatever you have to say. No one should bear the burden of our humanity alone. When you are ready to let me share that burden I will help you carry it. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.” I want to believe her but also want to believe that I will never need what she offers.

  “Can I pray for you now? Do you mind if I ask that God grant you help? I know that your faith is wavering but mine is not. I’d like to talk to God for you, okay?”

  I manage a nod. Another sob convulses through my body. Sister June shifts onto the kneeler. I sit, unable to move. She leans into me as her body bends in prayer.

  “God, please grant Olivia the grace she needs to walk through this difficult moment on her journey in this life. Please love Olivia with all the love that You are…” Sister June continues and I listen to her words, try to join her in asking God to intercede on my behalf. As much as Sister June’s faith makes an impression, seeing this woman feel so powerful on behalf of such strong belief, I find I cannot pray with her. I cannot talk to God right now. I cannot utter one word or ask one thing on my behalf.

  But Sister June can. Will. Does.

  I can’t help thinking that it’s God’s fault, it is God who did this, who brought this trouble into my life, this insurmountable problem that won’t go away no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do or don’t do. So instead, I begin to pray, silently, to Sister June, that her words are true. That if I ever decide I want to talk she will be there. That she will not judge me for what I say. Not like God might.

  Not like Him.

  Sister June and I sit there a long time, how long I have no idea. When I get up to leave she grabs my hand, squeezing it, as if she isn’t ready for me to leave. As if she’s waiting for something, waiting for me to say something. Eventually, after a while, she lets go, she lets me go and I walk up the aisle and through the doors and back out into the blistering July day.

  ON GIVING IN

  “OLIVIA…OLIVIA…OLIVIA!”

  I am deaf. The voice falls on deaf ears. I make myself deaf to his voice. I can’t believe this. This is not happening.

  “Olivia!” Oh-liv-ee-aah!

  He must have waited for me outside the chapel.

  And now he is following me home.

  He won’t give up.

  As if the kiss wasn’t bad enough.

  I refuse to turn around. I keep walking because I will not stop. Please. Don’t. Make. Me. The sun’s heat pulses in the hazy sky.

  Footstep
s thump behind me. Thump quickly. Thump, thump, thump.

  “Olivia!” He is screaming. My name from his lips appears in the air, hangs there, big, loud, suspended for a moment, then disappears. Again and again, my name.

  And this time, this time, I begin to run.

  I run away from the writer I once idolized, as if he is no one special. I conjure the walls between us layered with vows, authority, professional obligations between professor and student, priest and girl. So many barriers. Sacred barriers, barriers not meant to be crossed, real and powerful. When I glance backward, see that he is still behind me, I pick up my pace, run so fast that my lungs scream in protest but I do not slow until I am all the way home, and the sight of our town house has never seemed so welcoming as it does now, and I am almost there. One foot in front of the other. I turn inside the gate, taking the front steps two at a time, and soon I am inside. Shut the door behind me and lean against it. Click goes the lock. Home safe.

  “Olivia, is that you?” Mom calls out from the kitchen.

  I go upstairs and into my room without answering her. I close the curtains, one by one, and my room blooms giant, exuberant red and pink peonies, the sun a soft rosy glow through the fabric. I lie down on the thick, grass-colored rug. Close my eyes. Catch my breath. Bathe myself in the light encircling me like a womb.

  The door swings open and Mom’s face peeks inside. “Are you sick again?” She sounds worried. “Sweetie, what has gotten into you?”

  “Yes. I’m sick. I think I’m sick.”

  “Greenie is coming over tonight,” Mom says as if this might help. “I hope you aren’t getting the flu.” She walks over and bends down to put her hand across my forehead to see if I am feverish. “You’re flushed.”

  “I’m going to rest, okay? Maybe take a nap. I just need to be alone for a while.”

  “Okay.” She is hesitant, worried. “If you need anything at all, just give a yell downstairs.” She stands to leave, then stops. “Before I forget, this was left for you on the steps.” She releases a small, square envelope from her hand, letting it fall on the floor next to me, and disappears before she can see me shrink away. Another letter. Something else from him. It barely whispers as it lands, sliding ever so slightly along the surface like a feather, so light, so unlike what I expect of something that feels like such a burden.

  I don’t touch it.

  Instead I sit up and reach for my laptop under the couch, positioning it carefully across my legs. When my e-mail account comes up I write Jamie a quick message.

  Jamie, I’m sorry about today. Something came up and I couldn’t make it. I’m not feeling well. Please know it has nothing to do with you. I’ll explain

  I stop typing. Will I explain? Will I really? I backspace, erasing this.

  I need some time to think.

  I don’t know how to sign it. Best, Olivia? Love, Olivia? Either option seems wrong, on the one hand too formal and on the other too much. I settle on something in between.

  xo, Olivia

  I’m about to log off when an instant message pops up. I quickly shut down the computer. My cell phone comes to life. I’m careful not to touch it. When the ringing stops I grab it, shut it down, and push both my laptop and cell into the darkness underneath my couch.

  What dominates my attention, my awareness, despite all efforts to ignore it, is the manuscript, Father Mark’s story, sitting on my coffee table. Facedown. Tucked safely away in its manila envelope. I still haven’t been able to bring myself to read beyond the title. To so much as touch it. But I promised. And it is just a pile of papers. A pile of papers with words on them. Words are just words. There is nothing to be afraid of, Olivia. Get it over with.

  I reach for it, despite my repulsion. Fear. Anxiety.

  I bend the metal hinge, open the flap, and let the thin manuscript slide into my hands.

  And finally, after all this time, I begin to read.

  ON REGRET

  OH GOD. MY STOMACH CONTRACTS. PLEASE NO.

  No, no, no.

  I am imagining things. I have to be. I want to be.

  His story is splayed across the floor of my room like a stain.

  His confession.

  I shouldn’t have read it. I should’ve listened to my gut and my gut said don’t do it. I want to take it back, I want to pull all of the words out of my head, but I can’t.

  What’s done is done.

  Oh God what have I done?

  My gut tells me to run into the bathroom and this time I listen. I get down on my knees and lean my head over the toilet and begin to heave.

  ON DARK NIGHTS OF THE SOUL

  I SLEEP RIGHT THROUGH DINNER AND GREENIE’S VISIT—only vaguely aware when Mom comes in to check on me, to ask if I want anything, to tell me that Father Mark is downstairs, but she’ll tell him I’m sick, that I’m resting. He’s staying to eat with them, she explains, just in case I find the energy to say hello, and this news makes me want to die. When I wake a few hours later it is dark outside and the house is quiet. Still, the manuscript is where I left it: fanned out across the floor, glaring up at me.

  I thought, I hoped by reading it I might find out that all along I’ve been imagining things, that it’s just in my head, that all this worry, all this craziness, all this avoiding was really over nothing. That I might feel silly afterward and call Father Mark to apologize and things would go back to normal, back to the way they were at first, that first day when everything was good and happy and okay and I was thrilled about winning the contest.

  But I didn’t expect this. Definitely not this.

  His story…it’s about…well…

  I was just going to skim through it quickly.

  Then I read the epigraph. A quotation from Thomas Merton.

  I simply have no business being [in] love and playing around with a girl, however innocently…After all I am supposed to be a monk with a vow of chastity and though I have kept my vow—I wonder if I can keep it indefinitely and still play this gorgeous game!

  And I remembered the poem Father Mark gave me, the love poem “For M. in October,” and what Jamie said about Thomas Merton, that he was a famous writer, a famous priest, who fell in love with a young girl, his nurse, and they had an affair.

  Then I began to read and once I began I couldn’t stop.

  He needed me to read this. That’s what he’d said. Now I know why.

  Father Mark thinks he is Thomas Merton and that I am his M.

  “This Gorgeous Game” is the story of Father Mark and me, told from the very moment he and I meet in the school office at Sacred Heart. All of it is there, every second we spend together, every thought that goes through his mind. There is only one twist to it, a single, horrible twist that twists me and my stomach into agonizing knots.

  In Father Mark’s story we fall in love. He with me and I with him.

  We fall in love and have an affair.

  Just like Thomas Merton and M. We learn about love together, the meaning of love—his words. A gift from God we call it. He calls it.

  He loves me.

  Oh, God. Why me?

  It is right there on the pages in gut-wrenching detail. He set a trap and stupid, naive me, I walked right into it and now I’m caught. Like an animal.

  God must have extraordinary plans for such a creation as this.

  Father Mark writes this line in Chapter One.

  I remember. I remember him saying this very thing to me.

  And now I know. I know.

  Father Mark has not given me a story, he’s given me a proposition.

  All this time, all these weeks, the meetings, the phone calls, the texts, the visits, the letters—so many letters and now, finally, I know.

  And then I think how everyone loves him. Everyone thinks he’s the greatest, nicest, kindest man. So did I. I did, too. I let him do this to me. I encouraged him. I practically begged him to. I wanted all of it, in the beginning. How could I have been so stupid? How could I let this go on for so long? Ge
t so out of hand?

  I crawl into bed, curling myself into a warm cocoon. When I fall asleep, I dream about Father Mark. Even in my sleep I can’t get away.

  It is a nightmare.

  Father Mark is looking for me, following me, and I know he is there and he is approaching quickly. I want to run away but I cannot move. I am a sitting duck, a seventeen-year-old sitting duck of a girl, waiting, waiting for him to find me, corner me, trap me like a hunter’s prey. He comes closer and closer and I can hear him breathing, waiting, drawing out this moment. He knows that I know he is there and he is pleased. He knows that I want to run but can’t. He is enjoying this, knowing that he has me where he wants me. He likes this very much. Somehow I know this, in the dream.

  I am afraid. Filled with fear. Paralyzed by it. Made of it.

  And just when he is about to see me, in that awful moment when I am trapped by this endless game of hide-and-seek, his game, me hiding, me always hiding, him seeking without ever tiring of the game, the game I provide him…I am his game…

  That’s when I wake up. Right then.

  I am drenched. The sheets are drenched, my pillowcase is drenched. I am shaking so hard the bed shakes with me. My blanket is twisted, thrown off to the side. I am uncovered and shivering. I can’t stop the shivering no matter how many blankets I tuck around me. I am sick with nausea. That’s when I run to the bathroom because I am going to vomit. Again. But I don’t. I heave and heave and nothing comes out. I can’t rid myself of him.

  I stay in the bathroom, rolled up in a ball on the tiny green mat. I don’t sleep because I can’t be sure he won’t come back and find me in my dreams. So I lie awake instead, until the shaking stops and the breathing slows and I begin to relax. Little by little, the fear leaves, and eventually, eventually the fear turns to hate.

  Just like that, the fear turns to hate. Hate and anger.

  And I am alone.

  I wish that life would come to a stop. That everything. Would. Just. Stop.