The Confessions(8)

“Twisted your arm, did she?” Ballard asked.

“Between letting her go to juvenile detention versus telling her I’d sleep with her someday? I’ll admit it was hardly Sophie’s choice.”

“If it had been Miriam facing jail time…I would have done the same thing. I can’t help but wondering, however…”

“However?”

“However…your Eleanor chose being lovers with a priest fourteen years her senior who is also a sadist over a few years in detention. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, perhaps? She can’t possibly know what she’s getting into, choosing an affair with you. Even if she was twenty, thirty, being with a priest is its own sort of prison sentence.”

“And that, Stuart, is why I’m here talking to you.”

Marcus crossed his arms and leaned back against a crypt. The evening sunlight tangled in Marcus’s blond hair. If he’d been wearing anything other than a cassock, he’d look like a male model posing for a photo shoot.

You could have been an actor, Marcus, with that face of yours, Ballard thought while looking at him. You could have been a concert pianist. You could have been a world-renowned psychologist, a legendary academic, a groundbreaking linguist. There is no reason for you to have chosen the priesthood. And that could only mean one thing—he hadn’t chosen the priesthood. The priesthood had chosen him. God had chosen him. And if Marcus was right and God was behind bringing him and his Eleanor together, then it could only be for one reason. It was part of His divine plan. Whatever the hell that was.

“I’ll give you my confession,” Ballard said, the thought stirring a memory. “When I first saw you eleven years ago, I thought the order had only let you in because you’d look good on the recruiting posters.”

“The Society of Jesus has posters? I should get one for Eleanor. I’ll sign it for her.”

“Don’t be a smartarse. You know everything is about marketing these days. Look at you—tall, handsome, a genius, a polyglot. I don’t even want to know how many languages you’re fluent in by now. We Jesuits are inordinately proud of our intellectual heritage and our vows of poverty. And here you are, brilliant beyond reason, handsome beyond reason, and wealthy beyond reason. You bestowed all your gifts at the foot of the cross, put on the collar, and made us look good in the process. I’m surprised they don’t have you doing commercials. But then I realized something after getting to know you. When they looked at you, they saw a priest. And that’s what I saw too.”

Marcus smiled but didn’t speak.

“I do envy you,” Ballard continued, “and not for the reason you might think. When I was a boy I loved reading Doyle’s Sherlock stories. I was amazed by how clever Sherlock was, deducing a man’s entire life from the scuffs on his shoes. And you were like that—but for the soul. One glance at the scuff marks on the soul, and you could see a man’s sins. What a blessing.”

“It doesn’t feel a blessing most of the time.”

“It’s a gift—a gift tied up with a string attached. God gave it to you to use for His glory. And you do.”

“I try.”

“You’ve seen into this girl’s heart, haven’t you?”

“Of course I have.”

“What do you see when you look at her?”

“I see…” Marcus closed his eyes. “There’s a spirit in her, something with wings, something that keeps her aloft, high above everything that would bring her crashing to Earth. At the very heart of her is a well of joy. She has a fearlessness to her I’ve never encountered before. She’s not afraid of me. She’s not afraid of anything. She’s smart, dangerous, manipulative, and utterly untamable. She is the freest person I’ve ever known. I couldn’t get her to shut up with a ball gag and a muzzle.”

“What’s a ball— Wait. Don’t answer that. I forget who I’m talking to sometimes.”

“Apologies,” Marcus said, a hand on his chest, courteous as a prince. “My point is she has no filter. I could sit back and listen to her talk for hours. If I asked her to, I think she would.” He closed his eyes and released a deep breath. “I can’t get enough of her.”

Father Ballard stepped forward and rested his hand on Marcus’s shoulder. “You’re terrified, aren’t you?”

Marcus slowly nodded. “I never thought I would see Kingsley again, not after that day in the hospital. When I met her, saw her the first time, I let myself love her. Completely. Unreservedly. I never meant to act on that love, only to enjoy it, rejoice in it… I could be an astronomer and she every star in the night sky. We’d never touch, of course. No astronomer ever touched a star. But I could live for her light… Unfortunately, my resolve to love her chastely didn’t last much longer than five minutes.”

“Chaste love is overrated,” Ballard said, knowing that of which he spoke.

“I’m awash in love and confusion,” Marcus said. “I thought I would never see Kingsley again. I let myself love her because I thought I would never see him again. And then…”

Ballard’s pity swelled in him like a wave that crashed upon his heart. Marcus had mourned for his Kingsley with the bottomless grief of a widow. And as soon as he’d let go of his grief, let himself love anew finally…his lost love had come back to him.