The Confessions(9)

“Marcus, my boy, you were a beautiful ruin when I met you eleven years ago. And I can’t tell you the joy it gave me to see you come back to life, to see how being a Jesuit healed something inside you. I have loved you like my own child. I want you to be happy and I want you to feel joy and be loved. And I never want you to be lonely or to make the same mistakes I did. That’s every good father’s wish for his child—be happy, be good, don’t get hurt. You are walking through a minefield, son. I can’t look. But I can’t look away either.”

“Help me,” Marcus said, the words an order and not a plea. “You’ve counseled dozens of priests in situations like mine. Help me do this right. For her sake.”

Father Ballard stepped back and sat on top of a tombstone bearing the name of Forrest, clasped his hands between his knees, and looked upward to Heaven. God forgive him for this but he couldn’t bear to let Marcus live with same regret he’d carried for thirty years.

“I was 15 my first time,” Ballard said at last. “Father Mack Donnelly came to school, talked half of us into signing up, I went straight home and told my father I’d been called to be a priest. Two hours later I was sitting in the kitchen of the lovely young widow Gloria Anderson. Dad went for a walk. When he came back an hour later, I was a grinning idiot. I’d f*cked that woman five times in one hour. My enthusiasm far outweighed my stamina. But what do you know? I didn’t give being a priest another thought until I was twenty. My father was a wise man. Then again, boys have it so much easier than girls, don’t we?”

“Much,” Marcus said emphatically, likely thinking of his sister.

“Can you imagine a father taking his 15-year-old daughter to get deflowered by the friendly neighborhood widower? What a job for a man that would be, eh?”

“If such a position were open, I’m certain Kingsley would volunteer.”

“He’d have to stand in line.” Ballard laughed and rubbed his forehead. “Poor girls. We never let them have any fun, do we?”

“That might be what I love most about Eleanor. She doesn’t ask permission. She does what she wants.”

“Maybe this girl can survive a life with you after all.” Half a life, anyway. Although Ballard wouldn’t say that out loud. He looked Marcus straight in the eyes. If he was going to do this—and Ballard knew Marcus was—he would make sure it was done right.

“Wait until she’s 18,” Ballard ordered. He rarely gave Marcus orders, rarely gave anyone orders. This was an order.

“I plan on waiting longer than that. The longer I wait, the more likely it is she’ll let go and move on.”

“Tell yourself that. Miriam’s loved me thirty years.” Ballard crossed his arms and looked to the ground at his own feet of clay. He looked up at Marcus and met his eyes.

“For starters, let her date other men. Encourage her to go to college. If anything will get her away from you and the Church, it’s college. Whatever you do, do not get her pregnant. If you do, you leave the priesthood that day. Don’t take a single night to think it over. If she gets pregnant, you call your bishop and your superior. The cover-up is always worse than the crime. Plan to get caught. You probably will get caught. When you do, you take full responsibility.”

“I do take full responsibility.”

“If it hits the press, she’ll need a place to hide. Something like this will make the news. Make sure she has somewhere to go, or she’ll end up with her pretty face on the front page of the newspapers.”

“Kingsley will take care of her. He can get out of the country easily if it comes to that.”

“You have friends at your church?”

“My secretary Diane. Should I warn her?”

“Does she love you? Is she loyal?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Then no, don’t tell her. If she’s loyal, she’ll lie for you. Leave her out of this. There’s no way for this to happen without you committing some egregious sins. Keep them on your own head. No one else’s.”

“Anything else?”

“Pray for her. Pray for yourself. Pray this girl falls in love with someone else and leaves you before you do any damage.”

“I’ve been praying that since the day I met her.”

“If she wants to leave you, let her leave. I don’t care if you think it’ll kill you to let her go, let her. And it won’t kill you. But you’ll wish it did. I speak from experience.”

“If she leaves, I’ll let her go.”

“I don’t care how intelligent she is, how mature, how beautiful or insightful or whatever it is you tell yourself to justify your feelings for her—she’s 16. You get caught f*cking her and may God have mercy on your soul because no one else on Earth will. Myself included.”

“I accept that.”

“Once you break the vow of celibacy with one person you’ll want to break it with everyone you meet. It’s like cheating on a diet. You have one bite so you tell yourself you might as well eat the whole thing. The second the vow shatters everyone will be a temptation. Don’t give in. If you put this girl through the misery of being in an affair with a priest, at the very least you can give her your fidelity. Let her have whomever she wants. You stay faithful.”

Marcus’s gray eyes flinched. What Ballard had said hurt. Good.