The Confessions (3 page)

“You are human.”

“If I wasn’t sure I was human before, I am now. She makes me weak.”

“That’s why they call this sacrament ‘reconciliation.’ Yes, God and sinner are reconciled. But more than that, man is reconciled with himself. We are the most ourselves when giving our confession. ‘God have mercy on me a sinner.’ ”

“God have mercy on me a sinner,” Marcus said. “And God have mercy on me because I cannot repent of loving her.”

“Is she in love with you?”

“I have every reason to believe she is. Although she hasn’t said the words and neither have I.”

“Do you believe a 16-year-old has any idea what love is?”

“We’re Catholic priests, Stuart. We believe a 14-year-old girl gave birth to the Son of God. We believe God was incarnate as that infant child. And we believe children as young as seven can partake of Communion as they’ve reached the age of reason.”

“Nice speech. Now answer my question.”

Marcus sighed heavily. “Kingsley was 16 when he fell in love with me. He’s still in love with me eleven years later. If a 16-year-old can’t love, how do you explain that?”

“How do you know he’s still in love with you? Last time we talked you hadn’t seen him in months. And even then he was unconscious in a hospital bed.”

“I’ve seen him. I didn’t want to. No—that’s a lie. I didn’t want to want to see him. I was avoiding it although I knew where he lived. But I had to see him.”

“That must have hard for you.”

“It was agony.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I needed his help. We’re…friends? Working on that.”

“And now? Is it still agony?”

“Still and always.”

“Because you’re still in love with him.” It wasn’t a question.

Marcus nodded.

“So what you’re telling me is that you’re not only in love with this girl, but you’re still in love with Kingsley who is now back in your life? Anything else?”

“Nothing else. For now.”

“This is going to be a long confession.”

“It was your decision to go for the walk. In August. While wearing a cassock.”

“I make poor decisions sometimes,” Ballard said.

“You agreed to be my confessor eleven years ago.”

“And that was my first mistake.”

Marcus had the decency to at least attempt to look apologetic. He didn’t quite succeed but the effort was appreciated.

“I dreamed of her,” Marcus said as they walked under a stone arch and into a shadier, cooler part of the cemetery. “Years ago, Kingsley and I were—”

“I don’t want to hear the end of that sentence.”

“Talking.”

“Just talking? Good.”

“I waited until we were done talking to beat him and fuck him.”

“Oh God, you do this to me on purpose.” Ballard winced.

“Of course I do. I’m a sadist.”

“I’m the most open-minded priest I know but for God’s sake, don’t paint me a picture.”

“You know Kingsley and I were lovers when we were teenagers. None of this is news to you.”

“Knowing and picturing are two different things.” Ballard raised his hand to his eyes as if to block out the mental images.

Marcus only laughed. “If Kingsley were here he’d call you a close-minded homophobic vanilla bigot. In French.”

“I’m a sixty-year-old heterosexual Jesuit priest who has nothing but respect for monogamy, marriage, and the missionary position. Continue. Please.”

“As I was saying…years ago, Kingsley and I were talking. Dreaming out loud. We were at an all-boys school, so of course we were dreaming of girls.”

“Much better.”

“And we imagined a girl who had black hair like his but was pale like I am. Green eyes with black hair. Green hair with black eyes. Wilder than the both of us together.”

“Were you drunk?”

“Only on each other.”

“I walked right into that one.”

“Your own fault,” Marcus said, once more unapologetic.

“Keep talking.” Ballard waved his hand and tried to ignore the images in his head.

“As I was saying, we were dreaming out loud about this girl. An impossible dream. Only a dream. I thought that until I saw the dream standing in front of me waiting to take Holy Communion… Have you ever recognized someone you’ve never met before?”

Father Ballard smiled. “I did once. Yes.”

“When?”

Ballard smiled to himself. “The hour I first believed.”

“It was like that,” Marcus said, quieter now. “I was so shocked I almost forgot my lines.”

“It’s the liturgy,” Ballard said, glaring at Marcus. “Not ‘your lines.’ This is the Catholic Church, not Shakespeare in the Park.”

“It’s what Eleanor calls it. She asked me recently how I remember all my lines. I thought it was…”

“What?”

“It was cute.”

“Cute?”

“She also calls the narthex the ‘lobby.’ ”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph…” Father Ballard shook his head and crossed himself. He hadn’t felt this torn since Miriam left. He loved Marcus and it was a joy to see him so happy. And yet…

“Marcus, I swear—”

“Stuart, you know I hate it when you call me that.”

“Marcus is your name.”

“Marcus is my father’s name.”

“It’s your name too. Your issues with your father notwithstanding—”

“I have no issues with my father,” Marcus said. “I hate him. That’s not an issue. That is a fact.”

“No issues with your father? Do you know how many white male British Catholics there are? Double digits might be wishful thinking. You can count the number of English Jesuits living in American on one hand. And yet, you, the son of an Englishman, find the one English Jesuit in the entire province to be your confessor.”

“Coincidence.”

“We’re Catholics. We don’t believe in coincidence. Does this girl of yours have a good relationship with her father?”

“No. He’s a criminal. He abandoned her when she was arrested for committing a crime he forced her to commit. I’ve forbidden her from having any contact with him whatsoever.”

“And you have no contact with your father anymore either,” Ballard said. “And you’ve forbidden both your sisters from having any contact with him.”

“I’m twenty-nine years old, Stuart. I don’t have daddy issues.”

“You’re six-feet-four inches of daddy issues. Your father joined the English Army. You join God’s Army. Your father is a sadist. You’re a sadist. Your father raped an 18-year-old girl who worked for him while he was married to someone else. You’ve fallen in love with a 16-year-old girl who attends your church while under a vow of celibacy.”

“Are you telling me I’m becoming my father?”

“I’m telling you what you already know. God is testing you. He’s testing you the same way He tested your father. Your father failed. So far you seem to be passing.”

“So far.”

“Go on. Tell me the whole story.”

“The whole story?” Marcus sighed. “I was born, I lived, I fell in love with Kingsley. And we dreamed…”

Marcus spoke for a long time. He told the story of a long ago conversation between two teenage boys in love. Then a warning from his friend Magdalena in Rome who swore she could see his future. In his future she saw the girl he’d once dreamed of. Marcus told him of seeing her for the first time and recognizing her instantly and somehow she seemed to recognize him. From the very beginning they could communicate almost without words. Why? Why had God brought him into her life? Marcus had been consumed with the question for a week until the phone call from the girl’s mother came.
Help
, she’d said.
Eleanor’s been arrested
. Five cars stolen all at her criminal father’s behest. And Marcus could help. Only he could help. But Eleanor wouldn’t accept his help. Not unless Marcus made her a promise.

“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.

“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 fucked 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?”