A Heart Revealed (67 page)

“Why?” he asked quietly, and the word made her flinch, like a sudden shaft of light in a dark cellar where roaches and rats skittered. It was a question she didn’t want to answer . . . a question she’d hoped no one would ever ask. And yet, it hung between them now, a deadly noose, quivering in the wind. Eons passed before she realized she hadn’t answered, only stared at him like some crazed woman who was deaf, unable to comprehend his words.

“Why, Emma?” he repeated, and she closed her eyes, realizing her creditor had finally come to call.

Why had she chosen to live life as a lie? A violent spasm heaved in her throat. Because the truth was simply too awful to bear.

She felt his touch on her arm, warm and secure, countering the cold grip of sin that fisted her soul. “It’s over, you know . . . ,” he said, his words as tender as the stroke of a mother’s hand. “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

Scarlet, crimson.
The color of blood.

Barriers tumbled, and all at once agony bled from her pores while memories bled from her mind. Forbidden memories, pushed and hidden away . . . until now. A pool of blood, fetal tissue in the privy, bedsheets the color of bittersweet berries and just as lethal. A withering sigh quivered from her lips like a death-row confession, and when she began to speak, her words were no more than a wisp of shame, frail and feeble.

“Rebellion owned me once, Father, hard as it may be to believe. I defied my parents like I would have defied God . . . ,” her watery gaze lifted to his, “had I believed in him.” She looked past him then, her smile hollow while her eyes trailed into a dead stare. “And therein lies the greatest gift Rory Malloy ever gave to a lover—a flame of faith fiery enough to incinerate an infidel’s sins.” She rose, hands clenched at her waist, rambling through Charity’s parlor like her thoughts rambled through her past. “My parents forbade me from seeing him, you know, but I was fifteen and had plans of my own.” She turned, and tragedy pooled in her eyes. “A baby,” she whispered, “to love me unconditionally . . . like my parents never would.”

The mercy in Father Mac’s eyes begged her to go on, and so she continued to walk, confronting ghosts in the corridors of a tormented mind. “Rory promised to love me forever, of course, and so I gave myself to him. And when I—” her eyelids twitched while muscles shuddered in her throat—“became pregnant, well, naturally he swore to marry me.” She blinked, suddenly finding herself staring aimlessly out the window, her secrets drifting free like the snowflakes in the sky.

A raspy sigh shuddered forth, and she turned, arms still clutched at her waist as she resumed her stroll, an arduous journey to where Father Mac patiently waited. “To quote Dickens, Father, it was the best of times and the worst of times. The best because the seed of a child burgeoned in my womb, bringing me closer to being loved for just who I was. But also the worst of times, because now disgrace threatened my very proper family. You see, in Ireland, a young girl pregnant outside of marriage was forced to leave home. I had little choice—The Magdalene Laundry or The Good Shepherd Convent. Either option would destroy a family and rob me of my baby.”

She returned to the sofa, her manner suddenly still. Calm, she supposed—not unlike a gush of sewage that had slithered into a pool, stagnant at her feet. “So I coerced Rory Malloy to marry me against his will. I knew he loved me, although ‘obsessed’ might be a better word.” Her words trickled into a whisper. “But he was traumatized by marriage, you see, by a deed that was done when he was a wee lad of only five. It seems he witnessed his mum take a butcher knife to his da during a row where his father had bloodied his mother.” Tears stung, and Emma realized that even after all these years, she still grieved for the boy who was Rory Malloy. Her voice faltered. “H-his mother was hanged, of course, and Rory went to live with his uncle, whose marriage was almost as bad. So it became plain, Father, that Rory was afraid of marriage. But with a baby in my belly, I needed a ring on my finger, sanctioned by the Church or not. And so I talked him into a secret civil marriage, and because he wanted me so badly, he finally agreed.” Her half smile was laced with pain. “So we said our vows to a clerk instead of a priest . . . ,” her head bowed in shame, “who was really just a janitor instead of a clerk.”

“What happened to the baby?” Father Mac whispered, and the question sliced through her, not unlike the cold blade with which Rory’s mother had ended his father’s life.

She squeezed her eyes shut, defying more tears to fall. “As I said, Father, Rory was obsessed with me, but once I had what I wanted—the promise of a baby to love me—my interest in his . . . affections . . . waned, and that wounded him. He started drinking more than usual, sometimes to the point of a jealous rage—first, over the baby, then over other men he feared I preferred.” Her words slowed as the paralysis of pain did its work, dulling her tongue. “And then one night I told him no, and he was furious. Started drinking heavily, not coming to bed till hours later.” Her voice began to shake, and water welled in her eyes against her will. “When he did, he became cruel, trying to force me, hurt me. And when I tried to fight him off, he . . . beat me . . . ,” the tears she had fought finally spilled from her eyes, “. . . before he accosted me . . . cruelly.” A spasm twitched in her jaw as her gaze lapsed into a vacant stare. “I was four months along, Father,” she whispered. “I bled for days before I lost my baby.” A heave shuddered in her throat as she closed her eyes. “Precious tissue swimming in a pool of blood.”

She heard the crack of his knees as he rose, and in a quiver of her chin, he was beside her, gathering her in his arms. “Emma, my heart grieves for you and the loss of your baby.”

Her pause seemed an eternity. “Babies . . . ,” she whispered.

Father Mac pulled away. “I don’t understand—do you mean twins?”

“No, Father, not twins,” Emma said, dabbing her face with Charity’s soggy handkerchief. Her stupor contrasted with the shock in his eyes. “A second child that I lost the same way.”

“God, have mercy.” His voice was a pained rasp. “When?”

“A few years later when Rory accused me of cheating. You see, he was so angry and jealous over my desire for a baby, he almost never . . . wanted me after that. That’s when he started drinking more, seeing other women.” Emma twisted the cloth in her hand. “But I still wanted a baby, Father, more than anything, so I . . .” Her cheeks heated. “I tricked him.”

“Tricked him?”

She chewed on her lip. “Like Lot’s daughters in the Bible.”

Father Mac blinked. “You slept with him when he was drunk?”

Emma nodded. “Half the time he wouldn’t even remember the next day, so when I became pregnant, he accused me of adultery.” She forced the words from her mouth, bile tainting her tongue. “I kept it from him for months, but when I began to show, he went into a rage, slapping and kicking me until my baby was nothing more than a pool of blood on the floor.”

“For the love of God, Emma, why didn’t you leave? Tell your parents the truth?”

When her lips began to tremble, she clamped down to ward it off, blinking several times to clear the moisture from her eyes. “My parents disowned me when they first saw the ring, Father, furious I had married a Protestant. Even so, I might have tried to reason with them if . . .” She shivered, yesterday’s despair revisiting once again. “If they hadn’t died in a fire.”

“Oh, Emma . . .”

Rising, she buffed her arms to stave off the shivering that threatened to take hold. She walked to the window and peered out at the ice and snow, realizing that when she’d lost her babies, her heart had grown as cold. “I couldn’t live with myself, Father,” she said quietly. “Not only did I feel responsible for the death of my parents—or at least the death of their dreams to have the son my father so desperately wanted—but also for the death of my children. Because I knew—as surely as the bruises on my face and the scars on my body—that it had been my sin, my rebellion, my will over God’s, that not only robbed me of the love of my parents and my husband, but my babies as well. Babies conceived in sin because their mother wanted to be loved . . .” A heave stalled in her chest. “And babies murdered by that very mother when her sin put them in harm’s way.” She turned then, her face devoid of all emotion and her heart just as empty. “In my mind’s eye, I killed my babies and wasn’t fit to live, and so I decided if my babies had to die, then I should too . . .”

“No—” Shock pulsed in Father’s Mac’s whisper from across the room.

A sad smile edged her mouth. “Not to worry, Father. My da always said I was good for nothing and apparently he was right—I wasn’t even good at ending my own life. My neighbor found me, and the next thing I knew, I was being tended by the good sisters of The Good Shepherd Convent.” Emma drew in a cleansing breath, and for the first time since she’d begun unraveling her sordid tale, she felt the heaviness lift from her shoulders. “It was there that I learned about the love of God, about his forgiveness, his mercy . . .” Tears sprang to her eyes. “His salvation.” She hugged herself, unable to suppress a shaky smile. “Dear, dear Sister Marguerite—all of four feet eleven and the stature of a giant, twinkling eyes and a formidable chin, who would have none of my self-pity, none of my self-loathing. Instead she showed me the kind of love I’d never seen before, the kind of love that bound my wounds, kindled my hope, and healed my soul.” A sheen of tears glazed her eyes as she stared at the fire. “It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was the love of Jesus I’d seen in her face.”

Emma brushed her tears aside. “But I was ashamed, ashamed of the kind of life I had lived, and so I lied to Sister Marguerite too, allowing her to believe that Rory was my husband. Of course, she encouraged me to go home and be the kind of wife Jesus would want me to be.” Emma exhaled, the motion all but draining her. Her gaze lifted to Father Mac’s for the first time in a long while. “And so I did, Father. I went home and swore to God that I would remain faithful to Rory, not as his legal wife, perhaps, but as the wife I vowed to be before God until the day I would die. The Bible says ‘two shall be one flesh, no longer two but one,’ and in my mind’s eye, when I entered Rory’s bed, carried his babies, took my vow, I became his wife, sanctioned or not. I committed to him body and soul, and in my eyes—and God’s—we are one. Man and wife.”

“But not in the law’s eyes or that of the Church,” Father Mac said quietly, the tenderness of his gaze convicting her more than any pious accusation.

Her shoulders slumped, and the air depleted from her lungs. “No.”

Father Mac rose with a loud exhale that told Emma he was ready to render judgment. He moved to where she stood and braced gentle hands to her arms. “Emma, dear, dear Emma—marriage is sanctioned by God. Entering Rory’s bed was a sin, not a commitment to God or to Rory. Don’t allow sin to be elevated to the will of God. It was not his will for you to give yourself to Rory illicitly; it was yours, and by refusing to see it as the sin that it is, you allow its hold to rule in your life, cutting you off from the blessings of God.”

Warmth prickled her neck and cheeks, and she lowered her eyes. “I . . . can’t . . . let myself believe that, Father.”

He took her hand in his, his touch as gentle as his whisper. “You can, Emma, because it’s the truth. You are not married now, nor have you ever been married, and deep down in your soul, you know it. Your shame tells you it’s true. You lied to your parents, you lied to Sister Marguerite, and you’ve lied to yourself . . . and you’ve been lying ever since. To Charity, to Sean, and to everyone who loves you.”

“No . . .” A sob choked in her throat and she bent over with a low moan, her body shuddering with heaves. “Please, Father, no! I’m married, I am . . . don’t you see? I could never live with myself if it wasn’t true.”

Father Mac pulled her into the shelter of his arms. “It isn’t true, Emma,” he whispered. “And closing one’s eyes, no matter how fervently, does not make the truth go away.”

She crumpled in his arms then, her guilt and shame too much to bear. “I can’t face it, Father, I can’t.” She gasped for air, her throat raw with pain as she fought to block out his words that struck at the very heart of her oath to God. An oath that enabled her to pay for her sins and earn God’s favor, penance served for all that was due. And a prophecy sealed by her own father’s words . . .

I pray to God you get what you deserve . . .

“You can,” he said quietly, his grip shoring her up. “But only through the grace of God.”

Her voice was nasal and broken as she went limp in his arms. “But I don’t deserve it.”

“Nobody does,” he said, his words gruff with emotion, “and therein lies the mystery. ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’” Father Mac held her at arm’s length, compassion shining in his eyes. “Grace, Emma, pure and simple—the favor and blessing of God to those who don’t deserve it. And through his grace, you can be free—not only from a marriage that never existed, but free from the bondage of the guilt and shame that kept you there.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, her sodden cheek pressed against the smooth cotton of Father Mac’s cassock.
Free! Oh, Lord, how can it be true?

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

All at once a heady warmth took residence within that had nothing to do with the heat of Father Mac’s arms as they held her close. A tiny pinprick of realization seeped into her brain until it radiated through her body like rays of the sun.
Free!

With a firm squeeze of her arms, Father Mac ushered her to the sofa and seated her there, squatting in front of her with her hands tightly in his. “Emma,” he whispered, “the kind of love you were looking for in your parents, in Rory, in your precious babies, can only be found in Christ, and you know that now. But what you don’t know is that in God’s infinite love for you, he not only wants to heal your wounds and set you free, but restore what the locusts have eaten . . . ,” he paused, his next words measured and slow, “with the love of a good man, Emma . . . a man who will love you on earth while God loves you in heaven.”