Mortal Sin (40 page)

It was quite possibly the first time in her life that she’d been rendered speechless. She’d expected the standard she-left-me-for-another-man-and-broke-my-heart-for-all-time tragic love story. Nothing had prepared her for the word murder. It was so cold, so hard, so final. How was she expected to respond to such a bombshell? What words could she possibly say that would convey the depth of her dismay? Or her regret at having asked about Meg in the first place? Damn it, Josie should have warned her. But of course, Josie had warned her, in a manner of speaking. She’d just chosen to ignore the warning.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. The words were hopelessly inadequate, but they were the only words she could find.

“Yes. So am I. She was a lovely human being. They thought I did it.”

Outrage, instantaneous and indignant, reared its furious head. “Who the hell would think such a thing of you?”

“The police. They dragged me in and raked me over the coals for hours. Followed me around for weeks. Parked outside my door. It was a sexual crime, you see. She was raped and strangled. And we’d been lovers, so I was the obvious suspect. Except that they had no evidence, because there
was
no evidence. As if I could have put my hands around that beautiful, vulnerable neck, and—” he stopped, rolled away from her, sat up on the edge of the bed and ran his fingers through his hair “—it was the darkest moment of my life.”

Sarah took a breath, tried to smother the pain that was a bright flame in her chest, and followed him. She folded her arms around him from behind and pressed herself up against his back. Held tight until she felt him relax against her. Then, she said softly, brokenly, “So you turned to God.”

“I turned to the bottle. I got stinking drunk, and I stayed that way for three months. The tattoo made its appearance while I was endeavoring to bring home the gold in the drunkard’s Olympics. I don’t even remember getting it. I woke up one morning after a particularly nasty night before, and there it was, in living color. My permanent memorial to a dead lover. I was lucky, you know. In spite of my determined efforts to commit slow suicide, God was at work in my life. It was Father O’Rourke, the old tyrant, who saved me. He sobered me up, wiped the snot from my nose, and told me what a disappointment I was to God. If it wasn’t for him, I’d probably be dead now.”

In the flickering shadows, she held him close to her breast, her breathing synchronized with his, her hands curled into tight fists against his bare chest. “I think a good part of what drove me,” he said, catching her hand and bringing it to his mouth, “was guilt, and the need for atonement. If I could devote the rest of my life to God, I could somehow make up for my own sin, my own part in what happened to Meg.” He unfurled her fingers and kissed her knuckles, one by one.

“But it wasn’t your fault.”

“Somehow, I felt as though it was, and somehow, I needed to make it up to her. And to God. So I entered the priesthood.”

“Do you regret it?”

He turned, drew her into his arms. “Becoming a priest? No. The frustrations are legion, but overall, the experience has been phenomenally rewarding. To be able to touch so many people’s lives in such a significant, positive way.” He drew her head down to his shoulder, cradled it there, rested his chin against her cheek. “I wonder sometimes, if Meg and I had married, where I’d be now. I’ve been a part of the Church for so long now, I can’t imagine what else I might have done. In spite of its shortcomings—” he pulled a blanket over them, wrapped it around her “—the Catholic Church has been good to me. And most of the time, I like what I do. I don’t always agree with the Church, but I’m good at being a priest. But going home at the end of the day to a single bed in an empty room, night after night… it gets lonely.”

“I know.”

“Until you came along, I hadn’t realized how lonely I was. I knew something was wrong, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I’m sworn to a life of servitude; I’m not used to thinking about my own needs.” He tilted her face up to his, touched his mouth to hers in a gentle kiss. She cupped his cheek, ran a fingertip up to his eyebrow, traced the line of hair at his temple. “Your hands,” he murmured, “they feel so good. On my face… in my hair. That’s what I’ve missed the most, you know. More than the exquisite pleasure of being inside a woman. More even than that violent rush of rapture at the end. Simple human touch.”

“That’s so sad.”

“It’s just the way of the Church. Touching isn’t forbidden, of course. But we’re encouraged to live apart from the world. That’s the facet of priestly celibacy most people don’t understand. It’s not just about sex. It’s about setting ourselves apart from the rest of the world, living for the spirit instead of the flesh. Touching is worldly and carnal. We’re supposed to be above that.”

“I don’t know, sugar. It sounds to me like a damn lonely place to be.”

“I’m not even sure it’s right, or proper, despite what we were taught in seminary. It’s said that infants can die without loving human touch. Failure to thrive. That’s how I feel. All these years, I’ve been failing to thrive.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Sweet Sarah.” His eyes gazed deep into hers. “You have more heart than any other woman I’ve ever met.”

She turned her face into his palm, kissed it, felt him shudder in response. “God, Clancy,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know about tomorrow, or the next day. But for tonight, at least, we can love each other.”

When she awakened, the other half of the bed was empty. She glanced at the clock on the dresser. Its glowing red digits read 1:53. It was the middle of the night. Had he left without saying goodbye?

With dread forming a hard lump in her stomach, she rolled out of bed and pulled on a robe. Belting it around her, she walked to the window and drew back the curtain. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until the sight of the blue Saturn still sitting in her driveway sent it rushing from her chest. Her stomach unclenched, eased. He hadn’t run away. So where was he?

She moved easily through the darkened house. The fourth stair from the top squeaked as she descended, a familiar and comforting sound. The living room was empty, bathed in night air, a good twenty degrees cooler than it was upstairs. Until she’d moved here, she’d always thought New England summers were cool and dry. But the first summer heat wave, which had arrived in early May, had quickly disabused her of that notion. In a two-story house, especially one that lacked adequate insulation, heat was bound to rise and, on these hot nights, the upstairs of her house bore a striking resemblance to the sticky, steamy atmosphere of the shack where she’d grown up in Bayou Rouillard.

The kitchen door was thrown open to the night air. A breeze played cool fingers through her hair as she stood at the screen door and listened to the chirping of crickets and the rusty creak of the backyard glider. In the moonlight, his features were indistinguishable; she saw only dark hair and the pale glimmer of his face in the darkness.

She opened the screen door and stepped outside. The grass was cool and damp and prickly against her bare feet as she crossed the yard to where he sat. “Here you are,” she said, sitting beside him on the glider. “I wondered where you’d disappeared to.”

“I suffer from chronic insomnia. I spend a lot of time sitting in the dark, thinking.”

“You can call it thinking if you want, sugar. I prefer to call it brooding. And brooding is bad for your health. It’ll give you ulcers. A heart condition. Maybe even impotence.”

His smile was wry. “Now there’s a terrifying thought.” He raised his arm, looped it around her shoulders. “I’m afraid there’s no help for me. I’m Irish. We’ve elevated brooding to an art form.”

She drew her legs up around her and settled against him. “So what are you brooding about?”

“Oh, the usual. Sin. Redemption. Divine grace, or the lack thereof.”

“Of course. All the usual stuff people think about at two in the morning.”

“I’m supposed to provide spiritual guidance to my flock. I’m supposed to be a role model. Lead them away from sin and toward a state of grace. But I can’t even keep my own house in order.”

She was silent for a moment before she said, “Are you having regrets?”

“There’s a part of me that wishes I were.”

In the darkness, she took his hand. His skin was cool and smooth. They laced fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. It would break my heart.” He sighed and rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. “I broke a vow,” he said. “The Church would say that what I’ve done is a sin. Most people would agree. But if it’s a sin—” he paused, turned to examine her face in the moonlight “—then why does it feel so right?”

“It does, doesn’t it? We’re an ideal match. A three-time loser and a Catholic priest.” She raised her face to the vast, starry sky. “Momma’s undoubtedly rolling in her grave right now, knowing that her Jezebel of a daughter seduced a holy man and toppled him from his pedestal.”

“I’m not a holy man, I’m just a man. I don’t belong on any pedestal. And you didn’t seduce me. I seduced you.”

“Actually, it wasn’t so much seduction as it was marching orders.”

“I wasn’t about to take the chance you’d turn me down.”

They were both silent for a time before, she said softly, “What’ll they do to you if they find out? Could you be defrocked?”

“For having sex with a woman? It’s highly unlikely, considering the number of priests who haven’t been defrocked for having sex with little boys. When you put it into perspective, what you and I are doing is pretty tame. The Catholic Church has a long and glorious history of selective blindness when it comes to things they don’t want to see. If they got really ticked off, I suppose they could transfer me to a parish in Oshkosh. More likely, as long as I’m not making a total ass of myself in public, they’d probably turn a blind eye to the whole affair.”

“Is that what this is? An affair?”

“Sarah, darling, I meant it in the broader sense.” He ran a thumb lazily up and down her bare arm. In the distance, an eighteen-wheeler whined as it shifted gears out on Route 1A. The night breeze, ripe with the scent of lilac, caressed her cheek. “I need to ask you a question,” he said.

She lay her head against his shoulder. “What’s that, sugar?”

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

She sucked in a sharp breath. Her heart began to do an odd little dance inside her chest. Carefully, she said, “What truth would that be?”

“The truth about Kit. Why didn’t you tell me you’re her mother?”

Needles of grief and loss darted in and out of her heart like flames, licking and destroying. She pulled away from him slowly, bent forward, and cradled her head in her hands. Not bothering to disguise the tremor in her voice, she said wearily, “How long have you known?”

“I guess I’m a little slow. I just figured it out tonight.”

She told herself it wasn’t hurt she heard in his voice. Rubbing at her temples, at the headache that had suddenly sprung up there, she said, “You’re far too perceptive, Father Donovan.”

“It wasn’t all that difficult to figure out. You’ve been so determined to find her. A lot of women would have given up by now. And there was the marriage thing.”

Still not looking at him, she said, “What marriage thing?”

“It didn’t make sense to me that you would have left Remy because he didn’t get along with your niece.” He toyed with a strand of her hair, lifted it and let it fall. “She looks just like you, Sarah. Tonight, I saw the final piece, and it all fell into place. When a woman’s given birth, it’s hard for her body to hide the evidence from a lover.”

“I suppose so,” she said, “if he’s an attentive lover.”

“The truth was there all the time, sitting in front of me, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. I just had to put the scattered pieces together before I could see the whole picture.” He caught one of her hands in his. She pressed her free hand over her eyes, still unable to look at him as he threaded fingers with her and pressed his palm, warm and comforting, against hers. “It must have been agonizing,” he said, “having to hold in your true feelings all these years. Trying to achieve that delicate balance between showing enough interest in her life and showing too much. Watching her grow, experiencing her achievements and failures as a spectator, when all you wanted was to be her mother.”

Tears, harsh and unexpected, welled up in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I lied to you. But Kit doesn’t know the truth. After Ellie died, we all felt it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie. She’s Bobby and Ellie’s daughter. Period. In the eyes of the law, I’m nothing more than her aunt.”

“You could have told me. You could have trusted me.”

“In the beginning,” she said softly, “you were a stranger. There was no reason to tell you.”

“And later? After we became a little more than strangers?”

“Later,” she said, “I was afraid to tell you. Afraid you’d think less of me.”

“For being her mother instead of her aunt?”

“You’re a man of God. Morally upright. To put it delicately, I have a checkered past. I didn’t want to lose your respect.”

“Damn it, Sarah. Look at me.”

Like a naughty child, she turned to face her accuser. “If you don’t trust me,” he said, “this isn’t going to work.”

A single tear broke free and ran down her cheek. “Tell me, Father, just how is it supposed to work? You’re married to the Catholic Church. No matter what happens between us, there’ll be no happy ending for you and me.”

He released her hand, ran both of his hands through his rumpled hair. “This is some mess we’ve created, isn’t it?”

“The ultimate love triangle. You, me, and God. Tell me, Clancy, how the hell am I supposed to compete with God?”

“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “I wish I did.”

They decided that if there would ever come a time when they both needed alcoholic fortification, this was it, so they opened his forty-dollar bottle of wine. Sarah lit a single candle on the mantel and they settled in the living room to face each other across a room filled with flickering shadows.