Priest: A Love Story

I couldn’t find Poppy after Mass, but that was okay. I wanted to call the bishop right away, while my mind and spirit were certain. I wanted to move forward, I wanted to explore this new life, and I wanted to start exploring it right the hell now.

It wasn’t until I was actually dialing Bishop Bove’s number that the full, complex reality of what I was doing sank in.

I would be leaving the congregation in a lurch—they would need visiting priests until they could find a new one to stay at St. Margaret’s. Worse, I was echoing the departure of my predecessor. Yes, I was leaving to marry, not because I was being arrested, but still. Would it feel the same to my parishioners?

No more work at panels and conventions, crusading for purity in the clergy. No more work in Lizzy’s name, on Lizzy’s behalf. No more youth groups and men’s groups, no more pancake breakfasts.

Was I really ready to give all that up for a life with Poppy?

For the first time, the answer was a definitive yes. Because I wouldn’t really be giving all that up. I would find ways to serve as a layperson; I would do God’s work in other ways and other places.

Bishop Bove didn’t answer—it was still early in the afternoon, and he could be wrapped up with his congregation after Mass. Part of me knew that I should wait, should speak with him personally, rather than leave a message, but I couldn’t wait, couldn’t even think about waiting; even though there would be more conversations involved than just this voicemail, I still wanted to start the process before I went to Poppy. I wanted to come to her as a free man, able to offer my heart completely and without reservation.

As soon as I heard the tone, I started speaking. I tried to keep my message brief, direct, because it was impossible to explain everything clearly without also delving into my sins and broken vows, and that at least, I really would rather not do on a voicemail.

After I finished leaving my thirty second resignation, I hung up and stared at the wall of my bedroom for a minute. I’d done it. It was really happening.

I was done being a priest.

I didn’t have a ring, and on my salary, I couldn’t go out and buy one, but I did go to the rectory garden to pick a bouquet of anemones, all snow white petals and jet-black middles, and tied the stems together with yarn from the Sunday School room. The flowers were elegant without being flashy, just like her, and I stared at them as I crossed the park to her house, my heart in my throat.

What would I say? How would I say it? Should I get down on one knee or is that something they only did in the movies? Should I wait until I could afford a ring? Or at least had more than unemployment on my horizon?

I knew that she loved me, that she wanted a future with me, but what if I was moving too fast? What if instead of an ecstatic yes, I got a no? Or—almost worse—an I don’t know?

I took a deep breath. Surely, this is what all men dealt with when they prepared to propose. It was just that I hadn’t ever thought a proposal was in my future, at least not for the last six years, and so I hadn’t even considered how I would do it or what I would say.

Please let her say yes, I prayed. Please, please, please.

And then I shook my head and smiled. This was the woman I had been with last night, in our own chuppah, God all around us. This was the woman who had been my own personal communion on the church altar. The woman God had made for me and brought to me…why did I have doubts? She loved me and I loved her, and of course she was going to say yes.

I realized too late that I was still in my collar, something that I had already officially (sort of) quit, but I was already halfway across the park and I had these flowers in my hand and I didn’t want to turn back for a detail that was now so trivial. Actually, the irony of it made me grin a little bit. A priest proposing in his collar. It sounded like the setup for a bad joke.

Poppy would think it was funny too; I could picture the small smile she got when she was trying not to laugh, her lips pressed together and her cheeks trying not to dimple, her hazel eyes bright. Fuck, she was beautiful, especially when she laughed. She laughed the way I’d always imagined princesses laughed when I was boy—sunnily, airily, the fate of kingdoms ringing in their voice.

I opened the gate into her garden, my stomach flipping backwards and sideways, my cheeks hurting from smiling so much, my hand shaking around my fresh bouquet, which was still wet from the morning’s drizzle.

I walked through the flowers and plants, thinking of Song of Songs, of the bridegroom going to his bride, singing as he goes. I know exactly how he must have felt.

As a lily among brambles, so is my love among women.

I climbed the porch, clutching the flowers tight as I walked towards the back door.

You have captivated my heart, my bride. You have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes…

I murmured the other verses to myself as I got ready to open the door. Maybe I would murmur them to her later, maybe I would trace them with my fingers on her naked back.

The door was unlocked, and I stepped inside her house, smelling the lavender smell that was all hers but not seeing her in the kitchen or the living room. She must be in her bedroom or the shower, although I hoped she was still in that pretty mint dress. I wanted to peel it off of her later, expose inches and inches of ivory flesh as she murmured yes to me over and over again. I wanted to kick it away from our feet as I took her in my arms and finally made love to her as a free man.

I took a deep breath as I rounded the corner into the hallway, about to announce my presence, and then something made me freeze—instinct maybe, or God himself—but whatever it was, I hesitated, my breath catching in my throat, and that’s when I heard it.

A laugh.

Poppy’s laugh.

It wasn’t just any laugh either. It was low and breathy and a little nervous.

And then a man said, “Poppy, come on. You know you want to.”

I knew that man’s voice. I’d only heard it once before, but I knew it immediately, as if I’d heard it every day of my life, and when I took another step into the hallway, I could finally see into her bedroom, and the entire scene was laid bare.

Sterling. Sterling was here, here in Poppy’s house, here in her bedroom, his suit jacket thrown carelessly over the bed and his tie loosened.

And Poppy was there too, still in that mint dress, but with her shoes off and two spots of color high in her cheeks.

Sterling and Poppy.

Sterling and Poppy together; and now he was gathering Poppy in his arms, his face bending to hers, her hands on his chest.

Push him away, a desperate voice pleaded inside me. Push him away.

And there was a moment where I thought she would, where her face tilted away and she took a single step back. But then something passed over her face—determination maybe or resignation—I couldn’t tell because then the back of his perfectly groomed head was in the way.

And he kissed her. He kissed and she let him. She not only let him, but she kissed him back, parting those sweet vermillion lips, and I was Jonah swallowed by the whale, I was Jonah after the worm had eaten his shade plant—

No, I was Job, Job after he had lost everything and everyone, and there was nothing left for me ever again, because then her hand slid behind his neck, and she sighed into his mouth, and he chuckled a victory chuckle, pressing her into the wall behind them.

And I could taste ashes in my mouth.

The flowers must have fallen from my hand, because when I made it back to the rectory, I didn’t have them, and I didn’t know whether they had fallen inside her house or in her garden or on my way back through the park, I didn’t know because I couldn’t remember a single goddamned detail about how I got back home, whether I was loud when I left, whether they noticed me, whether my lifeblood was actually bleeding out of my chest or whether it only felt that way.

What I did remember was that it had started raining again, a steady sweeping rain, October rain, and I was only able to recall this because I was wet and chilled when I came to myself, standing numbly in my dim kitchen.

I should have been furious in that moment. I should have been devastated. I’ve read the novels, I’ve seen the movies, and this is the moment where the camera would zoom in on my tortured expression, where a two-minute montage would have stood in for months of heartbreak. But I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing, except wet and cold.

I was on the highway.

I wasn’t precisely sure what constellation of decisions had led to this, except the storm had grown stronger and there had been thunder, and all of sudden my kitchen had felt so much like my parent’s garage, which was the first and only other place my life had crumbled into ash.

Except Lizzy’s death had made me angry at God, and I wasn’t angry at God now, I was only desolate and alone, because I had given up everything—my vows, my vocation, my mission in my sister’s name—and it had been repaid with the worst faithlessness, and you know what? I deserved it. If I was being punished, I had deserved it. I had earned every hollow second of blank pain, had earned it with all those stolen seconds of sharp, sweaty pleasure…

Is this how Adam felt? Driven from the garden to the cold, stony soil of an uncaring world, and all because he couldn’t resist following Eve until the last?

I drove down to Kansas City, and once there, I drove around for hours. Going nowhere, looking at nothing. Feeling the full weight of Poppy’s betrayal of me, the full weight of my betrayal of my vows, and worst of all, feeling the end of something that had meant everything to me, even if it was only for a short amount of time.

I didn’t have my phone, and I couldn’t remember if that was an intentional decision or not, whether I’d decided to trade radio silence on her terms for radio silence on my terms—because I knew, deep down, that she wouldn’t text me or call me, she never had when we’d fought, and I also knew I would make myself miserable with the constant checking, the disappointment when there was nothing on my screen but the time.

And when I pounded at Jordan’s door at midnight, and he opened the door to me and the relentless rain, he didn’t turn me away like he had done last time. He gave me long look—piercing, but not ungentle—and then nodded.

“Come in.”

I confessed right there in Jordan’s living room. It was fucking miserable.

Unsure of where to start or how to explain it all, I simply told him about the first day I’d met Poppy. The day I’d only heard her voice. How breathy it was, how layered with uncertainty and pain. And then the story unspooled from there—all the lust, all the guilt, all the thousands of tiny ways I’d fallen in love, and all the thousands of tiny ways I’d crept away from being a priest. I told him about calling Bishop Bove, about my handmade bouquet. And then I told him about Sterling and the kiss, and how it was as if every fear and paranoia I’d ever had about them had been birthed into something monstrous and snarling. Infidelity was terrible, but how much worse was infidelity when you’d suspected all along that there was something between the two parties? My brain wouldn’t stop screaming at me that I should have known better, I should have known, and what had I expected to happen? Had I really expected a happy ending? No relationship with such a sinful start could lead to happiness. That much I knew now.

Jordan listened patiently the entire time, his face devoid of any judgment or disgust. Sometimes his eyes were closed, and I wondered what else he was hearing besides my voice—who else, rather—but I found I no longer had the energy to care about anything, even my own story, which ground to a slow, painful halt after I got to the part where I found Sterling and Poppy. What else was there for me to say? What else was there for me to feel?

I buried my head in my hands, but not to cry—anger and grief still hovered elusively out of reach—there was only shock and emptiness, the blank stunned feeling one might have after stumbling out of a war zone.

I breathed in and out through my palms, and Jordan’s voice drifted in, like it was coming from someplace remote, even though we were sitting close enough that our knees touched.

“Do you truly love her?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said into my hands.

“And do you think it’s over between you?”

I took a moment to answer, not because I didn’t know, but because the words were so hard to speak. “I don’t see how it can’t be. She wants to be with Sterling. She’s made that abundantly clear.” Of course, if she showed up on Jordan’s doorstep, I’d take her into my arms without a single word.

Less the unconditional love of God than the keening need of an addict.

“Without her…” Jordan met my eyes. “Do you think you still want to leave the priesthood?”

Jordan’s question hit me with the force of a cannon. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted now. I mean, I’d never wanted to be with a woman rather than be a priest, I’d wanted to be with Poppy rather than be a priest. I didn’t want the freedom to fuck, I wanted the freedom to fuck her. I didn’t want a family, I wanted a family with her.

And if I couldn’t have her, then I didn’t want this other life. I wanted God, and I wanted things the way they were.

I supposed I could call the bishop and explain and hope that he would allow me to stay in the clergy. It would be hard to stay in Weston, knowing Poppy was there too, seeing all the places we’d been together, but then again, at least I’d have my parish and my missions to fill my time. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded—at least I could keep a sliver of my life the way it was. I could keep my vocation, even if I lost my heart.

“I don’t think I still want to leave,” I answered.

Jordan was quiet for a minute. “Are you ready for your penance?”

I nodded, still not bothering to lift my head.

“You will offer God one day in its entirety, a day of complete and utter companionship with him. He wants to talk with you, Tyler. He wants to be with you in this time of suffering and confusion, and you should not shut Him out in your grief.”

“No,” I mumbled. “That penance isn’t enough. I need something more—I deserve something harder, something worse…”

“Like what? A hair shirt? Walking barefoot for three months? A thorough self-scourging?”

I looked up, so I could glare at him. “I’m not being funny.”

“Neither am I. You came to me for absolution and I’m giving it—along with God’s message for you. In fact, this day of penance should be tomorrow. Stay here with me tonight, and no matter what happens, you spend tomorrow here. You’ll have the church to yourself after the morning Mass, so plenty of time and space to pray.”

Jordan’s face was as it always was—calm and beatific at the same time—and I knew without a doubt that he was right. A day of reflection after the heady exhilaration of the past three months was no small thing for me to muster, and it was also the exact thing I needed. It would be painful, to spend hours examining myself honestly and conversing openly with God, but necessary things are often painful.

“You’re right,” I conceded. “Okay.”

Jordan nodded, and he said a quiet prayer of absolution, and then we sat in silence for a few minutes. Most people were uncomfortable with silence, but Jordan wasn’t—he was at home in it. At home with himself. And that made it slightly easier to be with myself, even with all the unfelt feelings still looming above me.

At least until the phone rang.

Jarred out of our reverie, we both stared at Jordan’s phone on his kitchen counter. By this point, it was almost two in the morning, and Jordan stood quickly, because phone calls at this time of night were generally of the bad kind—car crashes, unexpected turns for the worse, hospice patients finally gasping their last breaths. The kinds of things where people needed their priest by their side.

I watched him answer the phone, silently saying a prayer that nobody was seriously hurt—a prayer purely out of habit, words spoken from rote—and then watched as his eyes flicked over to me.

“Yes, he’s with me,” Jordan said quietly, and my heart started beating in erratic staccato thumps, because it couldn’t be Poppy, it couldn’t be, but what if it was?

Oh God, what I would give if it were.

“Of course, just a moment,” Jordan said and handed the phone to me. “It’s the bishop,” he whispered.

My heart stopped beating then, plummeting down into my stomach. The bishop at two in the morning?

“Hello?” I said into the phone.

“Tyler,” and all it took was that one word for me to know that something was deeply, troublingly wrong, because I had never heard my mentor sound this upset. Could it simply be about me quitting?

“About that voicemail,” I said, “I’m so sorry for not waiting to speak to you properly. And now that I’ve had some time to think, I’m not sure that I do want to leave the clergy. I understand that I have a lot to explain and a lot to atone for, but things have changed for me today, and—”

The bishop’s voice was heavy as he interrupted me. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid that some other things have come to light…rather publicly, I’m afraid.”

Shit. “What things?”

“I tried calling you all day, and I called your parents and some of your parishioners, but no one knew where you were, and it wasn’t until tonight that I thought you might have gone to your confessor.”

It felt like he was stalling, like he was hesitant to tell me about whatever happened, but I had to know. “Bishop, please.”

He sighed. “Some pictures were released. On social media. You and a woman—your parishioner, I believe, Poppy Danforth.”

The pictures. The ones Sterling had blackmailed me with.

I knew that I was in serious trouble, that Sterling had made good on his promise and burned my life down, but at the moment, the chief thing that stuck out was the sound of Poppy’s name on someone else’s lips, as if her name spoken aloud was an incantation, and it was that incantation that finally ripped me open, punched a hole in my chest like bullet going through a pop can.

Tears started rolling down my face, hot and fast, but I managed to keep my voice steady. “Okay.”

“Okay, as in you already know about these pictures?”

“Yes,” I managed.

“Dammit, Tyler,” the bishop swore. “Just—dammit.”

“I know.” I was actively crying now and then something was nudged into my hand. A tumbler of Scotch, amber-colored and with a single spherical ice cube in the middle. Jordan was standing over me, and he nodded his head at the glass.

Things were bad indeed if Jordan Brady was giving me a drink. I wouldn’t have even guessed he owned a single bottle of liquor to begin with.

“Tyler…” the bishop said “…I don’t want to have to fire you.”

His meaning was clear. He wanted me to quit. It will be that much cleaner for the press releases, I thought. The repentant priest who had already turned himself in made a much better byline than the sexually rapacious priest who had to be fired.

“Are those my only two choices? Quit or be fired?”

“I suppose…if the relationship were over—”

“It is.”

“—there would have to be discipline and definitely relocation—”

I’d expected this, but the confirmation gutted me. I’d have to move. A new parish, new faces, all while the old parish had to sort through a rumor-cloud of my sins. No matter what, no matter if everything else went perfectly, I’d still lost this. My parish. My people.

My fault.

“—and even then, I don’t know how the cardinal would feel about this, Tyler.” The bishop sounded tired, but also something else—loving. It was deep in the timber of his voice. He loved me, and that made me feel even more deeply, unhappily ashamed to be having this conversation with him. “If you are truly committed to staying in the clergy, then we will figure out the next steps.”

I didn’t feel relieved by this, possibly because I was still so unsure of what I wanted, but I said, “Thank you,” anyway, because I knew what a giant clusterfuck I’d created for the archdiocese, and I knew even thinking of staying in the clergy would make it worse.

“Let’s talk tomorrow evening,” the bishop said. “Until then, please don’t talk to the press or even go online—there’s no sense in complicating things until we know for sure where we’re headed.”

We said goodnight and clicked off the phone, and then I drained my Scotch and fell into a dreamless sleep on Jordan’s hard, unwelcoming couch.