Priest: A Love Story

I went to Jordan’s Mass early the next morning, which was substantially better attended than my own morning Masses back home. I had called Millie the moment I woke up, to tell her where I was and how to get a hold of me. Millie—who surfed reddit and tumblr even more than I did—already knew about the pictures, but she didn’t say I told you so, she didn’t sound hateful, and so I had hope that she’d forgiven me in her own cranky way. She’d also volunteered to post a sign on the door, saying that office hours and weekday Masses were temporarily suspended, and so, with my church matters taken care of for the moment, I could focus on the here and now.

Although I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you seen Poppy?” before we hung up, hating myself as I did.

Millie seemed to understand. “No. In fact, her car hasn’t been in her driveway since last night.”

“Okay,” I said, heavily and tiredly, not sure how I felt about this news. What I did know was that it did not improve the feeling that there was a giant crater where my heart should be.

“Father, please take care of yourself. No matter what, the parish loves you,” she said, and I wanted so much for those words to be true, but how could they be after I’d ruined everything?

After Mass, I had the sanctuary to myself. Jordan’s church was old—more than a hundred years old—and made almost purely of stone and stained glass. No old red carpet here, no faux-wood siding. It felt like a real church, ancient and echoing, the kind of place where the Holy Spirit would hover, like an invisible mist, sparkling among the rafters.

Poppy would love it here.

I was shaky and empty-feeling from crying last night, like my soul had been poured out of me along with my tears. I should kneel, I knew, I should kneel and close my eyes and bow my head, but instead, I laid down on one of the pews. It was made of unforgiving wood, hard and cold, but I didn’t have the energy to support myself for a moment longer, and so I stayed there, blinking sightlessly at the back of the pew in front of me with its missals and attendance cards and tiny, dull golf pencils.

Tell me what to do, God.

I guessed that a part of me had hoped that I would wake up and it would all be some terrible nightmare, some hallucination brought forth to test my faith, but no, it wasn’t. I really had caught Poppy and Sterling together yesterday. I really had fallen in love just to have the shit kicked out of me (by the very woman I’d wanted to marry.)

Do I leave the clergy and hope Poppy will take me back? Do I try to find her? Talk to her? And what’s the best thing for the Church—for me to stay? Is the Church more important than Poppy?

There was nothing. The distant roar of city traffic outside, the dim light glinting dully off the wood of the pew.

I don’t even get an air conditioner now? Now? Of all the times, now is when I get nothing?

I was quite aware I was being petulant, but I didn’t care. Even Jacob had to wrestle his blessing out of God, so if I had to pout my way into one, I would.

Except I was tired. And empty. I couldn’t keep whining, even if I wanted to, so instead my thoughts wandered, my prayers becoming aimless—wordless even—as I simply just contemplated where I found myself. Here in a church that wasn’t my own, alone and wounded. I’d brought harm to my parish through my actions and had betrayed the trust of my bishop and my parishioners—the thing I had tried the hardest not to do since becoming a priest.

I’d failed.

I’d failed as a priest and as a man and as a friend.

I stared at the stone floor, blinking slowly in the silence. So would I stay? Would remaining a priest be the best way to atone? Would that be the best for the church? For my soul? Quitting now, not on my own terms, felt like a petulant act of self-hatred, an I screw everything up, so I quit kind of act, and whatever decision I made about my future, it had to come from someplace other than that.

It had to come from God.

Unfortunately, He didn’t seem to be in a talkative mood today.

Maybe the real question was, could I still imagine life without the priesthood and without Poppy? I’d decided to quit because of my love for her, but once I had made the decision, I had felt all these other potential futures rolling out in front of me—inspiring, intoxicating, invigorating futures. There were so many ways I could serve God, and what if that was what all of this was about? Not about bringing me and Poppy together, but about nudging me out of the comfortable bubble I’d created for myself? A bubble where I could only do so much, and I would always have an excuse for not dreaming bigger and better, a bubble where it was easy to cultivate stasis and stagnation in the name of humble service.

So many of the things I’d wanted to do when I was younger—things like Poppy had done, such as extended mission trips—had become impossible once I’d settled into a parish. But if I were free, I could go fight famine in Ethiopia or spend a summer teaching English in Belarus or dig wells in Kenya. I could go anywhere, anytime.

With anyone.

Well, not anyone. Because when I closed my eyes and summoned the dusty plains of Pokot or the forests of Belarus and lost myself into wordless fantasies of the future, there was only one person I imagined beside me. Someone short and slender, with dark hair and red lips. Carrying water with me, or maybe it was fresh notebooks for the children, or maybe it was just her sunglasses as we laced fingers to walk to a community meeting together. Maybe she was in the hammock above me, where I could see the diamond-shaped trace works the hammock had made on her skin, or maybe we were sharing a stark, unheated dorm together, curled like twin commas on a hard bed.

But wherever we were, we were helping people. In the kind of direct, physical—sometimes intimate—ways that Jesus had helped people. Healing the sick with his hands, curing the blind with mud and saliva. Getting his hands dirty, his sandals dusty. That was one of the real differences between Jesus and the Pharisees, wasn’t it? One went out among the people and the others stayed indoors, arguing over yellowing scrolls while their people were casually brutalized by an indifferent empire.

I remembered the moment I’d chosen to be a priest, the excitement, the burning anticipation I’d felt. And I felt it now, like the brushing of dove’s wings and a baptism of fire all at the same time, because it was becoming clear. Not just clear, but obvious.

I sat up.

God wanted me in the real world and in the midst of the ordinary lives of His people. Maybe the plans He had for Tyler Bell were so much more exciting and wonderful than I’d ever counted on.

Is this what You want? I asked. For me to leave—not for Poppy, not for the bishop, but for me? For You?

And the word came into my mind with a calm, resonant authority.

Yes.

Yes.

It was time for me to stop. Time for me to leave my life as a priest.

Here was the answer I’d wanted, the path I had asked for, except it wasn’t really what I had asked for, because before, I’d been asking the wrong question.

This time there was nothing showy—no burning bushes, no tingly feelings, no beams of sunlight. There was only a quiet, contemplative peace, and the knowledge that my feet were now pointed to the path. I only had to take the first step.

And when I called the bishop later that night to tell him my decision, my newfound peace remained. We both knew that it was the right decision—for me and for the church—and just like that, my life as a priest, as Father Tyler Bell, came to a subdued and solemn end.

That next weekend was Irish Fest, and I’d already said goodbye to my parishioners and cleared out the rectory, so there was no reason for me to drive up there, even though I hated missing out on the kickoff for the church’s fundraiser.

“Afraid they’ll stone you?” Sean said when I mentioned I wasn’t going. (I was staying with him until I found a place of my own.)

I shook my head. Actually, despite the national splash on social media, where I was simultaneously demonized and turned into something of a celebrity because of my looks, my own parishioners had reacted so much better than I deserved. They told me they wanted me to stay—some actually begged me to stay—others thanked me for talking openly about abuse—some simply hugged me and wished me well. And I gave them honest answers to whatever questions they asked; they deserved that from me at least, a complete and open accounting of my sins, so that there would be no shadow of doubt, no circulating rumors. I didn’t want my sin to stain the community any further than it absolutely had to.

But at the same time, despite their warmth and love, it wouldn’t be healthy for me to go back. Even as I’d packed up my things last week, I’d been haunted by Poppy, and after Dad and I had loaded everything into the moving van, I made some excuses about saying goodbye to a few extra people, and went to her house. I had no plan for what I would say, and even then I wasn’t sure if I was furious with her or desperate for her or both—the kind of betrayed where only her body would be able to heal me, even though it was the thing that had hurt me.

But it didn’t matter. She was gone, and so were all of her things—her iMac, her booze, her books. I peered through the windows into the empty house, my face pressed to the glass like a child at a shop window. I had the ridiculous feeling that if I could only go inside, I would feel better. I would be happy, just for a minute.

Using this addict’s reasoning as rationale, I went to go get the spare key on her back porch, but of course it was gone, and the all the doors were locked. I even tried one of the windows before I finally got a grip on myself. She’d gone to go live with Sterling, and I was here, about to get arrested for breaking and entering.

At least fucking keep it together until you can go home and get a drink, I scolded myself, and I managed to accomplish this. Dad and I unloaded the contents of the van into his basement, and then we shared several glasses of whiskey without sharing a single word. More Irish grieving.

Even though Weston only held painful memories for me now, I was still happy to see that, after the festival, the Kickstarter was working exactly like Poppy had planned: by the beginning of November, St. Margaret’s had raised almost ten thousand dollars for its renovation.

It hurt a little to think of this project that I had poured so much time and energy into falling into the lap of some other priest, and it was also a little galling that so many of those online donations had come in from the “Tylerettes,” an internet fan group that had popped up not long after the pictures had. The Tylerettes seemed more interested in speculating about my relationship status or digging up shirtless pictures of me from college than charity. But I supposed if it was all for the greater good, then it was okay.

“At least you know you can get pussy whenever you want,” Sean said as we ate takeout in his penthouse living room one night a couple weeks later.

“Fuck you,” I replied, without any heat. It didn’t really matter. There was only one woman I wanted, and she was gone, and no number of internet fangirls (and fanboys) was going to change that.

“Please tell me that you’re not going to do the celibate thing even now that you’ve been lateralized.”

“Laicized, and it’s none of your fucking business.”

Sean threw a soy sauce packet at my head and seemed to enjoy the effect quite a bit, so he threw several more, the asshole, and then pouted when I winged a container of sweet and sour sauce into his chest and spilled pink goop all over his latest Hugo Boss dress shirt.

“Uncalled for, dickweed,” he muttered, scrubbing futilely at the fabric.

And that was mostly my life—arguing with my brother, eating shitty food, generally having no idea what to do next. I thought about Poppy constantly, whether I was researching graduate programs or whether I was with my parents, who were supportive but tentative, as if afraid that saying the wrong word would make me have a Vietnam flashback and start crawling on the floor with a knife between my teeth.

“They’re afraid you’re going to hulk out, because of all that stuff on the internet and they think maybe you’re repressing your feelings about it or something,” Ryan had helpfully explained when he’d overheard me mention it to Aiden and Sean. “So, you know. Don’t hulk out.”

Don’t hulk out. How funny. If anything, I was hulking in, shrinking and folding into a smaller man, a weaker man. Without Poppy, it was as if I had forgotten all the things that made me into Tyler Bell. I pined for her like a person would pine for air, incessantly, gaspingly, and it left so little room to think about anything else. I couldn’t even watch The Walking Dead because it reminded me too much of her.

“I’m lost,” I admitted to Jordan one day after Thanksgiving. “I know I did the right thing by leaving the clergy, but now there’s so many choices—so many places I could go, so many things I could do. How am I supposed to know which one is the right one?”

“Is it because they all feel wrong without her?”

I hadn’t mentioned Poppy to him at all, so his acuity unnerved me, even though I should know better by now. “Yes,” I said honestly. “I miss her so much it hurts.”

“Has she tried to contact you?”

I looked down at the table. “No.”

No messages. No emails. No phone calls. Nothing. She was done with me. I supposed this meant she’d seen me that day in her house, that she knew I knew about Sterling, and that almost made it worse. No explanation? No apology? Not even the charade of feeble excuses and well wishes for the future?

I knew she’d moved away from Weston—Millie called to give me weekly updates on the church and my former parishioners—but I had no idea where she’d gone, although I assumed it was to New York City with Sterling.

“I think you should try to find her,” Jordan said. “Get some closure.”

Which was how I ended up at the strip club with Sean that December. He’d practically imploded with excitement when I had asked him to bring me, talking about getting me laid, getting him laid, and also about how we should bring Aiden, but not tonight because he wanted to focus on my game.

“I don’t want to hook up with a stripper,” I protested for the ten thousandth time as we rode the elevator up.

“What, they’re too good for you now? You were fucking one just a couple months ago.”

God, had it been two months already? It felt so much shorter than that, except the times when it felt longer, the times when I was sure it had been years since I’d last tasted the sweetness of Poppy’s body, since I’d felt her cunt so warm and wet around my dick, and those were the times I’d found myself so painfully erect I could barely breathe. Luckily, Sean was desperate to climb the ladder at his job and worked lots of late nights, and so I had the penthouse to myself most of the time. Not that jacking off ever helped—no matter how often I came into my hand thinking of her, it never dulled the ache of losing her, it never softened the blow of her betrayal. But betrayal or not, my body still wanted her.

I still wanted her.

“That was different,” I told Sean now in the elevator, and he shrugged. I knew I’d never be able to explain it to him, because he’d never been in love. Pussy is pussy, he would say whenever I tried to make him understand why I didn’t want to be set up with some random girl he knew, why I didn’t want to date at all. What was so special about hers?

The club was busy—it was a Saturday night—and it only took a couple vodka and tonics to convince Sean to go do his own thing. I stayed near the bar, sipping a Bombay Sapphire martini and watching the dancers out on the floor, remembering what it was like to have Poppy dance for me and me alone.

What I wouldn’t give just to have a few of those moments back—her and me and that goddamn silk thing around her neck. With a sigh, I set my drink down. I hadn’t come here to reminisce. I came here to find out where Poppy went.

The bartender came down my way, wiping down the bar. “Another?” she asked, gesturing to my martini.

“No, thanks. Actually, I’m looking for someone.”

She raised an eyebrow. “A dancer? We usually don’t give out schedule information.” For safety reasons, I could see she wanted to say, but she didn’t.

I couldn’t even be offended, because I knew how it looked to her. “Actually, I’m not looking for schedule information per se. I’m looking for Poppy Danforth…I think she used to work here?”

The bartender’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh my God, you’re that priest, aren’t you?”

I cleared my throat. “Um, yeah. I mean, I’m not technically a priest anymore, but I was.”

The bartender grinned. “That picture of you playing Frisbee in college—it’s the background on my sister’s work computer. And have you seen the Hot Priest memes?”

I had indeed—for better or for worse—seen the Hot Priest memes. They were made using the picture that used to be on St. Margaret’s website, the one that Poppy admitted to looking up all those months ago.

I thought maybe it would be easier if I knew what you looked like.

And is it easier?

Not really.

Now that we had established I wasn’t just some random guy harassing dancers, I tried again. “Do you know where Poppy went?”

The bartender turned pitying. “No. She gave her notice so fast, and she didn’t tell anybody why she was quitting or where she was going, although we all knew about the pictures, so we guessed it had something to do with those. She didn’t tell you?”

“No,” I said, and I picked up my martini again. Some truths went better with gin.

She hung her towel off a nearby rack and then spun toward me again. “You know, now that I think about it, I think she left something here when she came to pack up her things. Let me go grab it.”

I tapped my fingers against the stainless steel bar, not letting myself believe that it was something as important as a letter left specifically for me, but still craving it all the same. How could she just have left? Without a word?

Had it all meant that little to her?

Not for the first time, my chest went concave, crumpling inward with the pain of it. The pain of one-sided love, of knowing that I had loved her more than she had loved me.

Is this how God feels all the time?

What a sobering thought.

The bartender came back with a thick white envelope. It had my name on it, Sharpied in hasty, thick strokes. When I took it, I knew immediately what it was, but I opened it anyway, more pain slashing through my gut as I pulled out Lizzy’s rosary and felt its weight in my hand.

I held it up for just a minute, watching the cross spin wildly in the low light of the dance floor, and then I thanked the bartender, slung back the rest of my martini, and left, leaving Sean to have his strip-adventures on his own.

It was over. Really, it had been over the moment I’d seen Sterling and Poppy kiss, but somehow I knew that this was her definitive signal that there was nothing left between us. Even though I’d given the rosary freely, as a gift, had never thought once about wanting it back, she had seen it as some sort of bond, some sort of debt, and she was rejecting that bond, just as she’d rejected me.

Yes. It was time I accepted it.

It was over.