Sweetest Sin(94)

But I still didn’t see him.

My heart beat a little too fast as organized on the stage. I scanned the crowd. Mom bounced in the middle of the woman’s group, cheering me on. It was the first event she’d ever attended in support of me, so I expected the barrage of camera flashes. Others also shouted and called for us.

The women’s group. The youth group. The deacons.

But not him.

I couldn’t find Father Raphael.

And the realization made me sick.

Deacon Smith called off the song.

I missed the cue.

Not that it mattered. We planned, practiced, and thought it’d be an amazing idea to sing our Pie Jesu acapella, written in layered harmonies. It all hinged on me. I was to sing the first half of the first verse completely solo, without even a tuning note from the piano.

I didn’t have stage fright, but now I feared that note more than anything. It didn’t matter if it was out of tune or out of time. He wouldn’t hear it.

He wasn’t here.

Deacon Smith clapped a bit louder, counting off the song and marking the rest of the time with his hands so I could see the downbeat.

Christ, what a fool I was.

I didn’t look over the congregation. I opened my mouth, surprised that the note which emerged was as rich, powerful, and lovely as the first note I sang during try-outs.

When he had been watching. Listening.

Wanting me.

He deserved better than the way I treated him. Even then, I sang deliberately to tempt him. I did all I could to draw his attention and earn his favor, even knowing what I was doing and the pain it would cause.

Father Raphael had tried to protect me. From him. From myself. From the lust and desire and the darkness that I thought was just a physical attraction to the forbidden.

It wasn’t.

We hadn’t prepared for what would happen. Didn’t know why we’d wanted each other so badly.

And now as I sang, as my voice rang over the festival and drowned out the whizzing games and electronic songs and the constant hum of conversations and phones, I meant for him to hear me.

I wished he knew that I was sorry for hurting him.

That I was so grateful for him.

That I never meant to fight.

And that I did love him…and I understood why he had to leave.

I just hoped I wasn’t too late to tell him.

The song crescendoed, slow and melodic and surging the goose bumps over my skin as our voices harmonized and forged a beautiful, haunting breath of music.

It ended softly, reverently, and the stillness was shattered by a rousing applause.

Judy took to the stage, accepting the praise of the crowd as she reintroduced us as St. Cecilia’s prized choir.

“Thank you all so much!” She clapped and the microphone buzzed. “Now I think we ought to invite up here the man who made this all possible up here. I am so pleased to introduce Father Raphael St. Lucian, our parish priest...” She hesitated. “At least for the rest of the week.”

The audience cheered. I held my breath.

I didn’t see him. Neither did Deacon Smith. He shrugged at Judy.

“Father Rafe?” Judy called over the festival. She nervously made a joke. “Would our priest please come to the stage?”

One of the youth group mothers shouted over the crying baby in her arms. “I thought I saw him in the church?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Judy sighed. “All right. We’ll just move onto the judging. Now, we’re going to give our esteemed judges a few minutes to discuss—”

I wasn’t listening. Alyssa and Samantha called to me, but I hurried from the stage, jumping off the steps and nearly losing my heel to the muck behind the stairs.

I knew where Father Raphael was, and I knew just what he was doing.

Leaving.

He wouldn’t have missed the festival unless he meant to avoid it, to rush from our lives, without the common courtesy to tell us he was packing his office.

He was leaving.

The tears stung my eyes and blurred everything as I sprinted to the church—as fast as I could break through the people and dart through the booths.

The crowds thickened beyond the concert. Pressed in. Laughed and milled and got lost between the flickering reds and yellows and purples of the lights. Canned music and the rumble of chains on steel equipment muffled the presentations from the stage.

I didn’t care.

I pushed through the dizzying crowds, parting the sea that would crush back and tear me upon the rocks of my own sin.

Was he still in the church?

He wouldn’t have gone. Not yet. Not so soon.

I closed my eyes and prayed.

Please don’t be gone.

I twisted through the booths and vendors, sliding between two tables and rushing behind those restocking from their trailers. An electrical cord twisted in the grass, and I hopped to avoid it. My toe crunched against a concrete block used to pitch the tents, and the pain would have made me weep if I could afford those few precious seconds.