“I feel like an idiot,” she said to the empty room.
The empty room didn’t answer.
“Something’s not right here. Søren’s getting drunk tonight with the second-hottest guy on the planet, and I’m home alone praying. I think we accidentally switched our to-do lists.”
Still silence.
“Tough crowd,” she said and pulled a pillow over her lap, squeezing it for comfort.
She considered giving up and crashing, but her heart hadn’t stopped racing since the moment she’d stepped foot onto that rose-petal–strewn carpet today. And today, after a year of ignoring each other to the point of pain, she and Søren had finally had a real conversation. She’d been living with a question mark for a year now wondering what, if anything, would happen with Søren. And tonight with a hug and a few words he’d proved himself worthy of her devotion again. She couldn’t loiter in limbo anymore. She had to make a decision.
“Look,” she said, once more addressing the nobody in the chair, “I know he’s a good priest. Fuck that, he’s an amazing priest. Have you seen how many people show up at church now? It’s like twice as many as when Father Greg was here. And you and I both know it’s not just because he’s pretty. Although he is pretty. God damn, is he pretty. I mean … You damn.”
She glanced up at the ceiling. “Sorry,” she mouthed.
“Anyway, thank You for tonight.”
She took a deep breath.
“So he says You want him to be a priest. He says he didn’t really feel like himself until he became a priest. I can’t ask him to give that up. Not for me or anyone else. I can’t. I won’t.” She felt immediately better once she’d made that part of her decision. She loved him and he was a priest. She wouldn’t ask him to change for her. What if it was the priest in him who cared for her? If he left the priesthood for her, maybe he wouldn’t care about her anymore?
“About the priesthood thing … be straight with me here. Celibacy? You and I both know it’s made-up bullshit, right? We Catholics want to be special, want to be different. God forbid we’re too much like Protestants with their married pastors. The entire church harps constantly on how important the Catholic family is, Catholic marriage, Catholic babies and then we don’t let our own priests have Catholic marriages, Catholic families? We’re making it up. There’s nothing in the Bible about this, right? I’ve read it. You’ve seen me.” She held up the red leather Bible. For the past year she’d immersed herself in the Bible, reading from it every night. She zoned out through a lot of the begetting, but she’d more or less conquered a big chunk of the Old Testament and had worked her way through all the Gospels.
“Jesus didn’t say anything about how people shouldn’t get married or why it’s better to be celibate. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff in there about not fornicating, but there’s also a lot of stuff in there about not eating shellfish or having poly-blend fibers. Seriously? What’s Your problem with spandex?”
She raised her hands in surrender.
“I know, I know. It’s not You. This was our baggage and we put Your name on it and we blamed You. Our bad. Søren said to treat the Bible not as a work of history or a science textbook and to treat it instead like Communion . Communion is a spiritual meal, not a physical meal. So the Bible’s the same thing—it feeds our soul. It’s not a how-to manual.”
Eleanor realized she’d gotten off topic. She’d never talked to a chair before and rather enjoyed having a captive audience. She should do this more often. Maybe she’d stick a real person in the chair next time. She could gag him and get the same sort of undivided attention.
“So to my point, God. I have one. I love Søren. I love him, and I’m in love with him. I love everything about him, even the stuff I don’t know about him. He’s proved to me that he’s a good person no matter what it is that he’s scared to tell me. I don’t care if he’s a wolf. He says I’m not a sheep, which is either a compliment or a threat. Both, probably.”
As soon as she said “both” she knew that was the right answer.
“In Hebrews … I think. I think it’s Hebrews, it says that ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.’ Something like that. So I’m saying now that I have faith in Søren. And he has faith in You. It’s the best I can give You right now so I hope it’s enough. I know he has secrets, stuff he’s not ready or willing to tell me. It’s okay. I still believe in him. He believed in me, so the least I can do is return the favor, right?”