“He did. And guess what, Elle?”
“What?”
“Because of him coming to my mother that day, I lost my virginity at age sixteen to my boyfriend. Not at age eight to my father like Elizabeth did. So that’s why I’m totally in love with my brother. Not that way, though.” Claire grinned, a slight blush suffusing her cheeks.
“Yeah, not that way. I get it.” Eleanor stared across the room and into the empty fireplace. “It doesn’t surprise me, you know? I mean, it’s horrible and it makes me sick to think about your dad and what he did to your sister. I have this friend at school—Jordan. Her mom won’t let us hang out much anymore because of some trouble I got into once. But last year I could tell something was really wrong with her. I made her tell me. A teacher had felt her up.”
“What a sick fucker.”
“I know,” Eleanor said. “I told your brother about it. He put the fear of God into that asshole teacher. That guy packed up his shit and left town. Your brother has this really strong protective streak toward girls.”
“Elizabeth is the reason,” Claire said. “He’s so protective I didn’t even want to tell him about Ike.”
“He’s protective of me, too,” Eleanor said. “Except with me, he’s protecting me from him, and I wish he’d stop.”
“You are in love with him.” Claire studied her with Søren’s steel-colored eyes. They must have inherited that steely stare from their father.
“Yeah,” she admitted, not looking Claire in the eyes.
“Does he know?”
“He does. Does that freak you out?”
“I don’t want him getting in trouble, that’s for sure. But I don’t want him to be a priest, either. When he was in seminary, I’d cut out pictures of sexy women in magazines and send them to him in my letters. I wrote on the pictures ‘see what you’re missing?’”
“And you say I’m evil?”
“I know. He thought it was hilarious. He said mine were the most popular letters at his seminary. It was a joke at first. But then a few years ago when that thing happened in El Salvador, I called him and begged him to quit school and come home.”
“What thing in El Salvador?”
“There was a war,” Claire began, her face wearing an inscrutable expression. “The Jesuits had a school there. They weren’t part of the war. But that didn’t stop the military from killing them.”
“Killing who?”
Claire looked Eleanor straight in the eyes.
“The Jesuit priests. Six of them.” Claire wiped a tear off her cheek. “Elle, they killed them all. The priests, the housekeeper, the housekeeper’s daughter … Mom bought the Newsweek that had a story on it. I still have the article—‘Bloodbath in El Salvador.’ November 16, 1989.”
Eleanor couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. All she could do was stare into the vision of Søren on his knees, a man standing behind him with a gun pointed at the back of his head.
“They call the Jesuits ‘God’s Army,’ ‘God’s Marines,’ ‘God’s Soldiers.’ And the Jesuits take that seriously. They go to work in the most dangerous parts of the world, and sometimes they die there. I begged Frater to quit. He said God wanted him to be a priest. That was the end of that.”
“He’s in Connecticut now. He should be safe there.”
“Yeah, if they let him stay there. They can send him anywhere anytime they want to, though. I can’t get him to quit. Maybe you can.”
Eleanor didn’t have the heart to tell Claire not only couldn’t she make Søren leave the priesthood, but she’d also promised God she’d never ask him to.
By eight o’clock that evening the guests had left and most of the other relations had gone to their bedrooms. Eleanor finally felt comfortable escaping the bedroom. Claire and Søren staked out the music room and Eleanor ate ice cream while Frater and Soror worked out a sonata on the grand piano.
“It’s in C,” Søren instructed Claire, and played a few notes for her.
“I don’t like C. Everything’s in C.”
“It doesn’t matter if you like C or not, the piece is in C.”
“Can we do it in A?”
“Is your first name Ludwig? Is your last name Beethoven?”
“My first name is Claire, and my last name is Awesome-at-piano.”
“Then it’s in C.”
Eleanor watched Søren and Claire on the piano bench playfully bickering. How normal it all seemed. How comfortable. She wished she had a brother, too, someone to joke around with, to hang out with, to annoy and tease. Her parents had divorced when she was a baby. No siblings for her. Mom got full custody and two jobs. It would have been nice to not be alone so much growing up. Good thing she had her books to keep her company. No wonder Claire said she was in love with Søren. It wasn’t anything weird or creepy, only hero worship and the joy of having a man in her life she could trust completely. Eleanor also trusted Søren completely. She owed him so much for everything he’d done for her. And yet he asked nothing of her. Nothing but eternal obedience. In light of all he’d done for her and how little he asked, paying him back in eternal obedience seemed like a steal.