Jamie
I wasn’t sure why I had called my brother, but the second I told Nate that I had ended my relationship with Eva for good I knew it had been a mistake. Because up until then I had fooled myself into thinking that this was all just a horrific nightmare. That I hadn’t really stood by and watched the woman that I loved fall apart in front of my eyes. The genuine sympathy in Nate’s voice thrust me back to reality, to a reality where I had chosen my church over Eva.
“Why don’t you just come over? Liz already left for the hospital, and I’m not due in until later this afternoon,” Nate said, his tone serious. I waited for a smart-assed comment or an I told you so, but neither came. “You don’t sound good, Jamie.”
“You should have seen her . . . I can’t stop hearing her sobs,” I said as I entered the rectory. “I don’t know how I’m going to get past this.”
“Come over. We need to talk about this . . . and not over the phone,” Nate said.
“I can’t. I have Mass in less than an hour.” I had no idea how I was going to get through the homily I had prepared, which coincidentally was about God’s devotion to his children and his promise to us sinners.
“Then come over tonight. Dinner, beer, and talking. I don’t care in what order, but we are engaging in all three.”
“Um . . . we’ll see. Look, I have to go.” I didn’t bother to say goodbye. I just hung up on him and threw my phone on the kitchen counter. I needed to get my shit together and clean myself up. I went to the bathroom and saw that my eyes were completely bloodshot as if I had been up all night drinking. There was no way to conceal them, so I didn’t even try. I did splash cold water on my face, but it did nothing to revive me.
I don’t want to be revived. I don’t want to exist. Not without her.
That was all I could think about as I walked over to the church. That was all I imagined, my life without her in it, the entire time I prepared for Mass. I was in the midst of picturing Eva laughing and latched onto Justin’s arm when I spotted my dad entering the church. I was surprised to see him here, especially for weekday Mass, since he only went on Sundays. But what really made me scratch my head was the fact that he was alone.
By the grace of God I made it through Mass. My dad waited to approach me until my last parishioner left. Like always, he gave me a warm smile and a hug. “Where’s Marcia? Is she feeling okay?” I asked.
“Marcia’s fine,” my dad said, staring into my red, puffy eyes. He was studying me again and I had nowhere to run. Suddenly he announced, “I’m hungry. Have any cold cuts in the fridge?”
It wasn’t odd that my dad craved a sandwich at nine o’clock in the morning, as the man had an iron stomach and could eat anything at any hour, just like me. “I think I have some roast beef, maybe even a little horseradish if we’re lucky.”
“Sounds great. Let’s eat,” my dad said, slapping me on the back.
I was in no mood to eat. Whenever I thought about Eva, which was every waking second, my stomach lurched and I had to fight back the urge to vomit. We went over to the rectory and my dad made himself comfortable by taking a seat at my small kitchen table for two. I retrieved the roast beef, some slices of Swiss cheese and a jar of horseradish from the fridge. I was in the process of slapping horseradish onto two rolls when my dad said from behind, “Nate called me this morning. I know about you and Eva.” My hand stilled, and I watched a mountain of horseradish slide off the knife I was holding and fall to the counter. “Don’t be mad at Nate. He called me because he was worried about you.”
I was surprised to learn that I wasn’t angry. How could I be when all of this was my fault? “You already knew anyway. Didn’t you?” I asked. I quickly finished making the sandwiches, but I couldn’t turn around and face him.
“Yes. The way you two looked at each other the other night at dinner, how neither you nor Eva could stop smiling—well, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out that there was something going on.”
“So Nate told you that I . . . that I broke things off with her this morning?” I could barely get the words out. I pictured how Eva had looked, her hair in disarray from sleep, her body wrapped up in a sheet, her eyes searching mine as she tried to piece together why she had awoken to me standing in her room and staring at her. I had thought about leaving without telling her goodbye, but I couldn’t do it. So instead I had stood there and watched her sleep. Nestled against her white sheets and comforter, she had looked like an angel.
“Yes.”
I gathered what little strength I had left and turned and faced my dad. “I do love her.”
“How long has this been going on?”
I walked over, set our plates on the table and sat down. “Honestly, I think I felt something for her the second I heard her speak. I know that sounds crazy but. . . .” I shook my head and stared at a sandwich that I couldn’t ingest out of fear that it would just come right back up.
“Did I ever tell you how your mother and I met?” my dad asked, picking up his sandwich.
“She called you by accident. She thought she was calling Pat’s Steaks and got you instead, and the rest was history.” I had heard this story at least a dozen times growing up and it never lost its magic.
My dad smiled, most likely recalling the memory. “The second I heard your mother on the other line, apologizing for misdialing, rambling and chuckling with that infectious laugh of hers I knew I had to meet her. Before she could hang up I asked her what she had been planning to order. That laugh echoed through the phone, and she said that she wanted a cheesesteak with fried onions and mushrooms. I kept her talking and asked her if she had ever eaten her cheesesteak with Cheese Whiz and she hadn’t, and then I just went for it and asked her out. She shocked the shit out of me when she accepted and I literally felt my heart jump . . . for the first time ever. The next night, I found myself sitting at a picnic table out in front of Pat’s eating the best cheesesteak of my life with the prettiest girl I had ever laid eyes on. But it wasn’t her looks that had prompted me to propose only three months later at that exact same picnic table. It was that voice, her spirit that came through that phone and told me that I needed to put a ring on her finger and fast. And less than a year later you were born and a year after that, Nate. I’d never seen a woman fall so completely in love with her children. The moment she had laid eyes on you and your brother . . . well, she was hooked. You and Nate could do no wrong.”
Despite my heart being torn in two, I couldn’t help but smile. “Nate and I were also the cause of the few arguments that I recall you two having.” My dad was a great man and a warm, caring father, but he also could throw down the hammer when needed. My mother, on the other hand, had been a complete pushover. My dad would accuse her of being too lenient, she would tell him that he was too hard on her boys. But the arguments never lasted long. Within the hour I would find them holding hands again or catch them kissing.
“The older you got, the more you charmed her. All it took was a smile or a wink and that detention you had received because you were caught making out with a girl behind the bleachers at school was instantly forgotten.” My dad chuckled and then took another bite of his sandwich.
I went to the fridge, grabbed two bottles of my favorite root beer, and returned to the table. “So son, I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re so in love that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Does that about sum it up?”
I sat down and took a sip of my root beer. “Does Marcia know?”
“I didn’t tell her my suspicions. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she saw what I saw at dinner the other night, how happy you were. I’ve never seen you smile so much, haven’t seen you just let go like that for a long, long time.”
“So you’re not angry with me?” I asked.
“Angry? That you love the beautiful daughter of the woman I love?”
“That I’m in love with my stepsister. You know people will talk. Your friends, Marcia’s friends will . . .”
“Let them talk, son. You two aren’t blood-related. You’re not breaking any rules there.”
“But . . . what about Marcia? You know how tumultuous Eva and Marcia’s past is, what drove them apart. Eva never voiced it to me, at least not straight out, but her greatest fear is that her mother had been right all this time, that she really is that dirty, self-serving girl after all. One who made a priest break his vow.”
“Marcia is not that woman anymore. Have faith in her. If what you tell me is true, that you and Eva love each other, that it’s pure, then why would Marcia see this differently than I do?”
“Loving Eva is the most natural thing in the world. Which is why this is so fucking confusing. Why would God bring her to me? A priest? A priest who is trying to make sure that his parish is not traumatized by scandal for the second time in less than a year?”
“Do you think you’re the first priest to leave the ministry because he fell in love with a woman?”
“No.” I knew there were plenty of priests out there who had left the church for this very reason, but I doubted that they had entered the seminary because of a promise. “But I made a promise, Dad, and I broke my vows.”
“I know you made a promise. But what I don’t know is why you made that promise.” I had never told my dad why I had chosen to be a priest, only that it was just something I needed to do and my dad had never asked . . . until now. “You know what. Don’t tell me. Instead, think about why you made that promise and decide if it was made for the right reasons.” My dad finished up his sandwich and stood to leave. “The priesthood is a calling, not a punishment, and should never be used as a means to atone for one’s perceived sins.”
Atonement.
“We’re here for you, son.”
I forced a smile. “Thanks, Dad.”
“And thanks for the sandwich. It was no cheesesteak, but it was damn good.” He gave me a nod and left me to my thoughts.