* * *

I don’t know how but I managed to pull up my grades. I applied to local colleges and was accepted at a Catholic university forty minutes away by train. I graduated high school with a B+ average. A summer rain threatened to mess with our graduation day but only a light sprinkle broke out toward the end of the ceremony.

A collective sigh of exhilaration went up from the crowd: graduates, parents, friends, family. We gleefully tossed our mortar boards in the air, ready to take on the world. I spotted Sydney pushing through the crowds toward me and waved.

Out of nowhere, Mary Margaret Murphy enveloped me in a hug, squeezing me so tight I feared she might fracture a rib. When she pulled away I kissed her chastely on her gorgeous cheek and wished her well in her adventures at Boston University.

“I’ll never forget you, Aiden Black,” she said, wiping tears away. “I’ll also never forgive you for dumping me in the middle of senior year. I want you to know I followed up my sex ed curriculum without you. I found an older man. A mentor on a completely different level. I didn’t sit around pining for you, Mister Hot Loser.”

“I am sorry, Mary Margaret. If life hadn’t taken that strange twist, our senior year would have played out differently. You’re beyond amazing. You will always be my first love.”

And now probably my last.

“If you ever change your mind and want back in my heart,” she said, waggling her eyebrows at me, “as well as my panties, I have a feeling you could talk me into it.”

“I’m honored.” I smiled as her parents and four younger sisters enveloped her in kisses and hugs. They snapped hundreds of photos.

A few months later I sat with my earnest guidance counselor in her tiny fern-covered office at my small college and made my intentions clear. I was not seeking a curriculum to earn a degree in business, pre-med, or pre-law. I was picking and choosing classes that would fast track me to seminary. I also had to leave enough time to attend church and volunteer at local charities.

The seasons whipped by, a blur of spring’s promise, summer sweat, brisk fall colors, and chill winter winds. The years followed quickly on their heels. Sydney graduated when I was a sophomore. She’d fallen in love only three times in college and it stuck the final time. A pretty, funny, red-headed Jewish girl from the right side of the tracks named Nora Markowitz.

Nora was practically rocket scientist smart, with a PhD in genetics. The Markowitz’s welcomed Sydney into their fold with loving arms. I was included in gatherings and get-togethers including BBQs on the Cape, bris’s, Passover dinners, and the occasional Bat mitzvah.

Sydney and Nora traveled the world, and Nora eventually moved in with Sydney and me. They were married a few years later when I was in seminary. I hadn’t yet taken my vows and did not get to pronounce them wife and wife. However, I did give a blessing at the swank reception at a resort overlooking the Atlantic.

The pressure in seminary school amped up. In addition the coursework in the four-year Masters of Divinity program, we were also expected to live as devout Catholics, attend church services, and help those less fortunate in the community. We had to prove we were worthy of becoming priests and capable of acting as caretakers to those who needed spiritual guidance and counseling, much the way I’d showed up on Father Ed McKenna’s doorstep at Blessed Name parish after my parents died.

I gravitated back to that same parish in my third year when I was ordained as a transitional deacon. I returned to the community that had taken me in, informed my upbringing, guided me, and helped me survive that horrible period after my parents died in the crash. I found community in the sanctuary that sheltered me during pain, and nourished me with peace when nothing made sense.

Part of my duties included tutoring underprivileged kids on Saturdays. One afternoon I spotted a teenage doppelganger for Mary Margaret Murphy shooting hoops with her friends in the gymnasium and discovered the girl was Mary Margaret’s youngest sister.

She was the spitting image of my first love; a curvy girl with a freckled face, and the same laugh as her sister. She approached me after school one day.

“I know you, right?” she asked. “Didn’t you use to date my sister?”

“Good memory. Yes. A long time ago. How’s she doing? Is she still in the neighborhood?”

“She got married and moved to New York. She just had a kid.”

“That’s great.” That could have been my life.

But my life was just as fulfilling. A life of service. “What’s your name?”

“Bridget Murphy. You?”

“Aiden Black.”

“Father Aiden Black. My friends call you the hot priest.”

I felt my cheeks grow warm. “Awesome compliment. But not quite a priest yet.”

“Does that mean…”

“No,” I said. “I chose a life of service.”

“I was told that’s a choice. A rule with a bit of wiggle room.”

“Not sure what that means but tell your sister, hi from me,” I said.

“Will do.” She walked away.