The Saint

“Music,” Søren said as he walked to her, “has melodies and themes. It’s not simply a collection of profanities and noise set to a bass line.”

“God, you’re a snob.”

“Guilty. Now stop cleaning.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so, and I never once said you were freed from your vow to obey me. So obey me.”

“Can you please order me to punch your face? I’ll obey that order.”

“Later, perhaps. I have nothing but respect for your sadistic side.”

With a growl Eleanor dropped the bag on the ground and put her hands on her hips. She hated how much she loved his orders, how much she’d missed them.

He took her wrist gently in his hand and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“What are you doing to me?”

“Dancing with you. Not drunken reception dancing, real dancing.”

He took her other hand and led her in the first steps of something like a waltz. He took her on one turn around the dance floor before stopping midstep. He studied her face, his gaze penetrating and intimate.

“She’s gone,” Søren said, his voice soft with wonder.

“Who?” Eleanor asked.

“The girl. All of her is gone. Where did she go?”

Eleanor gave a tired half laugh.

“I killed her,” she said without apology. “You said grow up. I grew up. She’s gone. I’m here.”

She held out her hand for Søren to shake. Instead he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it before turning it over and pressing a kiss into the center of her palm. She felt the impact of that kiss all the way to her toes.

“A pleasure,” he said, seemingly amazed by the change he saw in her.

Eleanor pulled her hand away. Not because she wanted to but because she didn’t want him to know how much it affected her.

“So … you know how to dance?” Eleanor asked as Søren led her on another slow turn.

“I do.”

“Is this something they teach in seminary?”

“No.”

He gave her a subtle smile as he let go of her hand and spun her gracefully.

“You know this song is about adultery, right? You shouldn’t be dancing to it,” she teased, trying to hide how much she relished the touch of his hands on her.

“Eleanor, I’ve committed adultery. Safe to say I can handle a song about it.”

Eleanor stopped dancing.

“Wait. You committed adultery? When?”

Søren said nothing for a moment. He lowered his hands to his sides as Eleanor pulled away from him.

“When I was eighteen, Eleanor. When I was married.”

Eleanor lost all powers of speech. She took a step back from him, and Søren turned the music off.

“You were married?”

“Yes. Briefly and unhappily.”

Eleanor’s knees went weak on her. She pulled a chair out and sat down.

“Tell me everything,” she ordered.

Søren pulled another chair out and sat a foot across from her.

“The first thing I’ll tell you is that my marriage, such as it was, should never concern or trouble you. It’s simply a fact of my past. I have no reason to hide it and several good reasons to reveal it. This is what I wanted to tell you.”

Eleanor didn’t have to ask what reasons he meant. Søren telling the church he’d been married to an adult woman would be like holding up a big sign that said I’m a Red-blooded Straight Male. As suspicious as people were of the Catholic clergy these days, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to spill those particular beans.

“My marriage will be common knowledge in time, and I wanted you to hear about it from me and no one else.”

“Go on.”

“It’s a long and fairly sordid story, so forgive me for giving you the bowdlerized version. My best friend in school was half French. His parents had died in an accident outside Paris when he was fourteen. He came to Maine to live with his grandparents. They sent him to the school I attended—a Jesuit boarding school. His older sister, Marie-Laure, was a ballet dancer in Paris. Brother and sister missed each other terribly. Neither of them had any money between them. She couldn’t come to America. He couldn’t go live in Paris again. This might come as a shock to you, but my father had a great deal of money.”

“Shocked. Stunned. Flabbergasted.”

“I had a sizable trust fund I’d inherit when I married. I wanted my friend to be able to see his sister again. She wanted to live in America. Marrying her meant I would receive my trust fund, which I planned to give to them. Money and citizenship—I thought that would be enough for her. Everyone would win.”

“What happened?”

Søren’s lips formed a tight line. A shadow passed over his eyes.

“Nobody won. Money and American citizenship weren’t enough for her. I had warned Marie-Laure in advance that ours would be a marriage in name only. I had no romantic interest in her whatsoever.”

“Why not?”

Søren sighed and gave a low mirthless laugh.

“Let’s save that answer for another time. Suffice it to say she wasn’t my type. And I won’t speak ill of the dead.”

“She’s dead?”

“She is. She said she was in love with me. I don’t think she was. I think she considered my lack of interest in her a challenge. She pursued me obsessively and failed in her pursuit. She saw me kiss someone else and ran away in anger. She tripped and fell and died. Her brother thinks she committed suicide. I don’t believe she had it in her to destroy herself. She loved herself far too much. Either way, she was gone, and I was a widower mere weeks after marrying. Her brother took her body back to Paris to bury her near their parents and never returned to school. I traveled Europe the summer of my eighteenth year and in the autumn I started seminary. That is the story—as much of it as I can tell you tonight.”