Page 2
Author: Tiffany Reisz
Michael headed to the sanctuary and saw Nora hadn’t arrived yet. He sat in the tenth pew from the back, two rows behind Nora’s usual spot. Her little shadow, seven-year-old Owen Perry, already waited for his Miss Ellie to show up. Owen adored Nora—Miss Ellie—and did nothing to hide that fact. He sat next to her during Mass and sometimes even curled up on her lap. Once Michael walked past them and saw Owen lying half-asleep on her knee as Nora mindlessly ran her fingers over his tiny forehead. Both of them had wavy black hair. Anyone seeing them for the first time would think Nora was the kid’s mom.
It bugged him seeing Owen cuddling up to Nora. He envied that little kid for so fearlessly showering Nora with affection and attention. Michael would kiss her feet if she’d let him. But then again, he also envied Nora. She at least had someone who wasn’t afraid to touch her in public. Michael couldn’t even remember the last time anyone had touched him. Even his own mother had stopped hugging him after his father moved out.
Nora didn’t just have people who would touch her in public. She had Father S, who touched her in private. Michael secretly worried someone would find out about Father S and Nora. Everybody knew Nora wrote erotica, and the church secretly loved having a mini-celebrity in their midst. And everybody at church worshipped Father S. But Nora and Father S had fallen in love when she was only fifteen. If their past, and even worse, their present, came out… Michael didn’t even want to think how bad it would get.
Checking his watch, Michael saw he had just enough time to run for a drink of water. He stood up quickly and headed to the door. As he exited the sanctuary Nora breezed in through the front doors wearing a tight white skirt and a tailored black blouse. Her long hair was swept up in a loose knot and she wore a little smile at the corner of her full pale red lips. He could only imagine what Father S had been doing to her that morning to put that grin on her face—could imagine and often did imagine.
Nora came toward him and Michael froze. They never talked to each other—not in words anyway, not since that one night together. But as usual he gave her a little wave. Instead of waving back, Nora reached out and took his hand in hers for the whisper of a second. She squeezed his fingers and let him go, walking off as if nothing at all had passed between them.
Michael gazed down at his hand. She’d touched him.
When Michael looked up, one of the married men in the congregation who had a bad habit of flirting with Nora sat staring at him. Staring at him with a look Michael recognized as envy. Michael stood a little straighter and walked back to his pew. He paused a moment before changing his mind, taking two steps forward and dropping down right next to Nora. She didn’t look at him, just chatted with Owen about a drawing he’d done for her. But Nora snuck her hand out again and pinched Michael hard enough on the thigh he knew he’d have a bruise tomorrow.
Michael smiled. God, he loved Sundays.
* * *
Suzanne woke up to find Patrick’s arm across her bare stomach and his mouth on the back of her neck.
“Patrick, seriously. I’m sleeping. ” She pushed his arm off her. “I still have jet lag. ”
Laughing, Patrick nipped at her shoulder. She responded by turning onto her side, her back away from him.
“Sex is a homeopathic cure for jet lag. I read that somewhere. ”
Suzanne closed her eyes, pulled the sheets up to her chin and tried to remember exactly when last night she decided sleeping with an ex-boyfriend was a good idea—probably somewhere between the fourth and sixth rum and Coke.
“Last night wasn’t enough for you?” Suzanne vaguely recalled at least two but possibly three encounters—once in the living room and twice in her bed. The third one may not have counted.
“I don’t remember much of last night. Impressive ‘welcome home’ party. ” Patrick nuzzled into her neck.
“Patrick, seriously,” Suzanne said when she felt his erection pressing into her lower back. Patrick could be insatiable sometimes—one of his better qualities in her estimation. Not that she ever told him that.
“It’s Sunday morning. Let’s fuck while all the Goody Two-shoes are at church. ”
“Mentioning church is not going to get you on my good side, Patrick. Or on whatever side you’re interested in. ”
Suzanne felt the bed shift as Patrick rolled up. Turning over onto her back, she made herself meet his eyes. An IED had exploded not far from a convoy she’d been riding in right outside of Kabul two weeks ago. It wasn’t her life but Patrick’s face—his shaggy brown hair, soulful eyes and playful smile—that had flashed before her eyes. He was an ex-boyfriend for a reason, she told herself. Sometimes, though, she had trouble remembering what that reason was. This morning, she remembered.
“Shit, Suz. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean… God, I was so glad you were coming back, and I’ve fucked it up already. ”
“Shut up,” she said, but not unkindly. “I think I heard my fax machine. ”
She grabbed Patrick’s shirt off the floor and pulled it on as she left the bedroom. In the corner of her living room sat her small home office. She dumped books and notepads onto the floor. Readers lauded her newspaper and magazine articles for their clarity and organization. Those same readers might be amused to see how much chaos it took to create such organized, erudite stories.
Behind the second pile of books and notes she found her dust-covered fax machine. A single piece of paper lay on the Out tray. Her eyes widened as she took in the logo and the letterhead at the top.
“Patrick?”
“What’s up?” he asked, buttoning his jeans as he entered the living room.
“Read this. ” She thrust the paper into Patrick’s hands.
“Anonymous tip?”
“I think so. No cover sheet. No fax number imprint at the bottom. Bizarre. ”
Suzanne watched Patrick’s eyes scan the page. He shook his head in either shock or confusion.
“Is this what I think it is?”
Suzanne took the sheet of paper back from him and read it again. “Wakefield Diocese—what do you know about it?” she asked.
Patrick ran his hands through his hair and looked straight up. She knew he always did that when thinking deeply, as if God or the ceiling would tell him all the answers. “Wakefield…Wakefield…small diocese in Connecticut. Safe, clean, suburban. Fairly liberal, pretty boring. ”
Suzanne heard the hesitation in Patrick’s voice.
“Just spill it, Patrick. I can take it. ”
“Fine,” he said, sighing. “One of their guys, Father Landon, was supposed to take over for Bishop Leo Salter. Last minute, he gets nailed on a thirty-year-old abuse accusation. So instead of becoming bishop, he’s getting sent to wherever they send the sex offenders. ”
“They send the sex offenders to another church full of children usually. ” Suzanne’s hands nearly shook with barely restrained anger.
Patrick shrugged and took the fax back from her. An investigative reporter, Patrick acted as a walking encyclopedia of every scandal in the tristate area. They’d met two years ago when they were both working for the same paper.
“Suzanne,” Patrick said in a warning tone, “don’t do this, please. Let it go. ”
Suzanne didn’t answer. Sitting in her swivel chair, she curled her legs to her chest and reached for the framed photograph that sat on the corner of her desk. Her older brother Adam smiled at her from inside the frame. He was twenty-eight in the picture. Now she was twenty-eight and Adam was gone.
“Suzanne,” Patrick said with quiet solemnity. For a moment she heard the echo of her father in Patrick’s concerned tone. “This is the Catholic Church. They are their own country with their own army and that army is mostly lawyers. I know you hate the Church. I would too if I were you. But you need to think about this before you dive in blindly. ”
“I’m not blind. I know exactly what I’m looking at. An anon
ymous tip that says something’s rotten in the state of Wakefield. And I’m going to find what it is. ”
Patrick exhaled heavily. “Okay,” he said. “But you’re going to let me help. Right?”
Suzanne rolled her eyes and tried not to smile.
“Right. Fine. If you insist. ”
“So where do we start?” he asked her.
Suzanne pointed to the one name on the fax that interested her.
Father Marcus Stearns, Sacred Heart, Wakefield, Connecticut.
“We start with him. ”
Patrick grabbed his laptop out of his messenger bag that he’d left on her sofa last night.
“Easy enough,” Patrick said, booting up his Mac. “What do you want to know about him?”
Suzanne stared at the picture of Adam again. Had Adam not died, he would have turned thirty-four this month.
“Everything. ”
* * *
Nora bit back a grin as Michael, for the first time ever, sat next to her. Poor kid—for a year now she’d been waiting for him to work up the courage to talk to her. As young and fragile as he was, she didn’t want to push him. Michael might be the name of God’s archangel and chief warrior, but the Michael next to her easily qualified as the meekest young man she’d ever encountered. Out of a mix of affection and plain heathen mischief Nora gave Michael a quick, viciously hard pinch on the leg as Owen bestowed another one of his drawings on her—this one a seven-armed amputee octopus. She declared it worthy of George Condo himself as she carefully folded it and slipped it in her purse. A good morning so far—she’d been fucked by her favorite man, hugged by her favorite boy and silently adored by her favorite angel. But her happiness faded when she noticed a priest she’d never seen before taking his seat in the front pew. He glanced back at her with a disapproving glare. That didn’t shock or surprise her. She’d received her fair share of disapproving glares in her day from the clergy, Søren especially. But then the glare passed from her to Michael. The mysterious priest looked at Michael with a mix of pity and disgust. Michael noticed the look and the color drained from his already pale complexion.
Nora’s heart pounded. Did the priest know something about her? About how she and Søren had “helped” Michael recover from his suicide attempt?
Before Nora could descend into a full-blown panic attack, the bells rang, the processional music began and Søren entered behind the crucifer and took his place at the altar.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” Søren said. The visiting priest remained in his seat. Bad sign. A visiting priest almost always shared Mass duties. That he simply sat and watched meant something. Something bad.
“And also with you,” Nora recited with the rest of the congregation. Søren seemed calm and unperturbed as usual. The visiting priest didn’t bother him at all. Seeing Søren so calm did little to comfort her. Søren could be calm in the middle of a blitzkrieg.
Nora watched as Søren slid his fingers up the side of his podium and tapped the corner three times. To anyone else it would have been a mindless gesture, but Nora knew it was a signal to her. He wanted her to come to his office after the service instead of heading straight for his bed. Something was going on. Barring divine intervention, Søren had said. Nora hated divine intervention.
Nora turned to Michael and she saw her own fear reflected in his strange silver eyes. She looked up at Søren and whispered one terrified word to herself.
“Fuck. ”
2
Returning Owen to his bemused parents delayed Nora in the sanctuary a few minutes after Mass. By the time she made it to Søren’s office, Michael already stood outside the door, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“He summoned you too?” she asked, sitting across from him on the bench opposite Søren’s door.