Beauty and the Blitz (33 page)

“I know.”

“It’s only a yearlong program, and Mom’s reached the end. She needs to reapply for the help.” I spoke quickly, almost jumbling the words. “I can put off my classes for a while and get a full-time job somewhere, but I don’t think we’ll have enough money to find a new apartment before…”

“How can I help? Ask anything of me, Honor.”

“That’s the thing. I know what I have to ask of you…but I hate to do it.”

“You need a letter of recommendation.” He answered for me. “Something from me which will recommend your mother to the program.”

“Yes.”

His voice hadn’t changed, still echoed in confidence and power. “Of course, I’ll write it.”

It should have relieved me.

It didn’t.

I hesitated for too long.

“Honor?”

“I’m not sure I want you to write it.”

Father Raphael hummed. “Do you have another place to live?”

“No.”

“Do you have family to stay with?”

“No.”

“Then tell me why you won’t accept this help.”

I stiffened. It was easier to get mad at him than myself. “You know, you tend to order people around a lot. Especially in here.”

“It’s a necessity when they’re being stubborn.”

“I’m not stubborn.”

“Foolish then.”

“Father—”

“This is a good program. Even if you’re too proud to take the help, your mother deserves it.”

“It’s not pride.”

I averted my eyes from the screen and traced the intricate wooden carvings in the confessional. He didn’t make this easy. His voice so often enraptured me, but his silence could punish.

“I know we need the help,” I said. “But there are others out there who need it more—people I see every day in the food pantry or volunteering with the church or wherever I’m called to help.”

“You don’t believe you’re worthy of help?”

I didn’t answer, and in my hesitation, he realized the truth I tried so hard to hide.

“You don’t think your
mother
is worthy.”

I closed my eyes. It might have been easy then, just to whisper it, to tell him.

Forgive me, Father, I’d deny my mother the help she needs
.

But I didn’t confess it. I threaded my fingers into a fist.

“Why did you return home, Honor?” he asked.

“To help Mom.”

“
Why
, my angel? It’s not enough to reflect on our actions—be it our sins or our virtues. You must examine
why
you’ve done the things you’ve done.”

I wish I knew the answer.

Was it guilt?

Pity?

Or was it just so no one else was forced to deal with her problems?

I didn’t like the question, and I hated more my answers. “What do you want to know? Why did I wait until after she was clean before coming home…or why did I abandon her after Dad died?”

“Who said you abandoned her?” How did his voice stay so kind?

“I did.”

“Do you believe that?”

This was getting too heavy. I think I accidentally lied to him. I asked for a priest, and I got one. Now I wished for my flirty, sexy, dangerous Daddy El…not the man who knew exactly what to say to cut through me.

“I bet other people believe I abandoned her,” I said.

“I asked about
you
.”

“It’s hard to abandon someone you never had.”

“What makes you say that?”

He wouldn’t understand. “The woman here today is
not
my mother. The woman drunk in the middle of the afternoon or passed out in the tub, burning a hole in the shower curtain with her cigarette,
that’s
the mother I knew. I won’t say she raised me because she couldn’t. But she was there.
She’s
the one I remember.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Honor. Those were her addictions.”

“But I
knew
those addictions. The woman here, now, is a stranger to me. Someone I’m supposed to love and trust.”

“And you don’t?”

“I do…but I’m waiting for my heart to break.”

“You don’t think she’ll stay sober.”

“I don’t have much faith in her.”

“I understand.”

I closed my eyes. “Is it a sin, Father?”

“To feel hurt? Betrayed? Absolutely not.”

“But…what about honoring thy mother and everything?”

“The only sin here is that you would lie to yourself and her about your feelings.” He lowered his voice. His words were meant to guide me. They only coiled me tighter. “Have you forgiven her?”

“
Forgiven
her?”

“For her past?”

I leaned back on my knees. “Like it’s that easy.”

“Some would say it is.”

They would be wrong.

“Do you know how my dad died?” I asked.

I knew he did. As the parish priest, he would have known the history of the area. But he respected me too much to say it, even in a confessional where only God could hear.

“Tell me,” he said.

“He was killed in a drunk driving accident.” I swallowed bile, the remnants of bitter mourning. “At least, that’s what we tell people. It’s true, but it’s a lie by omission. It’s misleading. It sounds like another car was at fault, that it was an accident.” I couldn’t look at the screen. “There was only one car that day.”

Father Raphael spoke when I could no longer. “Your mother was the driver.”

I remembered the day, but I could only imagine the accident. I had to read the police reports to get the details. The first responders couldn’t understand
why
it happened—how people could be so reckless.

I did.

It wasn’t recklessness.

It was foolish, undying, enabling love that killed him.

“Mom wanted to drive, but she hadn’t told Dad about the pills she popped before she got into the car. Probably didn’t tell him about the drinks either. But she liked to drive, and Dad always wanted her to feel…” I shrugged. “Special? Normal? Like she didn’t
need
the alcohol and pills. He treated it like she lacked confidence, not like an addiction. And that killed him. He wanted her to feel in control, like she didn’t need the crutch. He always helped her, but in the wrong way.”

“What happened?”

The obvious. “She lost control of the car, and he lost his life.”

“Where were you?”

“College. I got the call during a lecture, but I usually ignored her when she tried to get ahold of me.” I explained before he wondered how a daughter could be so heartless. “The last time I had talked to her was when I sent her a thousand dollars of my own money to help with the bills. Dad never saw the check, and Mom had nearly killed herself on the drugs she bought.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He was the one who told me to focus on school, not to look back. So…I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not if I wanted a life free of that misery.”

I still didn’t know if it was the right choice or not, but as hard as it was to watch Mom destroy herself, I couldn’t stand how Dad enabled every bad decision she made. He loved her, and he was just as responsible for the damage it caused.

“She kept calling me that day,” I said. “So many times I actually turned my phone off. I didn’t know what happened until hours later when a family friend texted me.”

He was dead in an instant. No time for goodbyes. No plane tickets to rush home for a final moment with him.

He died, and our lives changed completely.

“Mom was charged with vehicular manslaughter, but we had a judge who wanted to get her help, not lock her up. She spent six months in jail, and then she was released into rehab programs to get sober. She’s a year clean now.”

“Are you proud of her for that?” he asked.

“It’s hard to be proud after what happened,” I said. “I’m glad she recovered. I’m
relieved
.”

“Can you forgive her for those sixteen years of addictions?”

I hedged, trying to keep my voice light. “Do I have to?”

He chuckled. “It’s the foundation of our faith, my angel. Guilt, shame, rage, disappointment…they’re all burdens, to us and the ones we love. Your mother has changed. Repented for that time. You can shed those burdens too.”

“Forgive and forget?”

“Is it so impossible?”

Yes. No.

I made it that way.

“I can’t forget these last years, Father,” I said. “No matter how hard I want to, no matter how
useless
it is to obsess over it.”

“Useless?”

“Yes. That woman—the addict and thief and sick, selfish liar—is
gone
. I can’t forgive her. That person no longer exists.”

“Honor—”

“I can’t be mad at her now. She’s changed. Dredging it up won’t fix my childhood, and it won’t ease that pain. She hardly even remembers that part of her life, not when the drugs and blackouts stole entire
years
from her. Why would I make her relive those nightmares? She shouldn’t have to answer for a repented past because
I’m
struggling to accept how things turned out.”

“Do you resent your mother?”

The question came quick. Hard.

Without mercy.

And I had no idea how to respond.

“I shouldn’t,” I whispered.

“Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“It does, or you wouldn’t have needed to sit in a confessional, in the dark and privacy, to ask me for a favor I would willingly give your family.”

“You’ll write the recommendation?”

“Of course.”

That was all I needed to hear.

“Thank you, Father.”

I crossed myself though I had neither confessed nor earned any blessings. Father Raphael wasn’t pleased. His voice hardened.

“Sit, Honor.”

“I have to go.”

“We’re not done.”

Yes, we were. “I can’t be here anymore.”

“
Why
?”

Now the tears did come. For him, but not for her.

“Because every time I’m near you, Father, I reveal more and more of my soul.”

“As you should, my angel.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a good priest…and you’re a good man.” I leaned against the confessional door, my words a whisper in the silence of the sanctuary. “And that makes you more dangerous than any temptation.”

T
he women
of the parish didn’t understand my vow of celibacy.

Of course they
liked
it—something about a strong man resisting his weaker urges gave them confidence. They could trust me. Tell me their secrets. Ask for my advice in their marriages. Reveal their affairs.

And I was immune to their common and vulgar sins.

We all suffered from lust, and not nearly enough of my flock prided themselves in virtue.

I did.

I had.

And the righteous power my faith and commitment afforded me was a protection against those base instincts. Or, at least, protection against the one threat to my vow.

Honor
.

So far, I had defeated my temptations. I’d overcome my depravities with fasting, prayer, and enough cold showers to dramatically lower the electricity bill for the rectory. But sleepless nights were a small price to pay for conquering sin.

If I could only teach Honor the same restraint—the same denial of that sensual and devious desire—I’d protect her virtue as well.

Mondays were my days off, though I often kept busy with volunteer work, meetings, and the occasional emergency, spiritual or otherwise. Idle hands and minds were too often lost in the past, and I refused to sully my present and future with the sins of my childhood.

Or the nightmares bred from it.

So I exercised, prayed, showered, and visited Benjamin. He slept as I watched mindless TV at his bedside. The nurses said he had been sleeping more. I prepared myself for what that meant, but it hadn’t helped. My mind darkened, and I returned home only because, aside from Sundays during Mass, Monday evenings usually brightened my spirits.

Men lived for two things. Sex and food. I could indulge in one of those pleasures.

Mondays were casserole day. The women’s group often prepared meals for me for the week. I owed a debt of gratitude to anyone in the congregation who brought me lasagna, a pot of chicken soup, or spaghetti. My responsibilities didn’t leave me a lot of time to cook. Even if it had, it wasn’t like I’d stayed at home long enough to learn family recipes from my mother.

Most of the women visited around dinner time, competing with the others to bake the freshest bread, create the most elaborate casserole, or share the most secret of recipes. I didn’t mind having my meals organized for the week.

Especially since the women’s group volunteered their newest baker to bring me dessert.

Honor had promised me something…
sweet
.

She arrived late. Ten o’clock. She rapped a soft beat against my back door. The rectory was nothing more than a two-bedroom house on the property next to the church, but Honor treated it as though it were the gateway to hell.

Or Heaven?

Did she still fear she’d lose that grace…or had she already mourned its destruction?

She wore a light dress, something casual and pink, perfect for the close summer weather that layered the parish in a constant, simmering heat. She clutched a cake carrier in her hands, brandishing it before her as if the plastic case would protect her against that threatening sweetness.

“Evening, Father Rafe,” she whispered.

“Honor.”

She squirmed under my quiet stare.

Why did I like that so much?

“I brought you something.” She licked her lip. Unintentionally? “Dessert. The women’s group said you had a sweet tooth.”

“Guilty as charged.” For this sin and many others. “Do you want to come in?”

“I don’t know if that’s…” She arched an eyebrow. It only widened her dark eyes, lost in naïve innocence. She stared at the buttons of my cassock. I hadn’t loosened the collar. It made the invitation
safer
. “Is it appropriate?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because…I’m…”

“A woman?”

“Yes.”

“Or because you’re my angel?”

She nervously sighed. “That’s probably it.”

I wished I hadn’t smiled. My voice slithered and coiled. Was I no better than a serpent? I should have wound myself within a fruit tree instead of guiding Honor into my home.

“Do you not trust me?” I asked.

Her heels clicked against the wooden floors of the kitchen. She stepped inside, spun, and cornered herself against the counter and cabinets.

“I trust you, Father.”

“Do you trust yourself?”

Another glance over my silent home. Empty. Isolated. No one would see what happened tonight, no one to judge the words we’d speak, the glances we’d share, or the sins we might commit.

“I baked you a cake,” she said. “I thought about an apple pie, but…you know the connotation.”

“What connotation?”

At least she recognized when I teased her now, but she wasn’t brave enough to chastise me yet. Maybe not ever.

“You know?
Apples
? Tree of knowledge?” She set the cake on the counter. “If I brought you something with apples, somehow we’d defy God, get evicted from our homes, have to toil the earth, realize we were naked…” Her eyes pinched closed. She nearly crossed herself. “I mean…I think that was part of the story.”

“It was,” I said. “Adam and Eve ate from the tree and recognized their nudity.”

“See. Cake was a better idea. We don’t need any more of that temptation.”

On the contrary. Honor wiggled, nervous and uncertain.

If any innocent person needed to confront her fears, it was my angel, trapped within mortal sins and her own dark thoughts.

I would lead her to that temptation. Teeter her over the brink. Then I’d bring her back.

I’d save her.

My pride should have shamed me, should have sent me to prayer to beg forgiveness for my own arrogance. Instead, I pulled a bottle of red wine from the refrigerator.

Honor shook her head. “I really should be going, Father.”

“One glass of wine. While we share the cake?”

She twisted a finger in her hair, the curls bouncing over her shoulders and against the swell of her chest. Her breathing quickened. I longed to hear even a single gasp.

“Are you testing me, Father Rafe?”

“Testing you in what way?”

“
Any
way.
Every
way. The more time I spend with you, the more often I think your
lessons
are meant to weaken me.”

“Just the opposite. I intend to strengthen you. Teach you the humility of virtue.”

“It does feel humbling.”

“Why?”

She accepted a glass of wine, but she didn’t sip. I swirled mine, preferring this brand of dry red to the sweet variety used in Mass. Honor stared at the liquid, crimson and lovely, a perfect complement to the darkness of her skin.

“You already sent the letter of recommendation for my mother, didn’t you?”

“Of course. We’ll have a response from the diocese next week.”

“Thank you.” She breathed easier, a cleansing sigh. “It’s a relief.”

I sipped my wine. “What was the hardest part of coming to me? Admitting you needed the help…or speaking with me?”

“Are you asking because I ran out of the confessional?”

She’d done it twice now, but that wasn’t the reason. “No. I’m asking because you wanted to speak with me
inside
the confessional.”

She shrugged. “Lately…our conversations have been a little intense.”

“And?”

“I wanted to keep everything separate, so it doesn’t interfere with…your role.”

I frowned. “I told you. I am and always will be a priest. This is my job and my calling.”

She finally sipped her wine, gazing at me with narrowed eyes. Skeptical.

She probably had a right to be.

“Do you think you’re protecting me?” she asked.

I didn’t hesitate. “I’m saving you—just as you’re saving me.”

“From what? Each other?”

“From what challenges our faith. How did you feel when you kissed me, and we pulled away? Or when we embraced, but didn’t sin? We defied our desires, and it gave us the confidence to keep fighting.”

She frowned. “Is it confidence or pride?”

“Can’t we have both?”

“Not if it leads to another sin. Some sort of arrogance that we’re
beating
a force we don’t understand.”

“Understand
us
,” I said. “We’re strong enough to defeat what would destroy us.”

Honor took a small swallow of her wine. She didn’t answer, but she didn’t look away. “You know I bake when I’m guilty?”

“Prayer is more effective.”

“Not as cathartic.”

I tugged the rosaries from my pocket, winding them in my fingers. “Perhaps I should teach you how to pray as well.”

“Or maybe I can teach you my grandmother’s best recipes. Cookies. Cakes. Pies. I can do them all.” Honor tapped the cake carrier with a finger. “I used to spend a lot of time with her when I was younger. When Mom was…sick, before I could watch myself. I won’t make a cake from a box because of her.”

“You made this from scratch?”

“Only way I know how.” She lowered the wine glass. “I think I wanted to impress you with it.”

“Why?”

Her smile slipped. “I don’t know. I’m living on the edge of sin and absolution, and I’m not sure where I want to fall.”

“In absolution, my angel.”

“Maybe. But this dark part of me is beating the batter and icing the cake and thinking…” Her voice lowered. “Maybe when he eats this…he’ll remember me.”

Sweet
sacrilege. Beautiful blasphemy.

I edged close, setting my wine next to hers. She stiffened as my hands fell to her waist. The delightful heat sliced through me, but, this time, I didn’t touch her for the sheer heretical thrill of it.

She gasped as I lifted her, setting her on top of my counter. I didn’t ask permission. I didn’t stop.

Honor tensed as I slipped between her legs. Her shuddered whisper tore through my body, my own private spiritual conversion.

“
Father
…” Her hands tucked in her dress, ensuring I didn’t receive even a peek of the delights I could only imagine. “What are you doing?”

“Having a slice of cake.”

“Like this?” Her lip trembled, begging for more than a hushed murmur. “So close?”

My voice laced with something darker than the chocolate icing. “Do you trust me?”

“Of course, Father.”

“Then this shouldn’t be a challenge to you.”

I reached over her head, drawing near to her,
so near
. Her breath tickled my cheek, and every pounding beat of my heart pushed my wretched blood lower. It hardened that part of me my faith struggled to tame.

I set the plate on the counter and pulled the knife from the drawer. Honor watched as I sliced it with a single, penetrating thrust. The icing slickened the knife, and it slid inside like silk. I lifted the moist slice, and it slapped onto the plate.

Dark, dark chocolate.

The sugar dizzied us both, but I smelled only her, that candied apple halo.

“What are you thinking?” I pushed it towards her.

“Terrible things,” she said.

“Impure thoughts?”

“The only kind I have anymore.”

“Let them in.”

Her eyes widened. “But…”

“Think about what you want. What thought punishes you the most? Which one aches inside you? I want you to focus on it. Hold it in your mind. Together, we’ll master it.”

She looked away. “I want a lot of things, Father.”

“Tell me.”

“Well…the cake is probably the most innocent.”

I hoped she would say that. “Then you will have cake.”

I reached for a fork, but my hand stilled. Why only test the weak? Why not ensure I was still strong enough to guide the angel who needed my help?

I broke a piece of the cake from the thick slice. It fit within my fingers with a blasphemous familiarity. The motion was reflexive. I fought to deny the instinct to bless the dessert.

After all, if it were made at her hand, it was already consecrated.

I held the cake before her. Her lips already parted for more than a quiet breath.

Honor was a good Catholic girl, devout and practiced. She needed no instruction.

I offered her the bite, and her mouth opened just wide enough to set the piece upon the pink tease of her tongue. She bowed her head and took the offering from my hand.

Our own communion.

The cake dissolved without a single bite, just as she had been taught. Her throaty whisper groaned as rich as the chocolate.

“Amen.”

I prayed this wouldn’t send us to hell.

Once wasn’t enough. She licked her lip, catching any crumbs which might have slipped from my fingers. Her eyes rose, the almond surprise waiting for my next offering.

I wanted this woman too much. I wanted to praise, protect, and save her from herself…

Only so I could desecrate her with my own desires.

My cock hardened, vulgar and unwelcomed. It flexed against the pants beneath my cassock. Usually, I’d relax in sweats at home. Tonight, knowing she would be here, I wore the robes as my shield and armor.

It did nothing to alleviate the strain.

That addictive, sinful need.

I offered her a second bite of the cake. Messier than the last. She captured a stray crumb with a flick of her tongue.

She
giggled
. Such a freeing, dangerous little tease. I longed to hear more than her
giggle
.

The third chunk of the cake was bigger, slathered with a thick glob of icing. It layered my fingers, and Honor opened for the bite. I held it away from her mouth.

“What type of cake is this?” I asked.

Honor squirmed, her fingers tangled in a dress that covered too much and too little of her curves. She swallowed, timidly, before meeting my gaze.

“Chocolate.”

That wasn’t the full answer. I arched an eyebrow. She twisted.

“I realized after I made it that it’s actually…devil’s food.”

Of course it was. Nothing this sweet could exist without sin.

Just as my angel waited, breath held, little tempting tongue swiping over her full lips, a darkness teased us both. A shadow. A pulse.

This was dangerous.

And yet I lowered the cake to her lips. I watched, enraptured, as she hummed a pleased sigh and allowed me to feed her the delicious bite of Heaven that’d send us both to hell. The icing coated my fingers. Honor stared at me. She took the bite greedily, then her lips gently closed over my fingers.