The Memory of Us: A Novel (34 page)

He said this with the dismissive tone that told me there was nothing else to speak about. I stood up and pushed in my chair. It echoed in our silence. I couldn’t speak, lest the tears that had gathered behind my face make an unwanted appearance. I gave him a curt nod in farewell and left to my side of the rectory.

I paced the room before I crumpled into a heap on the floor. My hands balled into fists, and I covered my head as I cried.

Surely this wasn’t the end. To have lived so long in despair. To have found hope and even happiness. To have my daughter restored to me only to have my husband taken away. Was there no place in this world where all could be right, if only for a little while? Was there some great balance that had to be righted by pairing grief and joy? Kyle would have told me some drivel about true happiness being found only on the other side of life. Was it so wrong to hope that happiness could be lived on this side?

I stayed in the house for three days and didn’t emerge for any of my regular duties. Twice I saw from behind the curtain that Father McCarthy came up to my door and paused, but he never knocked.

By Friday my bags were packed. I didn’t know where I would go, but the nomadic lifestyle had served me well enough in the past. There was no way that I could stay here in this place without the presence of this man who was my everything. Father Brown would be an imposter, an interloper, and I could not stick around to live a charade of contentment.

A charade. I stopped when the word entered my mind. Hadn’t that been what I’d been living for decades now? Had I believed that coming to Charcross and living as the housekeeper to Father McCarthy somehow mitigated the lie I’d begun on that Christmas morning in Liverpool? Was it not a charade to stand near him day by day and to keep this secret?

I thought again of Lily’s wedding and the vows once spoken and broken by me. I was not merely seeking absolution from a priest or a church or a God. My penance had been great, but it was not complete. My confession needed to be made to my husband.

Chapter Thirty

Father McCarthy liked to hear confessions on Fridays. Some churches did it on Sundays, where one priest celebrated Mass while another heard the sins of the faithful. But there were no other priests here. He liked Fridays, though, in remembrance of the sacrifice on the cross.

The day drew the same faces every week. He told me once that hearing the sins of the elderly who came so devotedly was like being pelted with feathers. Their transgressions were so minimal, so scrupulous, that nothing merited more than a couple of Hail Marys as penance until they returned the following week.

I left my two suitcases, dusty from disuse, at the foot of the door of the church. Ellis had followed me outside as I locked my house for the last time.

“Stay,” I said, and he lay down and rested his head on his paws.

I opened the door. The church was dim, save for the streams of sunlight that illuminated specks of dust, which danced like glitter. The confessional stood at the side of the church. I’d cleaned the nooks of its carved scrolls so many times, and I knew the imperfections of its wood as well as those of my own hands. It had always looked mysterious to me, this depository of wrongdoing. But at this hour the light from the windows poured on it and I understood how people saw this as a kind of gateway to salvation.

I did not know if salvation or condemnation awaited me on the other side of its curtain. But for certain I would at last lift the shroud of lies that I’d told.

Three people stood in the queue before me, standing far back from the confessional itself, offering privacy to the penitent who knelt in front of the maroon curtain that separated him from the priest on the other side. Father McCarthy had told me that the changes happening at the Vatican might include a more informal, face-to-face sacrament in the future, but for now the guise of anonymity was safeguarded. For this, I was grateful. To speak these painful words to the person against whom the hurts had been committed would inflict a pain I had not known since my hands and face had felt the first rush of scalding water.

Two people remained, examining their consciences with booklets that helped them recall their shortcomings. One stepped forward. Then the next.

Then I was alone. My arms shook and my heart quaked as I approached the kneeler. I looked back at the door to see if there was a last-minute arrival who could spare me this agony just a few minutes longer, but none came.

My knees bent as my hands rested on the wooden ledge. The thick velvet curtain was hung on rods that rippled its fabric. I could hear Father McCarthy breathe behind it. I imagined him there, waiting for yet another mundane admission. He might be tired, taking off his spectacles, rubbing his eyes. Looking at his watch and counting the minutes until the last person had been heard. This was my final chance to back out. My suitcases were at the door. I could spare the priest from this purgation, and I nearly convinced myself that it would be selfless to do so. But it was false altruism that had led me here in the first place, and it had to end. Now.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I began, in the words that Father McCarthy had prepared me for in our studies.

“And of what do you accuse yourself?” he asked routinely.

“I have lied,” I said.

“Mm-hmm. And are you speaking of a venial lie or a greater one?”

“A greater one, Father. Much. I have lied to my family, my husband, my friends.” I paused, then whispered, “My child.”

I heard him shift in his seat.

“No sin is greater than the forgiveness that can be bestowed upon the sinner. Now, what is the nature of this lie and whom did it hurt?”

My pulse rushed, as I said the only word that needed to be said: “Kyle.”

The silence on the other end was total.

“Kyle,” I said again, this time through the tears that would no longer be barricaded. My head fell to the mantle, and my shoulders heaved.

I felt the curtain flutter, and I looked up. His hand slipped out beneath it and searched until it found my own. He squeezed it tightly and didn’t let go. The feel of his hand on mine was overwhelming, sending tremors throughout me as I tried, poorly, to keep my composure.

“Kyle,” I cried again. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through. I don’t know what else to say.”

All the words I’d prepared. The litany of offenses I’d rehearsed. Every thought left me as our hands explored one another’s.

Then he pulled away suddenly, and I heard the creak of the floor as he stepped out of the confessional.

I was hunched over the kneeler, but turned to him as he stood next to me. He fell to his knees and pushed my hair away from my face.

“It
is
you,” he said. “I had imagined it before, but thought that I was going mad. I thought I was seeing a ghost.”

He tucked a lock behind my ears and brushed his fingers down my ruined cheeks. I blinked as I saw him through water-filled eyes.

We reached for one another until our hands, our arms, found one another and, at last, our lips.

Our kiss was a frantic one, and I sank into the familiarity of Kyle that had haunted my dreams for over half of my life. Our breaths were one, hurried and demanding, and interrupted only by the sound of the church door. He jumped back. I leapt to my feet and smoothed my hair and face. But the door didn’t open, and I realized that it was only Ellis scratching to get in.

We looked at one another and laughed. He leaned on the pew for support, and I wrapped my hands around my stomach.

“Oh my goodness,” I said at last when our breathing had returned to normal. “Just imagine if someone had walked in! The priest and the housekeeper!”

Kyle smiled and stepped back toward me. This time he reached his arms around me and I nestled my head into his shoulders.

“My gorgeous girl,” he said. “My sad, my broken, my darling girl.” I felt the heat of his breath in my ear as he whispered, “What happened to you?”

Ellis scratched again.

“Maybe we should continue this at your house?” I suggested.

“Let me lock up. I’ll meet you there.” He placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.

I nodded and walked outside. Ellis jumped up to me.

“Silly, unromantic dog,” I said. I picked up my suitcases and walked over to Father McCarthy’s side of the house. I waited at his kitchen table and looked down at my nails. How I’d let myself go. I’d sunk wholly into this dowdy persona I’d created. Once I had cared about setting my hair, painting these nails, wearing colors that complemented me. Through the years I’d lost myself so entirely.

He arrived a few minutes later and, without speaking, closed the curtains of all the windows. He pulled the white collar from his cassock and set it on the table. Then he walked over to me again, pulled me to my feet.

“Julianne,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me again. He held me there, our bodies swaying gently as we stood. At last, he stepped back. He looked at my face and down at my hands. He placed delicate kisses on each and then led me to the sofa. “Please tell me everything.”

I shared with him, then, the story of Helen Bailey. I talked and talked. He listened and looked at me with those malt-colored Kyle eyes that were changed only by the slight wrinkles that encircled them. He held my hands the whole time, rubbing his thumb along their scars. I told him about Lucille and my parents and Charles and Roger and Abigail, and even about Jane and Lily. His hands tightened and his face hardened when I told him about our child, and I even confessed that it was her wedding that he’d presided over.

“A daughter,” he said.

He stood up, running his hands through his hair, and walked around the room several times before joining me again. He sighed, deeply and wearily, assimilating this great new hurt.

“How could you do that?”

“Kyle, I’m so sorry,” I pleaded again. “I didn’t know if you would come back from the war, and it seemed like the only chance I could give her. You have to believe me that it was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.” I started to cry at the thought of what might have been and how my decision had separated them all these years.

He walked over and took me in his arms. My tears wet his shirt, and he brushed his fingers through my hair.

“Shh,” he said. “I know you did what seemed right at the time. I was just not expecting anything like that.” He kissed my head before stepping back. “I’m partially to blame, though. I knew it. I looked for you for several years. I wouldn’t believe that you were gone. I thought that if you were gone, some piece of me would sense it. And there was no body. But there you were, all along, in that hospital. I
went
to that hospital. And every hospital in the area. How could I have missed you?”

“You missed me because I didn’t want to be found. I thought that I was being punished for taking you from the seminary, and I thought this would let you go back to what you were supposed to be in the first place. And I was right. Look at you!”

“Look at me? Julianne, did you never hear anything I said to you? I was meant to be with
you
.
You
were my vocation—do you remember me telling you that?”

I looked down, speaking softly. “I do. And now everything has changed because of me.”

Kyle gripped my arms. “Nothing has to change. Nothing has to be different.”

“How can you say that? Look at you! Look at me!”

“Do you see my collar over there?”

I looked in the direction that he was pointing, and I saw the stark white tab gleaming against the old dark wood of the table. I nodded.

“I couldn’t be a priest now even if I wanted to be. I’ll have to write to my bishop, and he will tell me that my marriage is an impediment to Holy Orders. That through no fault of my own, those vows are invalid.”

“Invalid,” I repeated.

“Yes. Believe me. I don’t say that casually. It’s been a good life. Serving like this is a privilege that few men are called to, and it’s something I take very seriously. And perhaps I pleased my mum and da somewhere up there.”

“And what about Crosby? You were going to be transferred there.”

“I asked to be transferred, but that’s moot now.”

I looked sharply at him. “You
asked
to be transferred? You told me that your commission here at All Souls had come to an end.”

He grinned sheepishly. “Well, that was nearly true. I was due to get another letter about that. But yes, I asked to be transferred.”

“Why? I thought you liked it here.”

“I
love
it here. I love it too much. That was exactly the problem.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Our dinners. Our studies. The time we spent together. You reminded me of my love of long ago. Your cinnamon rolls. The way you bite your lip when you’re nervous. All these things. I began to have the kinds of thoughts that a priest shouldn’t have. So I asked to be removed from this place. I needed to leave before I crossed a line that I shouldn’t have.”

I was speechless. To think that he could have loved me even as I was, that in this state I could stir such emotions in him. Enough that he felt he had to leave.

As if reading my mind, he said, “Look.” And he traced my face once again. “I knew when I married you that we would grow old together. See this?” He pulled at the gray hairs at his temples. “And this?” He rubbed a finger over the wrinkles around his eyes. “We’re both getting older. I’m not the robust young man that I was when you first met me. I’m going to have to have faith that you’re not going to leave me for some university-aged buck when you think I’m too much of an old man for you.”

I smiled. “I don’t know. What if he’s tall?”

Kyle stood and pulled me to my feet. “Then I’ll just have to find other ways to compete with him.” And he kissed me in a way that made me glad the curtains were closed.

Epilogue

Helen Bailey was born on 23 November 1940 in a flood of hot water at the height of the Blitz. She died on 5 August 1966 in the confessional of a remote church in Charcross. Her life was sad, friendless, and dotted with memories that were filled with remorse.

I, however, was reborn in that same little church when Kyle reached out to take my hand and forgive the sins that had been committed against him.

As predicted, the bishop dissolved his commitment without incident, expressing regret at losing such a dedicated priest. Having great admiration for Father McCarthy’s years of service, he recommended him for a teaching position at a small parochial school on the Isle of Man.

We left Charcross after Father Brown had been there for a few days, and we kept the nature of our relationship quiet for fear of causing scandal to those who didn’t need to hear an explanation. On the Isle of Man, we would start out again as Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy, and our strange history would be known only to us.

Our years there were happy and quiet. The same heart condition that had stolen my brother took me eventually, but I’d outlasted him by many years. I credited the love of a devoted husband and our daily walks along the coast of the island. I was an old lady by the time my heart finally gave out. My funeral was attended by Kyle, Lily, Albert, their two children, and three grandchildren, who had all traveled from London. And, of course, the many friends we had made. Jane’s health was too poor to travel at the time, but she and I wrote up until the very end and exchanged pictures of this family we shared under most unusual circumstances. Early in our correspondence, we agreed that Lily had a right to know about her parentage, and Kyle and I had a joyous reunion with our daughter when Jane invited us to a Christmas celebration at her house.

Kyle was the last to leave the graveyard. When all had gone, he knelt down and kissed the freshly dug dirt. His hand traced the length of it as he whispered, “Good-bye, gorgeous. I’ll see you soon.” He propped himself back up on his knees and then stood with much effort. His white hair glistened in the sunlight like the collar he had left behind so many years ago. He wiped the dirt from his hands and walked from my grave.