Boys in the Valley(7)
“You’re going to make a fine priest, Peter. You don’t need to worry.”
For a few shuffling steps, Peter doesn’t reply. Then, “I don’t know, Father.”
Andrew frowns. “What is it? Tell me what bothers you.”
Peter’s face reddens, and he looks left, right, everywhere but at Andrew. As if trapped and seeking escape. “To be honest? I worry about the strength of my faith.”
Andrew lets this sink in, knowing exactly what the boy struggles with, but wanting to choose his words carefully. “You have doubts.”
Peter nods, eyeing the dirt path.
“Would these doubts have something to do with a certain young woman?” He doesn’t wait for Peter’s reply, or denial, but pushes onward. “Of course, you cannot be a priest and be intimate with a woman. And, as you know, you can never be married. Further, you cannot be with a woman prior to marriage. It’s a sin.”
Peter kicks at a stone, looks over the field toward the rising sun. “I suppose God’s covered all the angles, hasn’t he?”
Andrew laughs, unable to contain himself. “Yes, I suppose He has. Sometimes, my boy, you make me think that the first step to saintliness must truly be scorn.” Andrew grabs his arm lightly, stops them, looks to make sure the other boys are out of hearing. “The priesthood is not for everyone, Peter. The choice must be yours. However, I’d ask you to consider who you are, what kind of man you want to be in this world.”
For the first time, Peter meets his eyes. “I want to be like you. You’re . . .” He looks skyward, then back to Andrew. “You’re the only good man I’ve ever known. But when I see Grace . . .”
“It’s okay. Be honest.”
“When I see her . . . my thoughts are not always pure.”
Now it’s Andrew who looks away. Playing the role of spiritual Father and paternal father to Peter these last five years hasn’t always been easy. He has no experience guiding a boy to adulthood in the way a parent could, and discussing sexuality is certainly not in his purview. Still, God gives everyone their burdens to bear, and he will not turn his back on the young man. Honesty, he knows, is the easiest and most correct course.
“You’re sixteen years old, Peter. Thinking otherwise would be . . . unnatural. We’re all human. Yes, even priests. Look, you must decide which life is more important to you. This life, of the flesh, which is over in the blink of an eye, or your eternal life with God.”
Peter nods, seemingly unmoved. Andrew grips him lightly by the shoulders. “Peter, there is one truth you must know. Please, look at me.”
Peter does, his young face contorted with indecision. Around them, the warming sun ignites the tips of the tall grass, waving in the chill breeze. The gray sky has turned a bluish hue.
“If you can sacrifice this life for the other, you will know more joy than you can possibly imagine. A joy that will last for eternity.”
Peter kicks his shoe into the dirt, eyes cast downward. “This life would not be much of a sacrifice.”
Andrew turns the boy and they continue walking. “All of life is a great gift,” he says. “Not because of what it gives us, but because of what it allows us to give others.”
They walk in silence until they reach the crops. The other boys are already dividing up, well-versed in their jobs. The ground is brittle with cold.
Peter sticks the heavy shovel into the dirt, studies the other kids, watches their work. “Father,” he says, his tone simultaneously whimsical and urgent. “Will Grace be in heaven? I mean, could we be together in eternity? You know, if not on earth?”
Andrew blows out a breath, rubs his hands together for warmth, hoping Peter doesn’t notice his shocked amusement. “I think we best leave the intricacies of that question for another day, my son.”
5
AS I WATCH THE OTHERS WASH UP AFTER A HARD DAY of working the fields, I find myself reflecting on the orphanage, on this strange place we call home. The stone floors in the washroom seem almost new compared with the rest of the orphanage, the draining system almost modern. In many ways, the rooms we inhabit feel like a different world, which in some ways they are. Since the boys’ dormitory was built long after the original structure, which was made up of the chapel, the dining hall, and the private rooms (only a handful intended for priests), the addition carries the odd feeling of an architectural afterthought.
The original structure was intended as nothing more than a home for traveling missionaries and a seminary for priests-in-training. When money ran thin, the church converted St. Vincent’s into an orphanage for boys, using the influx of church funds to build an addition atop the dining hall. A large washroom was added, complete with its own pump, long troughs for handwashing, and metal bathtubs that drain through a pipeline and into the fields. Three additional rooms were constructed—currently used as classrooms, a massive cloakroom, and storage. The dormitory itself, where the boys sleep and spend a majority of their time, was built at the south end of the revised structure. It is a broad, long room big enough to house thirty-two children, and is currently at capacity. A narrow crawlspace extends along the top of the addition, built primarily to ventilate heat in the summer and insulate heat during the long, harsh winters. Where the attic crawlspace meets the foyer, it connects seamlessly with the pre-existing, broader attic space, which is wide enough to be used for storage, and rests directly above the priests’ rooms on the north side.