“My message?” he asks, the haze from his heavy breathing obscuring his face.
“That you didn’t want to talk to me.” It hurts to say it. Tears spill down my cheeks, and I curse my inability to stop them. “Which is completely your prerogative. I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of all this.”
“You’re sorry?” he asks, moving into a puddle of light that illuminates his light blue eyes, making them glow. “No, I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”
“No, it’s my fault and my family’s fault. God, it’s even Hunter’s fault.” I run through the list, laughing ironically. “The only person I don’t blame is you.”
“I can’t let you do that. The pictures and accusations, sure, we can blame that on human frailties like greed or pride. But my sin remains the same. I . . .” He stumbles over his words, staring at his hands pressed together in front of him. “I knew after our first meeting that I needed to be careful. It didn’t take long to develop very strong feelings for you. I allowed myself to have them, and I nurtured them inappropriately.”
He’s avoided direct eye contact until now. When he meets my gaze, it’s there again, the electricity that nearly struck me down when he touched my hand across his desk after our first interview. Damn that current. Damn how right it feels. Damn how badly I want to be held in his arms and protect one another from all the stones hurled our way.
He looks away first, following the line of the church steeple, his eyes turned toward the heavens.
“Father Ignatius will be completing your Pre-Cana and performing the ceremony. I’ll be transferring in the morning.”
“Transfer? They’re sending you away?” Talk about being cast out—I’m sure my consequences look like nothing compared to his.
“No, I want to go. I can’t be here while . . .” His eyes grow glossy as he stares toward the cross on the top of the steeple. “I can’t be here while you are.”
I look over my shoulder at the symbol he’s focusing on and then back at him, spinning my engagement ring around my finger over and over again.
“I’m leaving tonight for New York. Hunter and I—I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”
“Oh no. I’m so sorry,” he says, sounding concerned. He looks up at me, his face filled with compassion and regret.
“Hey, don’t be. It has very little to do with you. Really.”
Well, it has something to do with him or at least the way I feel about him and the contrast it’s provided to my relationship with Hunter, opening my eyes to its flaws.
“That’s sad to hear. You know I wish you the best, either way.” He gives a little bow and a smile I know he doesn’t mean. One minute he’s leaving town because I’m too tempting or whatever, and then the next he’s wishing me well in my possible future marriage. I can’t keep up with it all.
“I don’t blame you for your feelings,” I explain, frustrated with him in a way that’s hard to pinpoint. “I have them, too, and you’re right—it all feels . . . irresistible when we’re together,” I disclose, so exasperated that I don’t recognize the importance of us both acknowledging our feelings for each other. “So, I agree—that means we have to stay far apart, but you don’t have to be so goddamn magnanimous about it all.”
A car with a U illuminated in the window pulls up to the curb. Thank God, my ride is here. I left all my belongings including my rental car key at the hotel. I’ll have Conrad pack it up and mail it. For now, I have my wallet and my phone, and that’s all I need. No way I’m going back to that place and risking being surreptitiously filmed again.
I stand, wobbling as blood returns to my legs and feet.
“I gotta go. I wish you well too, Patrick.” I make it to the second-to-bottom stair just above where he’s planted. He doesn’t step aside, and he doesn’t look away. In this position, we’re close to equal height, and he has to look me in the eye.
“Hold on. Please. Let me explain.” His cheeks are a bright pink from the cold and his eyes red rimmed like he’s spent the day crying. I should leave; it’s safer for us both.
But I don’t.
“Go ahead.”
“All right,” he says, and then continues, labored, like he’s fighting off a muzzle. “I wanted to tell you to leave Hunter,” he says, uttering Hunter’s name like it’s a dirty word, his breath touching my cheek with each word, “and I want to go back in time to a place where I had a right to offer you all the things you deserve.” He scrutinizes me between each statement, his assessment feeling like a caress. “Do you really think I don’t dream of waking up next to you? It haunts me, that thought.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I melt at his tender touch. “My vows have never felt heavy. But now they’re like chains that keep me underwater when all I want to do is breathe you in—your mind and soul and, God curse me, your hair, your lips, your embrace . . .”
I bite my lower lip when he mentions them and then tilt toward him, our bodies practically touching.
“I’m sorry I haunt you,” I kid, touching his cheek. A rumbling sound comes from deep in his throat, and I hate how it builds my longing for all the things he listed.
“I wish things were different,” I say, fighting the urge to give in to temptation and press my mouth against his, let his arms take me in, his fingers grasp at my back, pulling me into his chest so tightly I can’t breathe.
“Me too,” he says, watching my lips, fighting the same demons that I am.
“But they’re not,” I say, stating what we already know and removing my hand.
“No, they’re not,” he agrees, shuffling far enough away that a cool wind chills the pool of heat that had gathered between us.
“Goodbye, Father Patrick,” I say, putting out my hand formally. He takes it.
“Goodbye, Miss Branson,” he returns. We shake and then we reluctantly let go. I run to the waiting car like I’m being chased by the devil himself.
Turning my eyes downward, I stare at the glittering three-carat diamond ring my grandfather supposedly gave to my grandmother. I once asked her how he’d afforded such a fancy ring when he was reportedly such a humble man. She said it was a family heirloom, which meant it didn’t really belong to her, but it belonged to the next generation and the generation after that. I take it off and slip it onto the ring finger of my right hand.
Why did I only feel worthy enough to wear this ring when a man gave it to me? I wonder.
As the car carries me away, I turn around in my seat for one more look at Father Patrick, at Edinburgh, and at Holy Trinity. Patrick stands in front of the church where I left him, but his eyes are no longer cast up toward the steeple, the cross, or heaven itself. Instead, he, in his black shirt and slacks, head bowed low and buried in his hands, is gradually swallowed up by the darkness.
It’s better this way. For both of us.
CHAPTER 34
Vivian
Sunday, October 17, 1943
Camp Atterbury
“Vivian! Is that you?” Judy jumps to her feet behind the glass partition and leans against the desk to get a better look, and I know why. I’ve been away for four months, and I’m returning a different woman from when I first walked into this office six months ago.