They all needed that time. They were like injured animals, isolating themselves from the pack to lick their wounds and privately heal.
Gmork nudged Nora’s hand, his signal she needed to get back to petting him. And she did. It was a sweet and easy thing to do, and while it didn’t make her feel too much better, it didn’t make her feel any worse.
Thursday.
Nora hated waiting. She told Cyrus that in a text message. He replied with a message asking her to come have dinner with him and Paulina.
She wants to meet you, Cyrus wrote her.
I’m not fit for company.
Get fit. You do not tell my fiancée “no.”
Nora didn’t want to leave her house but knew she couldn’t hide forever. She took a shower, dressed in her most conservative outfit—red slacks, white boatneck blouse, and matching red ballet flats. When she arrived at the little white cottage, a pretty brown-skinned woman in a yellow dress and white lace cardigan opened the door. This was Paulina. Cyrus stood behind her, watching the show.
“Hi,” Nora said. “I’m Nora. Thank you for—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. Paulina stepped forward and took Nora in her arms for a long hug. Cyrus said, gloating, “I knew you two would get along.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Friday.
Cyrus had been right with his prediction. On Friday, the front page of the paper revealed damning evidence of a coverup in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Archbishop Dunn’s secretary had served as a source. At age thirty-seven, while working as a school chaplain at a New Orleans parochial school, Father Isaac Murran had kissed a student and rubbed her thighs. That girl’s family made a complaint. Another girl came forward and said he’d done the same to her. Father Isaac was transferred to a post working as a chaplain in a men’s prison, then at a nursing home, then back at a middle school. Archbishop Dunn was aware of the complaint in the file, the prior bad acts, but still chose to transfer Father Isaac to a new position at a different school. It seemed the archbishop was well-aware of many prior bad acts of several priests in the diocese. Instead of defrocking the priests or calling the police to report the crimes, the men had simply been transferred, then transferred, then transferred again.
Nora took a copy of the paper to Mercedes at The Good Witch. She found her in the reading room, already pasting a cut-out of the article into her big black leather magic book.
She stood in the doorway of the room, watching Mercedes work.
“I made the scrapbook,” Nora said. Mercedes looked up from her cutting and pasting.
“It’s called a book of shadows, not a scrapbook,” she said, though Nora could tell she was trying not to smile. “If your name had been in the article, I would have framed it and put it on the wall with the others.”
“I’m glad my name’s not in the article.”
“I’ve been working spells to protect you all week.”
“I think they’re working. They haven’t said a word about me. Not even a hint. Cyrus’s name is everywhere though.”
“I didn’t cast any spell of protection for him.”
“That’s not very nice.” Nora tried to scowl.
“Your friend is a detective. Getting his name in the paper for solving a case is good for him, bad for you.”
Mercedes motioned at the chair across from her currently occupied by a small black cat that didn’t look much older than a kitten.
“Is this Hestia?” Nora said.
“No, this is one of the stray ‘familiars’ someone dropped off at my doorstep. I need to change the sign to say, All Familiars Must be Accompanied by Their Human.”
She smiled. Mercedes said, “How are you?”
Nora picked up the half-sleeping cat and took the chair. The cat merely stretched and yawned and fell back asleep on her lap.
“Everyone keeps asking me that. Angry. But I’m okay. Just worried about that little girl.”
“Even a cleansing fire can burn you, if you stand too close. Churches are burning in this town. I see the fires on the altars. But better careers burning than children.”
“They’re saying Archbishop Dunn may have to resign. There might even be criminal charges.”
“Hope so,” Mercedes said. “If he does go to jail, it’ll be thanks to you.”
“Thanks to you,” Nora said. “I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t warned me I was going to make the wrong choice. The men in my life made very persuasive arguments.”
“So easy to choose between good and evil. So hard to choose between good and good. Hardest of all is choosing between what you want to do and what you ought to do.”
“It was all on me,” Nora said. “My choice. Just me. I was the one vote and if I’d voted the other way, how many kids would… I guess we all thought it was over.” The big clergy abuse scandals of the ’90s had been all over the papers. Then they just stopped. Out of sight, out of mind.
“You know how many supposed ‘witches’ and ‘psychics’ are just con artists?” Mercedes said. “How many of those ‘mediums’ take the hope and the money of grieving parents, claiming they can communicate with their dead children? My own house needs cleaned, too. Nothing new about people abusing their power. Your Church doesn’t own the copyright on that.”
Mercedes gave her a little smile, a littler wink.
Nora had to ask. She just had to.
“Is it real? Did you really see what you say you saw in my cards?”
“Does it matter?” Mercedes shrugged. “Maybe I saw it in the cards. Maybe I had a vision. Maybe I just used my brain and two eyes when I saw a handsome man in black drive up to your house one night, Bible in his saddlebag, inscribed, ‘To Father Stearns with deepest love and gratitude.’” The Bible was a gift from parishioners at Sacred Heart when he left to come to New Orleans.
“So you knew I was sleeping with a priest. That still doesn’t explain—”
Mercedes held out her hand. “You Catholics have your mysteries of faith. We have ours.”
You Catholics.
“You already know what I’m going to do, don’t you?” Nora asked.
“I think I know,” she said and took The Hierophant card out of her desk and laid it before Nora. Dressed as the pope with two priests at his feet as if in worship, Nora found herself repelled by him, by his throne, his staff of power, his cold, uncaring eyes “Scared?”
“I don’t want to hurt him. He’ll think I’m doing it to get back at him.”
“Give the man some credit,” Mercedes said. “He’s loved you all your life. Would he think that little of you?”
“You’re defending him? The Catholic warlock I’m sleeping with?”
“You’re no fool. If you love him, there must be a reason. Isn’t there?”
There were. Many. Too many to count. But one in particular.
“I was fifteen when I fell in love with him,” Nora said. “Or whatever feels like love to a fifteen-year-old girl. There was nothing I wouldn’t let him do to me, and he knew that, too.” Nora swallowed hard. “I hated him when he pushed me away. Now I’m so grateful it hurts. I didn’t realize how much power he had over me until now. The only reason I’m not more fucked up than I already am is because he…protected me. From himself. As best he could anyway.” Nora wiped the tears off her face. “You know how we met? He was never supposed to be a parish priest. They’d trained him for a career in Academia. He’d be president of a Jesuit university by now if things had gone differently. But he found out about a coverup of an abusive priest, and he contacted the victim’s attorney. They punished him with the last assignment he ever wanted—pastoring a little church in a small town. And there I was. Why was it so easy for him to turn in a priest then and not this time?”
“No one he knew or loved was at risk back then. Only his own career. This time…you know how ugly this could have been for you if the media knew about you two.”
“I know. It’ll keep me up at night for a few weeks.”
“Not for a while,” she said. “This case has killed my sex drive.”
“I give that about five minutes.”
“Hey.”
She held up the Lovers tarot card. “Don’t blame me. It’s in the cards.”
Laughing, Nora reached for the Emperor card.
“Can I tell you something crazy? My mom and I never—I mean never ever in my life—got along. Oil and water from birth. Anyway.” Nora swallowed, steadied herself with a breath. “After we found out about Father Murran and Melody, I wanted—” Nora slapped a hand over her mouth hard, silencing a sob that seemed to come from nowhere but in fact came from deep, deep in her heart. “I wanted my mom.” She laughed at herself, laughed at her crying, laughed at her stupid, useless wanting. Mercedes didn’t laugh. She waited. “My mom. Søren’s mom. Any mom. Why the fuck do mothers have to go and die five minutes before you figure out how much you need them?”
Mercedes reached out and put her hand over Nora’s.
“I’m a mom,” she said softly. “And it’s going to be all right.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Good Saturday. Cyrus and Paulina on his boat in Lake Pontchartrain. He wore khaki shorts, no shirt, enjoying the lake breeze in the late summer heat. Paulina had on her black bikini and lay on the deck on a yellow-striped beach towel.
He must have been quiet too long because Paulina stretched out her arm and wrapped her small, delicate hand over the top of his big bare foot.
“What’s on your mind, Daddy?”
“You. Always.”
“Oh, come on.” She smiled as he pushed her sunglasses up off her eyes.
“They knew the cop that shot me was dirty,” he said. “Had a file thick as a brick. Racial profiling. Police brutality. Harassment. They knew he was dangerous, and they let him keep his badge until he shot me. And they knew Ike was dangerous, and they let him keep his collar, let him around little girls even. This ever gonna end?”
“If it does end in this town, it’ll be thanks to men like you.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
The boat rocked gently under them, easy and steady. A breeze blew by, and it smelled like the ocean on a clear, cool day. He’d always loved it out here on the lake. He’d even taken Katherine out here on one of their only real dates. The other “dates” had been in her bedroom.
“You mind if a make a call, baby?”
“Of course not. Nora?”
“Katherine.” He paused, steeled himself. Honesty was getting easier for him, but it wasn’t easy yet. “You know she and I had a little thing right before I got shot.” She sat up and looked at him. He went on, “I want to make sure she’s okay.”
“I think you should,” Paulina said. She squeezed his foot, let it go.
He walked to the bow where his phone was stashed in his duffel. She picked up on the first ring. She didn’t even say hello when she answered. Her first words were, “Please don’t tell me there’s more.”
“No more,” he said. “I think.”
“Good. Great.” She exhaled. “I’m almost sorry I got you into this.”
“It was my choice.”
“True. I guess what I mean is…I’m sorry I got me into this.” He heard her soft, sad laugh, then a sigh.
“You doing all right?” he asked.
“Okay, I guess. You?”
“I might not be going back to Mass for a while.”
“Paulina’ll let you get away with that?”
“She understands.”
“She’s been really good for you, hasn’t she?”
“Yeah, yeah she has.”
“Glad you’re okay. Look, I’m about to go. Did you—”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, Katherine. I’m sorry for treating you the way I did. Especially when you came by the hospital, and I acted like—”
“Like you didn’t know me?”
“Mom was there, but that’s no excuse. I could have told her we were friends, at least. She thought I was seeing someone else and it—never mind. Like I said, no excuse. I treated you like shit, and you didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry. Genuinely.”
A long silence followed. Then, “Wow. This case really did get to you.”
“It did, yeah,” he said. “You don’t have to forgive me or anything. I’m not asking for that. I just—”
“I forgive you.”
He didn’t know how much he needed to hear that until she said it, didn’t realize he was carrying that weight until she lifted it off and tossed it in the lake.
“I really do need to run,” she said.
“Yeah, of course. Thank you.”
“Bye, Cyrus. Hope you and Paulina are very happy together. I mean that.”
“Katherine?” he said fast, before she could hang up.
“Yes?”
“If you ever call me again with a case,” he said, “I’ll answer.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
When Nora checked her mail that afternoon and found another blank postcard, her stomach plummeted through the floor. Did Søren leave her again? Then she saw the postmark—New Orleans. She flipped the card over. It was just a vintage postcard of the French Quarter, the sort you could pick up for a dollar from any old bookstore in town. The night he’d returned from his trip, he’d told her what his blank postcards meant. I love you. I miss you. This is where you can find me. The card was an invitation, asking her to come back into his life. He wouldn’t force his presence on her. He was waiting, just waiting for her to decide what came next for them.
Later that evening, Nora sent Søren a text message to accept the invitation.
Warning, I have a housewarming gift for you, Nora told him. Three gifts actually.
Søren answered, Gold, frankincense, and myrrh?
Even better. See you soon.
Nora stopped by The Good Witch one more time to pick up Søren’s first housewarming gift, then drove over to his house. She found him in his music room at his piano, playing a song she vaguely knew but couldn’t name.
She came in and sat next to him on the piano bench. His hands stilled at the keys, but when she didn’t say anything, he began to play again. The sun was setting outside, the room growing darker. When he reached the end, he lifted his fingers from the keys and set his hands in his lap.
“Pretty,” she said. “What was that?”
“An old Welsh lullaby—‘All Through the Night.’” He sung the lines to her, softly:
Sleep my child and peace attend thee
All through the night
Guardian angels God will send thee
All through the night
He faced her the first time. “Grace used to sing it to Fionn to put him to sleep. She let me listen on the phone one night.” His brow furrowed. “Does that hurt you?”
“That you listened to the mother of your son sing to him? Of course it hurts. It breaks my heart because you only got to hear it over the phone and only once. Why do you ask?”
“I think I hurt you more in more ways than I know. No, I hurt you in more ways than I want to know.”
“I can take it.” She smiled—a wicked smile, but a brief one. It was all for show anyway. “Sometimes. And sometimes I can’t take it.”
“Miserere mei, Deus—secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.”
She laughed softly. “Are you trying to turn me on by speaking in Latin? If so, it’s working.”
He smiled, almost. “It’s known as the ‘neck verse,’” he said. “The first verses of Psalm 51 in Latin. In old Britain, clergy received less sentences for their crimes. Anyone accused of a crime could claim ‘benefit of the clergy.’ You would save your neck from a noose if you could recite to the courts that verse in Latin and thus prove you were in the clergy. Of course, many non-clergy members used it. Who wouldn’t?”
“Seems a little unfair. I doubt they’d believe a woman accused of murder was a member of the clergy even if she recited the whole Bible in Latin.”
In fact, they would have probably accused her of witchcraft.
“Massively unfair, but I’ll take any help I can get right now.”
“I’m not going to hang you. Or shoot you.”
“Or leave me?”
She kissed him. A gentle kiss at first, then deeper as Søren took her face in his hands and kissed the breath from her body. Who needed air anyway? The kiss stilled like a storm and they sat there, foreheads resting together. Søren found her hands and held them.
“I love you,” she said.
“Still?”
“Always. You are a wicked priest, but I’m a wicked woman. Let’s just accept we deserve each other.”
“I’m more than happy to accept that,” he said. She smiled up at him.
“Now, you tell me what you want first—your housewarming gifts or the bad news.”
“I’ll take the bad news.”
“Nope, you’re getting a gift first. I’ll go get her.”
The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel Page 31