by Jenni Moen
I thought about it for a second. “You know what? I don’t think I do. I am going to go see him though.” I moved to get up but stopped when I remembered something. “What about tonight?”
She snorted. “Do you want to confront her?”
I laughed. “I’m not having dinner with her. She’s not getting another minute of my time or energy.” Whatever she thought she had on me and Paul, I had more on her and Jonathan. I picked up my phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a mischievous smile lighting up her eyes.
“She likes text messages. I’m going to text her to tell her we aren’t coming.” I pulled up Arden’s text string on my phone.
“What are you going to say?” Kate, said bouncing on the bed and causing the papers around us to shift and shuffle.
I typed my message. It was short and sweet and to the point.
Sorry but something’s come up and I can’t make it tonight. You know I’d rather be with you.
I hit send and handed the phone to Kate so she could read it.
She laughed, her laugh fringing on the edges of hysterical. “Oh, wait,” she said, throwing my phone back on the bed and grabbing Jonathan’s instead. Arden’s last message was still on the screen.
Kate typed furiously and then handed the phone to me, her laugh now crossing firmly over the line into maniacal.
And they say, dead men don’t tell tales.
REALITY
GRACE
I couldn’t take my car to Paul’s. I didn’t want someone to see it parked in his driveway or even around the corner. I didn’t use the front door either. Like a criminal, I snuck around the side of the church parsonage and knocked on the back door.
“I’m sorry to surprise you,” I blurted before the door was even all the way open. “But I just needed – ” My thoughts and words were cut off by the sight before me.
Paul stood in the open doorway, wearing nothing but athletic shorts, tennis shoes, and a smile. “You don’t need an invitation, Grace.”
I blinked up at his marvelousness. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man. Oh, how I loved a runner’s body. “Been running?” I asked, though there wasn’t a drop of sweat on him. How did I know? Because I was looking. Or more accurately, gaping.
“No. I’ve been working in the house. Come in and I’ll show you what I’ve been up to.” He held the door open so that I could pass through. When I did, my arm brushed his smooth, solid stomach.
It wasn’t an accident. I’d lived my entire life, always playing it safe, doing what everyone expected of me. I was done living like that. From this point forward, I was going to be braver. I was going to take chances. I was going to treat every day like it might be my last, knowing that it very well could be. A small smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth, as if he knew I’d touched him on purpose.
He grabbed my hand, leading me into a small kitchen. The linoleum floor was a little dingy, in need of replacing, but the rest of the kitchen was probably average as far as church parsonages went. There was certainly nothing fancy about it.
“Just give me a second to find my shirt.” The lean muscles in his shoulders and chest rippled and strained as his head swiveled to look for it.
‘You don’t have to,’ I wanted to say. However, even the new, braver Grace still had some growing to do.
“Maybe it’s in the living room,” he said pulling me down a long dark hall towards the front of the house. Spotting his shirt, he let go of my hand. “There it is.”
My feet suddenly felt like lead, preventing me from following him into the room. The room was full of boxes. Boxes piled on top of boxes. Each one marked in Paul’s scrawled writing. Bedroom. Bathroom. Living room. Hall closet. Every room seemed to be represented.
The one sitting in the middle of the room was marked ‘Donate.’ A roll of packing tape and a permanent marker sat on top of it.
My heart sank, my excitement to see him and tell him everything I’d learned earlier that day dissolving into nothingness. “You’re leaving,” I said breathlessly. My heart rate beat faster than a runaway train. Had he heard the rumors, too?
Fully clothed again, he sat down on the couch and casually threw his arm over the back of it. “I kind of have to. Come sit by me, Grace.” He patted the chair beside him, reminding me that someone was conspicuously absent.
“Where’s Chubs?”
“He’s locked in the bedroom. The boxes were making him nervous.”
I could relate.
I had a million questions, but one was more immediately important than the rest. “So where are you going?” I dreaded his next words. If he said Boston, I didn’t know what I’d do. Would I follow him? Would he want me to? Our relationship was too new for me even to guess.
“Third Street. I rented an apartment in The Commons.” Third Street was only three blocks from my father’s house. My heart was beating again, but it was doing so with the rhythm of a runaway train. “I have to be out tonight because my replacement gets here tomorrow.”
“Your replacement?”
“Why are you still over there? Do I smell or something?” He sniffed at his t-shirt, but his playful grin did nothing to alleviate my worries.
“No,” I said, remembering how I’d gotten here. “But I probably do. I ran all the way over here.”
“Why?” he asked, suddenly concerned. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. No. Well, now I don’t know.” All the things I’d wanted to tell him now seemed unimportant. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
“I’ve been in discussions with the bishop all week.”
I gasped. “Did he kick you out of the church? Because of me?” Funny, how out of all things I’d learned today, the thought of Paul being removed from the church or, worse, being excommunicated was by far the hardest for me to digest.
“Calm down, Grace. It’s not like that. And it’s not because of you though you’re a part of it. I tried to keep your name out of it. I really did. But the Bishop needed to know everything so he could determine my level of wrongdoing.”
Everything. The Bishop knew everything.
Realizing that I wasn’t budging from my spot across the room, he stood again. However, he still didn’t make a move to come closer to me. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Grace. But I have, and now I’m in the process of fixing things. That’s why Russell was here.”
“He told you this is wrong?” After meeting him and the things he’d said to me, I really couldn’t imagine it.
“No. Quite the opposite, actually. He thinks that he’s done me a terrible disservice, that he led me astray from whatever life was meant for me. He’s always told me that his influence and my Irish guilt were a dangerous combination.”
I stared at him, motionless and silent.
“All those years ago, when I said I wanted to enter the priesthood, he tried to talk me out of it. He told me I was doing it for the wrong reasons. But I couldn’t hear him because everything he’d done and the church had done to save me was talking so much louder. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have had a life at all.” The emotion in his voice made his accent thicker.
“He was there for me then, and he was here for me last week. I didn’t ask him to come, but I guess I needed someone to help me sift through the mess I’ve created and figure out how I can fix it.”
“Am I part of the solution or the problem?”
The smile slipped off his face. He took a step toward me. “Are you sure you’re ready to do this now?” he asked. “It can wait. If you’re not ready - ”
I knew now that I was far stronger than I’d ever believed. Whatever it was he was going to tell me, I could handle it. And I had things to tell him, too. Things that were now pressing so heavily on my chest that I felt I would suffocate if I didn’t get them out. “I want this.” I meant the conversation. I meant him. I meant everything.
He looked anxious, but took another step in my direction, approaching me as if he thought I we
re a timid deer that was going to spook at any minute. “The way I feel about you, Grace. It was wrong.”
I’d been telling Kate the same thing, but hearing him say it was even more difficult than saying it myself. I didn’t want it to be wrong. I wanted him to want me without guilt or consequence.
“Did you know I watched you, Grace?” He paused as if he actually expected me to answer so I shook my head. “I can tell you where I was when I saw you the first time. I was new to town. You were reading at the coffee shop and were so engrossed in your book that you were oblivious to everyone around you. It sounds sort of creepy when I say it now, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. You were captivating.”
I stared at his perfect mouth as he spoke and felt my pulse quicken with every word that came out of it.
“It wasn’t because you were beautiful – though you are, of course. I could just tell that there was something different about you. Something special.”
I held my breath until he continued. After spending the day reading about my faults, comparing myself to Arden, and thinking that I hadn’t been enough, Paul’s words were like a soothing balm.
“I never believed in love at first sight. I still don’t,” he continued, “but I think I knew then – without even knowing your name, without ever having spoken to you – that I could love you some day – if you would let me.”
Everything in the room spun as the gravity of his words hit me. I wanted him to repeat them so that I could make sure that I’d heard him right, but I didn’t dare ask him to do so.
“It wasn’t until I started working at the kitchen with you that I knew I was in too deep. But even then I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself. It was just a ‘what if.’ Spending time with you the last few weeks has shown me what could actually be, and it’s so much better than anything I imagined. I’ve fallen for you, and I’ve fallen hard.”
“But you said at the dog park that you’ve never been in love.”
“I stand by that.” The perplexed look on my face urged him on. “I love you. Probably always have. But I wasn’t in love with you until you could love me back.”
His words were crushing. I never wanted Paul to feel unloved. He was one of the most beautiful human beings I’d ever known. “But – “
He cut me off, “It’s okay. You couldn’t love me – you couldn’t even see me that way – because you were in love with your husband, and that was the way things were supposed to be. I told myself that my feelings weren’t wrong because I knew that it could never be anything more. I told myself it was enough to just be around you. But I was wrong about that, too.”
He reached out and picked up a piece of my hair that had fallen over my shoulder, but his eyes never left mine. “It was wrong because when your hair fell over your face in that coffee shop, and you brushed it away, I wanted to be the one that did that for you.” He brushed my hair over my shoulder before resting his hand there, causing electricity to hum through my body.
“When we would do inventory at the kitchen, and you would do that thing you do with the cans, you would bite your lower lip in concentration, and I wanted to do this.” With his other hand, he brushed his thumb against my lower lip.
“But the truth is that I shouldn’t have wanted to touch you. I shouldn’t have volunteered at Karen’s just to be near you. My desire for you was wrong because my heart was supposed to belong to Him. It was forgivable, of course, if I’d asked. But I didn’t ask – not in any meaningful way – because if I was broken, I didn’t want to be fixed. I wanted you instead.”
“And then you kissed me in that vet’s office …” He shook his head, and a faint smile tugged at his lips. “Once I had that small taste of you, I knew that I needed all of you.”
“I could fool myself. I could fool the bishop, my congregation … even you … but I couldn’t fool the one that counts the most. You filled a loneliness that I never knew I had. He knew that you had worked your way into my heart and that I’d already tucked away a piece of it for you. It belonged to you. Like Him, my love is irr - ”
“What are you saying, Paul?” I asked, cutting him off. Was he saying that he wasn’t a priest anymore?
He smiled broadly. “Irrevocable,” he finished, as if I hadn’t spoken. “My love for you is irrevocable.”
The tears were flowing freely now. He did love me.
“I’ve asked for dispensation. It will take some time, and I don’t really expect you to feel the same way I do, but I know it’s the right decision. Even if you decide not to be a part of my life, it’s the right decision.”
“I want to be a part of your life,” I said, the words pouring out of me as fast as I could get them off my tongue.
Paul cupped my cheeks in his hands, and I could feel his touch all the way down to the tips of my toes. “And I want you to be a part of mine.”
His mouth covered mine. With no reluctance whatsoever, I knew I could give my heart away, knowing that this man would protect it as if it were his own. He would love me completely and wholly because it was the only way that he knew how to love. Even though I hadn’t said it back to him, I knew that I could. I could love him, too. He had nestled his way into my heart when I wasn’t looking and captured a piece of it.
With Paul, I could find happiness again. Despite the fact that the people I’d trusted most had betrayed me, I could find happiness and welcome it, knowing that I deserved a second chance. He could make me as happy as I’d ever been. Happier even than I’d been with Jonathan.
I looked into his eyes and saw everything that I was feeling reflected back at me, and time seemed to stand still again…
The heat of the flames and a deep breath of smoke snapped me back into the moment. I looked into the fire unsure of why or how I’d gotten this glimpse of what could be.
I’d be lying if a small part of me didn’t want that. I wanted Paul for myself, and I wanted it for him, too. We would be happy together. However, my happiness would come at a cost. It wasn’t free, and I knew it would always be tempered. I could see my life without Isabelle and Trey. Visiting their graves, grasping onto Kate and my father for support, trying to find my way without them.
Life is about choices. Every choice has a consequence. Every action has a reaction. Most of the time we do not what those consequences will be. However, I’d been given a precious gift. As much as I wanted a life with Paul, there was only one thing that I wanted more, and I would give up everything for a different outcome.
One in which my children might be allowed to live.
One in which Trey might be given the chance to be loved as freely and completely as Paul did.
One in which Isabelle might know what it was like to feel that love reflected back at her.
I would willingly walk away from it all so they could feel one ounce of what I had felt for Paul. It was a chance I would take, and I knew in my heart that if I wasn’t meant for Paul, someone else was.
I looked up the stairs and knew that I didn’t have two choices at all. There was only one.
I had to save my children if I could.
TWO
five months before
PAUL
I’d officiated my fair share of funerals, but this one had been different. Losing a family in a house fire was hard enough. Burying the woman you love was unbearable.
There was a saying that I’d heard and dismissed my whole life. You don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it. During the past six days, I’d come to the conclusion that it was trite but true.
Of course, the phrase didn’t really even apply to me. She’d never been mine to lose. She’d belonged to someone else every day that I knew her. I’d never know what could have been if I’d had a chance with her.
However, I was finally being honest with myself and I’d always known how special Grace was. Her death had made me see that. I hadn’t been able to put it into words or even admit it to myself before now, but I’d loved her for more than a year.
The fact that I wasn’t supposed to have feelings for her, or any other woman for that matter, had made them easier to ignore, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. On this day, when my job had required me to officiate her funeral, I was finally willing to acknowledge that a force had been pulling me in her direction from the very first time I’d laid eyes on her.
I remembered it as if it were yesterday.
It had been a Monday in early October. I’d just moved here and had been walking Chubs through the streets of downtown in an effort to get acquainted with my new home. The weather had still been stifling though I’d been repeatedly assured that eventually the seasons would change. Coming from Boston, which had already experienced its first snow of the year, it had been a shock to my system.
I rounded a corner, and there she was, sitting at a two-seater table outside of the town’s only coffee shop, head bowed, engrossed in a book. Even now, I couldn’t explain why I’d done it. I didn’t even like coffee. However, something or someone compelled me to walk toward the coffee shop and toward her.
I hadn’t stopped to introduce myself as I passed because that would have been strange for both of us. Instead, I walked to a table and tied Chubs to the chair. Then I’d gone inside and ordered a small black coffee because the names of the other drinks on the menu made no sense to me. I’d taken my paper cup outside and sat with Chubs while my untouched drink got cold.
While I absentmindedly scratched his head, she’d leaned her head forward, causing her hair to fall in front of her shoulder. I watched her wrap a piece of it around her finger, her eyes still on the book, and then toss it back over her shoulder. Every so often, the corner of her mouth would lift, and she would smile at whatever she’d read. Then she’d look off into space while she seemed to think about something. After a few moments, she’d return to her book as if she’d figured out the answer to whatever had puzzled her.
It sounded stalkerish now, but it hadn’t felt like that at the time. There’d just been something about her that I couldn’t walk past.