Finally, Xavier said, “My dear Deacon Maxence, please say one good Act of Contrition in penance, and let us pray together for grace and to know the true will of God in your vocation.”
Losing Father Xavier’s respect hurt, and Maxence prayed with every shred of his soul, holding Father Xavier’s weathered hands, that he would know the will of God and commit himself to it.
Even as Max prayed, soft sparks glimmered at the edges of his vision: satin skin, hair like shredded silk, a joyous laugh, a glance of blue eyes filled with kindness as she listened to him, and a quiet voice speaking gentle words with him that healed instead of wounded.
Not Dree. Don’t think about Dree.
Think about the will of God.
Maxence wrestled with his soul and his thoughts.
Father Xavier sighed, removed the stole from around his neck and kissed the cross in the center, and rose as he wound the small strip of fabric around his hand. “I sense that you have great conflict in your soul, Deacon Maxence. I hope you can reconcile it with God.”
“I hope so, too, Father Xavier.”
Father Xavier pressed his lips together and shook his head, and then said, “I have heard the ladies in the kitchen, cooking. Lunch will be served soon. I hope you can devote yourself to prayer this day before your mission begins in earnest tomorrow.”
After lunch, Father Xavier hurried off to the other church, and Maxence did devote himself to an afternoon of reading and contemplative silence, trying to remedy the trouble in his soul.
His soul did not cooperate.
Maxence slowly conquered his wayward mind. Each time he prayed the hours of the Divine Office, working his way through Sext at midday and None in the midafternoon, he felt stronger in the philosophy and practice of filling his day with prayer.
The clock’s hands slowly spun toward five o’clock in the afternoon, local time, and Maxence began to look forward to the evening prayer of Vespers, a prayer of thanksgiving and gratitude for the day, when there was a knock at the front door of the rectory.
Ah, this would be the new volunteer sent by Father Thomas Aquinas in Phoenix, the one with the same last name as Dree,Clark.
What a coincidence.
She’d said it was a common surname.
Maxence pulled on his suit jacket, ever careful about first impressions, and brushed the front of it for travel dust before he opened the door to the front garden.
Two women stood in the early evening’s fading sunlight.
One was Sister Mariam, a religious sister whom he’d met on a previous mission in India where they had worked together on girls’ education in Kerala. She was a lovely young woman, kind and funny. She had excellent taste in tea shops.
The other woman was facing away from him, looking over the careful landscaping in front of the rectory, and she was a curvy, feminine figure. Her short blond hair swirled around her head in the evening’s cool breeze.
Before she turned, he knew she was Dree Clark, the sweet and lovely woman whom he’d left in Paris in a bed rumpled by their lovemaking just the previous morning.
As she turned, golden sunlight glowed on her creamy skin, and her wary glance told him that she was just as surprised to see him as he was that she was there.
Sister Mariam introduced them, “Andrea Catherine, may I present Deacon Father Maxence Grimaldi. Father Maxence, this is Miss Andrea Catherine Clark, our new nurse practitioner for the premature infant project.”
Dree’s expression changed from wide-eyed wariness to the faint gasp of a gut-punch and downward fall of her eyes and mouth, outward signs that she recognized the depth of his deception. She asked,“Augustine?”
Yes, he was Augustine, praying to God tonot yetgrant him sobriety and chastity but instead to allow him to resume his life of hedonism and the indulgence of everything he wanted, which at the moment was her, her,her.
Maxence reached his hand forward, palm up, beckoning, beckoningher.
Dree didn’t touch him, and she didn’t smile.
He should welcome her off-handedly, and most of all, he should not reveal to Sister Mariam that they were far more than casually acquainted.
And yet he couldn’t.
His intensity sharpened.
