“I see.” He paused, as though waiting for me to turn on him and denounce his words. When I didn’t he sighed again, and then he poured out the coffee into a mug. I stood there where I was as he picked up the mug and made to walk away. But on his way past, he paused, and put a hand on my shoulder. I stared at that hand, at the symmetrical cluster of five freckles next to his thumb, because I couldn’t meet his eyes.
They weren’t freckles.
How had I not noticed before that Aidan’s father had a prison tattoo? Those five dots represented time inside, a man in a four-cornered box. My eyes shot up to his and he gave a tight smile. He’dwantedme to see it, the mark of a man who’d done time. Why? And did Aidan not know about his father’s past? He’d never mentioned it before. I had a million questions, but held them all back.
“Teo, you seem like a man who’s trying to do his best,” John said. “I suspect you’ve had a hard life, and Aidan’s told me you’ve got family responsibilities along with your sister. I see where you might have had to make some difficult choices. I’ve had to make a few of my own.” He patted my shoulder, and walked on.
I turned as he reached the hallway. “But you’d prefer it if I stayed away from Aidan,” I blurted out. “Am I right?”
He hesitated, turned back, regret in his face. “I can see that you care for him.”
“I don’t—I mean, I do, but—”
“Teo, Aidan is a grown man who can make his own decisions. But he’s very naïve in some ways. He makes what he sees as therightchoices, but they aren’t alwaysgoodchoices for him personally. Just—be careful with him won’t you?”
“No one will hurt him while I’m around,” I said. “I can promise you that, sir.”
His smile, though small, was more like his usual—there was warmth to it. “I’m sure that’s true. But it’s not exactly what I meant.”
He left me there then, and I put the eggs away. Suddenly my ideas about breakfast in bed seemed childish. Or worse, manipulative. Because John O’Leary was right—his son didn’t always make good choices in life.
And I was another one of them.
But I had another problem now, I realized, because the idea of letting Aidan down carefully, knowing that there were only two nights left before his body would be promised to God, his heart to the Church… I felt an abrupt stab of pain, and clenched my hands into fists there on the kitchen counter, curling over with a gasp.
His heart and his body were not mine. Had never been,couldnever be. I’d known it even as we’d made love. But I’d been lying to myself, pretending that what we were building together was something real. The truth was, all those feelings were a cluster of dandelion fluff that would blow away in the mildest breeze.
They had to go, those feelings. Because Aidan was going to be a priest.
And me? I was the worst kind of sinner.
* * *
I went back upto the attic, climbing slowly and heavily, so that Aidan would be aware of my approach. When I got to the top, he was standing, waiting for me.
Smiling.
“Good morning, Teo,” he said softly, and held out his hands. “Will you come and pray with me?”
I shook my head. “Don’t fancy getting struck down by a thunderbolt.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Well, it’s a clear day outside. I think you’re safe. Please—won’t you come and pray?”
My feet trudged up the last few stairs and I went over to him, took his hands. I couldn’t leave him hanging there. He seemed, for the first time in a long time, at peace. With himself? With God? I couldn’t tell.
“I don’t think God would listen to what I had to say,” I told him with a shrug. “Not after everything I’ve done.”
There it was, that light in his eyes that I found myself envying sometimes. A sureness and an optimism that I could never share. “If God only loved the lawful and the sinless, it’d be pretty empty in Heaven.”
“He won’t be expectingmycompany,” I snorted, but Aidan squeezed my hands.
“Don’t be so sure.” He led me over to the cross on the wall and knelt down before it, tugging at my hand for me to do the same. “Thank you,” he said, when I finally got to my knees, and when he began reciting an Our Father, the words came back to me. I hadn’t prayed the rosary for a long time, but I did then with Aidan, and as I did, I felt something loosening inside me.
We prayed for a long time, until the last bead of the rosary slipped through Aidan’s fingers and then we stayed there in silence a few minutes more. I snuck a look at Aidan, who still had his eyes closed, and he looked peaceful. Happy. Relaxed.
For the first time in a long time, I saw what God wanted from me. And it wasn’t at all whatIwanted, which is how I knew itmustbe God.
“Aidan,” I said roughly, and stood up. “We need to stop what we’ve been doing.”
