Nevertheless, tonight he knelt. The flagstones were ice-cold, but he barely felt them. He barely felt anything. He couldn’t remember the last time he had. Slowly, he lowered himself further. To his elbows. Then full-length, his cheek in the dust of so many footsteps. Closing his eyes, he waited. Waited for something to change. Then realised nothing was going to.
Because it was still there, the soft tug inside him, that delicate fishhook, embedded in the tenderest sinews of his heart, the deepest places of his soul, drawing him as inexorably to God as life to death. As lover to lover.
Had he known how, he would have ripped it from himself. Left it there on the church floor, like a silver worm in a bloody pool. Walked away and never looked back. Except it had been part of him since before he had known how to recognise it.
It was what made him believe in kindness over cruelty. What made him find hope for tomorrow. For the day after tomorrow. It was what made him want to be a better man, even if his power to be so was enacted on the smallest imaginable scale. It was what helped him accept that this could be enough. Not only for him, but for any who chose—in the face of an often-indifferent world—even a little goodness.
The salt of his own tears stung his cracked lips.
Thomas had written once, in the journal he had found no reason to continue, that God never subjected you to more than could be endured. He had repeated those words as rote consolation more times than he could remember.
But he understood them now. The truth of them.
Because he could endure this. He could.
“It’s just”—he lifted his head, moonlight spilling down his cheeks, illuminating nothing—“how am I to forgive you?”
And God had no answer. For He did not need to give one.
At some point, Thomas rose and moved to one of the pews, where he waited not quite awake, not quite sleeping, barely thinking, neither wanting nor able to pray, as the hours passed. The light swept through the church, grey-tinged at first from the fading night, then flame-bright with the sunrise. It was the colour of meadow primrose by the time Sheba came and sat next to him.
“How did you know I was here?” he asked, his voice raw from tears and unspoken words.
“I didn’t,” she admitted, smiling. “But you scared the life out of Sophie Butterworth when she came with fresh flowers.”
Thomas searched himself for the capacity to interact like a reasonable person. “It’s surely not so unusual for a priest to be found in a church.”
“You’re not generally here so early. She was afraid you might have been here all night.”
“And this made her flee the building?”
“She was worried about you. And she thought you might speak more easily to me—a friend.” She paused. “Was she wrong?”
“Just at present,” Thomas admitted, falling back on honesty in the absence of anything more useful, “I’m not certain I recall how to speak to anyone.”
Sheba’s hand came to rest lightly, affectionately upon his knee. “What happened, Thomas? Between you and Micha?”
For some reason, it felt almost impossible to say, even though it was the simplest of all possible answers. “He left.”
“Why?”
“Because”—Thomas swallowed, his mouth full of ashes—“I couldn’t leave with him. I thought I could. But he was right. I ... I’m where I’m meant to be.”
She was silent for a long time. “I don’t think I understand?”
“God placed me here.”
“Did not the bishop place you here? To appease your family?”
Thomas made a sound that, at another moment, could have been a laugh. “Earthly machinations may sometimes reflect heavenly intent.”
“That’s rather convenient, don’t you think?”
Thomas dropped his head into his hands. The light was making his eyes ache. “You’re very like him, you know.”
“We have a lot in common,” she agreed, mildly. “More than enough to dislike each other for it, at any rate.”
“I never understood his antipathy.”
