“I hope you will allow yourself alittlemore than bread and water.” Father Baker blew his nose. “The last thing we need isbothof us too weak to perform our duties.”
Reluctantly, Joseph yielded to the wisdom of his superior. He could still abstain from meat and any foods that gave him pleasure.
“How is Mrs. Stratford?”
“She and her daughter are recovering.” Joseph prayed that was still true.
“God be praised.”
Joseph shuddered involuntarily.
“Did you come to ask me something?”
“Only the state of your health,” Joseph lied.
Father Baker coughed again. “Rather poor, at the moment. But ‘this too shall pass.’”
“I’ll ask our parishioners to remember you in their prayers.”
The clock on the mantle said four minutes till seven. Before he returned to the cathedral, Joseph knelt in an empty classroom to murmur the Act of Contrition. He could do that, at least. “…I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do Penance, and to amend my life—to avoid the proximate occasions of sin. Amen.”
To postpone the Mass now would invite the sin of scandal by revealing publicly the state of his soul—to the Sansonnet sisters, who would ensure that the whole parish was whispering about him by nightfall. The Sacrament would remain valid in spite of his sinfulness.
Mrs. O’Brien’s granddaughter had brought warm ablution water to the cathedral. As he cleansed his raw hands and as Thomas handed him each vestment, Joseph uttered the prayers he’d recitedevery morning of his Priesthood: “Give virtue to my hands, O Lord, that every stain may be wiped away, that I may be enabled to serve Thee without defilement of mind or body…”
But even Thomas reminded him of Tessa. This was the red-haired boy she’d sung to sleep the day Joseph had met her, seven years before. Seven long years he might have explored every inch of Tessa’s body…
Joseph bound the white cord tight around his waist, pleading: “Gird me, O Lord, with the cincture of purity, and extinguish in my heart the fire of lust…”
At last, Thomas helped him cover the other vestments with the white-and-gold chasuble, as Joseph prayed: “O Lord, Who hast said: ‘My yoke is easy and My burden is light,’ make me able to bear it…”
He and Thomas entered the sanctuary and began the Mass. With chapped lips, Joseph kissed the altar and then the Gospel. When he took up the Host, Thomas rang the bell thrice. Joseph struck his chest so hard that his knuckles split open anew, repeating with each blow: “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof; but say the word, and my soul shall be healed.” He was sick. Tessa was sick, and only God’s medicine could cure them.
Joseph thanked Godfor his dry toast and hot water. Then he picked his way through the icy streets to St. Mary’s to unburden his soul. His confessor closed the door of the presbytery library and invited Joseph to sit by the hearth.
For a moment, Joseph only stared into the little Hell of the fireplace. “The woman about whom I have spoken before…”
His confessor sighed in disappointment.
Joseph shielded his eyes with his hand. “I have learned that she feels for me what I feel for her.”
“When a sin is shared, it is not mitigated, Joseph—it is compounded.”
“I know. But I find that this revelation… It is as if there was a door behind which I had shoved all my lust. While I thought I was alone in it, I only glimpsed these desires through the cracks. But now that I know she would welcome my touch, the door has not only swung open—it has been ripped from its hinges. I don’t know how to close it again.”
“Your mistake was to leave a door at all. You must build awall, Joseph. Impenetrable. There can be no going back. That part of us is dead.”
“I know,” said Joseph’s voice, while his mind, his heart, and his body continued to rebel.
It was Saturday,so Joseph returned to the cathedral to don the violet stole himself. While he waited in the cold confessional, he tried to read his breviary. But the words kept blurring. He squeezed his eyes shut. This proved unwise. Visions lurked in the darkness, and fatigue still stalked him. Tomorrow, Joseph decided, he would allow himself coffee. In spite of the cold and the gnawing inside his belly, he nearly fell asleep in the booth.
A penitent roused him: an old woman. Her sins were petty next to his. After he assigned a Penance and granted her Absolution, Joseph repeated words he’d said many times before. Now, he was begging: “And say a prayer for me?”
The days that followed were no easier. He continued his fast and total abstinence from meat. On Monday, for the first time in years, Joseph did not join his family for dinner. He refused everything his parishioners offered during visits, though the smells alone made him salivate. He ate so sparingly, his stomach rumbled at him incessantly. At first, the pain distracted him from missing Tessa. Then he remembered that she had suffered such hunger the first nineteen years of her life—and the pain made him feel closer to her.
Why did it have to beJanuary? He was frantic to flee to Sullivan’s Island and plunge into the sea, to work these desires out of his stubborn flesh by fighting the waves. But swimming now would be akin to suicide. He couldn’t even garden; the ground was still frozen.Instead, he took the first opportunity to visit an invalid who lived miles outside the city. Joseph urged Prince faster and yet faster, as if he could escape from his own thoughts.
He worried about Tessa constantly. Surely his father would have sent word if she or her daughter were in danger again. Joseph had seen his mother, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew at Sunday Mass, though he’d been careful to catch no one’s eye. They would have sought him out if something had changed.
