Page 81 of Saint
“So this tapestry that you want to bring back,” Elijah asks. “Is that related in any way to the Independent Sacramental Movement meeting? Are you thinking of leaving the Roman Church?”
Father Jordan looks at us both, his dark eyes like wells to his very soul, and it’s a soul that’s both beautiful and uncomfortable to behold. I have spent the last several years trying to live like a saint. But I think right now I’m standing in front of one.
“It is one of many questions laid at my feet,” the priest says finally.
There’s a strange pressure in my chest now. A pressure that shouldn’t be there.
There used to be an entire tapestry.
Does that mean Father Jordan wants to find new ways for people to live a holy life? Ways that are neither entirely monastic nor entirely non-monastic?
Is that possible?
“Elijah!” one of the abbey monks calls from near the fountain. “Venez ici et ouvrez notre bière!” With an apologetic glance at me and Father Jordan, Elijah strides into the cloister to much monk-y fanfare and accepts the challenge of showing them the beer opening trick again.
“You should show them the thing you do with your teeth,” I tell Father Jordan, and once again, his full mouth hints at a smile.
“It does make me very popular at wedding receptions,” he says. His stare alights on Elijah with the others, and then he looks over to me. “You are blessed to have such a good friend as your traveling companion,” he says.
I meet his eyes, but I can’t read whatever thoughts are hidden there. “Yes,” I say carefully. “I am very blessed.”
“I would think,” Father Jordan says, his voice as inscrutable as his gaze, “that such a blessing would need to be deeply received. Even when it’s uncomfortable.”
I’m nervous enough that I don’t even want to make a joke aboutdeeply receiving. “I would think you’re right,” I say, not sure how to steer away from this conversation, but knowing I need to. “He’s a good friend.”
I hate the words as soon as I say them. Obviously, I can’t let Father Jordan know what’s going on, and yet hiding it feels weird too. Slippery and wrong. Hiding our—I can’t even call it a relationship because it’s so temporary—liaison, I guess, because I’m a monk feels too close to hiding it for other reasons. And I had too long a road to being openly queer to easily dismiss how hiding feels now. The discomfort in my chest doesn’t care if it’s because of the habit or because of something else. Hiding feels like hiding, period.
But strangely, Father Jordan seems to sense this.
He says, simply, “I know what Elijah is to you.”
I don’t answer, and he doesn’t make me. He merely nods toward the man I love, who is in a throng of people understandably enchanted by him, and says, quietly, “And there’s nothing to be gained by keeping secrets.”
“Easy for you to say,” I mumble into my beer.
A distant expression passes over his face. “Perhaps not as easy as you think.” But before I can respond to that, he turns to the cart and sets his half-empty bottle down on the shelf reserved for used bottles. “But I’m not speaking of secrets from your abbot or even your family, although those are important too. I’m speaking of secrets from the one you love. Elijah.”
“Him? But I don’t have any secrets from him.”
Father Jordan doesn’t elaborate; instead he looks at his watch. “I’m supposed to call my bishop before compline,” he says. “I should go. But I hope to see you back in Kansas City. I think we could have much to talk about.”
“Wait,” I say. “Father, please. What secrets? Why would you say that? Can we—”
But he’s already making his way down the covered walkway to the guesthouse, already out of earshot, his stride graceful and determined, like that of a man who’s just completed what was asked of him.
Shit.
What did he mean by secrets? And how does he know about me and Elijah? I run through his words again, trying to figure out what he could know that would make him say such things. Trying to judge whether or not Tyler was pulling my leg all those years ago when he told me he thought his seminary friend could speak to angels.
I’m speaking of secrets from the one you love. Elijah.
It’s not until that night, as I’m trying to sleep and watching the darkness gather on the windowsill, that it comes to me. Slowly and by degrees.
Somehow, Father Jordan knew—or could guess—the only thing I still haven’t told Elijah.
The full story of the night I decided to become a monk.
42
