Page 9 of Saint
I did what I went there to do. I told him about Jamie, about the wedding, I successfully instigated closure.
Nothing feels closed
Why can’t I stop thinking about
6
I’m notsure how I make it back to the hermitage. I know that I do because I’m here on the thin secondhand rug which covers most of the cracked concrete floor. And I know that it must have been raining the whole two miles back because the papers the abbot gave me are wet and limp in my hands.
I know that I’m still alive because I can feel my heart juddering inside my ribs. Because I’m crying and the tears run hot trails down my chilled, rain-slicked face.
I’m kneeling as the rain roars down around the little limestone cottage, as it drums like mad on the roof and whips against the windows. I see nothing of the world I’m in, nothing but worn rug fibers and the now-wavy picture of St. Columba’s and its dark, unforgiving sea.
I see nothing but Elijah in my mind.
He’s getting married. He’s getting married and it’s not to me.
I loved you for a long time after you left.
And I still love him.
I still love him.
The noise comes out of me like thunder comes—a slow roll, growing louder and louder until it’s upon me and I’m groaning, I’m keening as I stagger to my feet and lurch through the door and into the clearing, crying back at the thunder and the god who sent it.
I drop to my knees again, quaking with the need to—I don’t even know. To run maybe. To run through the trees until I’m at the top of the huge limestone swell above the abbey and then stand there until lightning burns up my stupid, miserable flesh. To run all the way to an ocean and then swim my way to the stark sanctuary of St. Columba’s.
To run to the highway and hitch a ride to Kansas City and fall at Elijah’s feet and beg for forgiveness.
I slump forward, throat stinging, sides heaving. The rain continues to sluice down without a care for my rage or my pain, the thunder rolls on and on, like rumbling church bells across the prairie, summoning every person within hearing to this ancient service of sky meeting earth.
I stare at my hands in the mud, at the torn grass between them.
“I love him so much,” I whisper, rain running off my head and down to my lips, where the drops fall along with my words to the mud and grass below. “And it hurts and I want it to stop. Please, Lord. If you love me, make it stop.”
There is no answer from God, no sweet or poignant omen I can take as a sign. No ray of sunshine, no birdsong. Nothing but mud and thunder and a green-tinted sky. Green enough that there might be sirens later, and I almost wish for them. I almost wish for a storm to blow me away.
I lift my eyes to the hills.
I press my eyes shut and wait.
* * *
The sirensnever come and eventually the storm abates, leaving my creek swollen and the ground soggy. I feel soggy too as I clean up my mess and gather my clothes and sheets and towels so I can trudge back to the abbey proper. So soggy that I barely even care that my retreat has ended, that I’ll be back in the dormitory with the other brothers. Back doing spreadsheet-y things and odd jobs around the printing press or brewhouse, listening to the others laugh and pray and talk.
What does it matter where I am at? Hermitage or dormitory, everywhere is empty of him.
That’s okay,I try to remind myself.You’re okay.
I’m okay. I came to the monastery to be okay and now I am, and Elijah will be happy, and I’m going to be okay.
Maybe if I say it to myself enough times, I’ll start to believe it. Like a prayer.
That evening is warm and humid, the kind of sticky that almost makes you wish for a pool, even though it’s not officially summer yet. I sit cross-legged under the oak that spreads its shade over the graves of long-dead monks and stare down at the crinkly, now-dried papers in my lap. Several feet away, Brother Connor runs through his katas with a fluid grace that I envy. Even before my monk-cum-lumberjack phase, I was never a graceful man. I played sports with a puppy-like enthusiasm, crashing into other players and tripping over my own feet, and later, I fumbled plastic cups of beer and bowls of nacho cheese all over my frat house.
The only place I’ve ever had any real smoothness was in bed, but so much of that was instinct, was hunger without thought or skill. If I wanted to kiss, I kissed, if I wanted to grab, I grabbed. And somehow it always worked. And with Elijah—
A tense heat grips my belly and thighs, and the discomfort of the cage I wore again today cautions me away from memories of him. From recalling that first time, his breath ragged in my ear as fundraiser guests laughed and drank champagne on the other side of the balcony door.
