Page 92 of Saint
A tiny alarm goes off on his watch before either of us can say anything, and with a quiet curse, he glances down at its face and silences it.
“We need to head back for lunch,” he says.
“Okay,” I say, and I reluctantly let his hand drop from my chest.
We put on our shoes and right our clothes and make sure there’s no obvious grass or dirt stains. And then before we climb the stairs to the upper graveyard and the path back to the abbey, I fist my hands in his thin sweater and pull him to my mouth.
He tastes faintly of coffee but mostly of himself, and the inside of his mouth is silky and warm, and his lips are just a touch cool from the breeze. And this kiss is perfect and he is perfect, and I’d say twelve rosaries a day, scrub every sanctuary floor, chop up all the deadfall there ever was in order to keep him right here against me.
But the bells for sext start chiming, and I have no choice.
We break the kiss, both of us staring at each other with things we have no time to say, and then we hurry back to the abbey.
“Tomorrow,” I say as we stride through the graveyard and in the direction of the church, where we’ll sing sext and then move to the refectory for lunch, “I think we can get away again. In the morning.”
“Okay,” he says, and even though he gives a decisive enough nod, his steps stutter a little as he does, as if he wants to shift his feet and can’t. But there’s no time to ask about it, because we’re coming up on the church now.
Tomorrow.
We’ll have tomorrow.
* * *
The restof the day is beautiful, inside and out. A playful sun peeps between clouds, emerging and then retreating and leaving pretty summer shadows to slide across the abbey rooms.
I help Father Finbarr in the library for part of the afternoon, and then spend some time with a monk named Father Louis working in the brewhouse. St. Columba’s has older tuns than either Mount Sergius or Semois, and the spent grain must be removed by shoving it out the manway on the side by hand. Father Louis eyes my broad shoulders with undisguised glee as he hands me the shovel, and by the time none rolls around, I’m sweaty as hell and I smell like a brewhouse. I shower and change into a fresh habit after prayers, and then spend some time in lectio divina, still working my way throughSong of Songs.
Set me as a seal upon your heart...
for loveis as strong as death...
I stare at the bright, summery world out my cell window. It faces out towards the hills, and I think of the ten thousand particular things that had to happen in a very certain order for me to be here, right now, as a monk traveling with the man he’s still in love with.
I think of Abbot Jerome and his idea of God’s invitation; I think of all that I’ve gained in this life as a monk and then all that I would lose by remaining in it. I ask God,is this what you really mean for me? A life here?
I wish he would speak, that the hills would crack open and reveal a divine fire, but there is only silence and Irish sunshine, and then it is time for vespers, my questions yet unanswered.
How is it possible, I wonder through prayers and through a silent but tasty dinner, that after this week I’ll never kiss Elijah again? Never again feel his lips against mine or feel the way he catches his breath when I find his hand with my own and lace my fingers through his?
That I’ll never walk with him through a museum again or hold his coffee while he looks for something, that I’ll never again get to watch him scribble in his notebook or listen to him tap on his keyboard while he sighs like a freshman in a boring college lecture?
That every night, my body will ache not only for sex with him, but for the those touches which are more mundane and yet somehow more intimate than sex? The way he rolls over and purrs as I stroke his back or the way he lets me use him as a body pillow or the way I used to wake up to find he’d big-spooned me while we were both asleep?
I was so certain, after Provence, that the finite edge of ourinterludewould remain finite. That it would hurt, maybe even unbearably so, but that there would be no doubt in my mind, no indecision in my soul, when it came time for us to take our separate planes back to Kansas City. Of course I would stay a monk and continue in the life that had allowed me to rebuild myself. Of course Elijah would return to his own life and eventually move on. The question didn’t even bear thinking about.
Did it?
Except it’s all I can think about tonight; it’s crowding my thoughts as we sing compline together in the old church. Elijah has come, is sitting in the pews, and I can’t keep myself from watching him as he sings, acquitting himself rather well through the plainchanting, his long fingers holding open the battered breviary and his eyebrows furrowed with concentration as he does.
What would happen, I suddenly ask myself, if I left? If I flew back home, went to Abbot Jerome’s office and said,I’m sorry but I think I’m meant to be with him?
I’m sorry that you sunk so much money and effort into a trip to help me find my future and it turns out my future wasn’t monastic all along?
It would be hard, I know that. It would be embarrassing even, when I’ve spent so many years trying never to be embarrassed again. It would look impulsive—it wouldbeimpulsive.
But I can’t ignore what my intuition tells me. I can’t ignore the gut-deep truth that if five years of ruthless weeding and burning in the garden of my heart couldn’t eradicate Elijah, then nothing else will. I will go to my grave loving him. And I know he loves me back.
So why am I denying us?
