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She was in her nightgown but immediately invited him in She was frosty, but polite He stood there and ies to her as sincerely as he could

“Oh, I understand,” she said with a faint sneer “Don’t worry about it This will all be over for us soon enough”

“I want you to be happy, Celeste,” he said

“I know that, Reuben, and I know you’ll be a good father to this baby Even if Grace and Phil weren’t here to do the dirty work I never had any real doubt about that Sometimes the most childish and immature men make the best fathers”

“Thank you, Celeste,” he said, forcing an icy smile He kissed her on the cheek

No need to repeat that parting shot to Jim when he went back to his room

Jihts Reuben settled into his chair as before

“Tell me,” Reuben said, “is this the real reason that you became a priest?”

For a long mohtly dazed In a low voice, he said, “I became a priest because I wanted to, Reuben”

“I know that, Jim, but did you feel you had to make amends for the rest of your life?”

“You don’t understand,” said Ji what to do I traveled I spent months in a Catholicphilosophy in Rome”

“I rees fro home”

“I had a lot of choices, Reuben Maybe for the first time in my life, I had real choices And the archbishop asked me the very same question, actually, when I asked to enter the priesthood We discussed the whole affair I told hi We talked about atonement, and what it means to become a priest—to live as a priest year in and year out for the rest of one’s life He insisted on another year of sobriety in the world before he’d accept my application to the se, but ad had been relatively short And then there was Grandfather Spangler’s donation and Mo support I worked every day at St Francis at Gubbio as a volunteer during that year By the time I entered the seminary, I’d been sober three years, and I was on strict probation One drink and I would be out I went through all that because I wanted to, Reuben I became a priest because that’s what I wanted to do with my life”