Page 62 (1/1)
"Look," she said, once ood priest Fuck that, he’s an a priest Have you seen how many people show up at church now? It’s like twice aswas here And you and I both know it’s not just because he’s pretty Although he is pretty God dalanced up at the ceiling "Sorry," she ht"
She took a deep breath
"So he says You want him to be a priest He says he didn’t really feel like hiive that up Not for me or anyone else I can’t I won’t" She felt immediately better once she’d made that part of her decision She loved hie for her What if it was the priest in him who cared for her? If he left the priesthood for her, maybe he wouldn’t care about her anyht with me here Celibacy? You and I both know it’s ht? We Catholics want to be special, want to be different God forbid we’re too much like Protestants with their married pastors The entire church harps constantly on how ie, Catholic babies and then we don’t let our own priests have Catholicit up There’s nothing in the Bible about this, right? I’ve read it You’ve seen me" She held up the red leather Bible For the past year she’d iht She zoned out through a lot of the begetting, but she’dchunk of the Old Testah all the Gospels
"Jesus didn’t say anything about how people shouldn’t get married or why it’s better to be celibate Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff in there about not fornicating, but there’s also a lot of stuff in there about not eating shellfish or having poly-blend fibers Seriously? What’s Your problem with spandex?"
She raised her hands in surrender
"I know, I know It’s not You This was our baggage and we put Your name on it and we blamed You Our bad Søren said to treat the Bible not as a work of history or a science textbook and to treat it instead like Communion Communion is a spiritual --it feeds our soul It’s not a how-to otten off topic She’d never talked to a chair before and rather enjoyed having a captive audience She should do this more often Maybe she’d stick a real person in the chair next tiet the same sort of undivided attention
"So to my point, God I have one I love Søren I love hi about him, even the stuff I don’t know about hiood person no matter what it is that he’s scared to tell me I don’t care if he’s a wolf He says I’m not a sheep, which is either a compliment or a threat Both, probably"
As soon as she said "both" she knew that was the right answer
"In Hebrews … I think I think it’s Hebrews, it says that ‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen’ So now that I have faith in Søren And he has faith in You It’s the best I can give You right now so I hope it’s enough I know he has secrets, stuff he’s not ready or willing to tell me It’s okay I still believe in him He believed in ht?"
Eleanor took another deep breath as she ca, barely coherent prayer
"So here’s the deal I promise that if You let ether like ant to be …" She decided to not go into excruciating detail about exactly how she wanted to be with him Surely God, if He existed, ell aware of the sexual fantasies she entertained on a nightly basis about Søren "If You do that, let us be together, then I promise You I will never let hiet married I don’t need to have kids I don’t even need hiether"
The words hurt co out And because they hurt she knew shedress--white and made of silk--and held two pairs of baby shoes in the palm of her hand She kissed the toes of the tiny shoes and sat thee wooden trunk Then she took off the wedding dress and carefully folded it, laying it over the baby shoes She closed the trunk and locked it with a key With all herit a thousand miles away so it landed into the center of the ocean and sunk into the black waters of night And on the off chance soht it back to her, she doused the trunk with gasoline, struck a match, set it on fire and watched it burn
The tears came in silent waves as inside the privacy of her own mind, she burned her dreams to ashes What would rise fro would be born fro she’d never seen before
A new dream A better dream
A wind rustled the ashes at her feet She opened her eyes and stared again at the empty chair