Chapter 14: The Church Confrontation
The rectory bedroom was too still. Paul had washed Jud’s body with a cloth dipped in lukewarm water, had dressed him in soft cotton, had brushed the hair back from his forehead until his breathing evened out into something like sleep. Not peace. Never peace. Jud’s face was slack, emptied. Paul had kissed his temple, his lips lingering on skin that felt too cool, and whispered promises that tasted like ash. Then he had gone to find the bishops.
They were already gone. Their car, a sleek black sedan that looked absurd on the rutted island road, was nowhere to be seen. The ferry had left an hour ago. The chance for a final, desperate word—a threat, a plea, a snarled revelation of what he truly was—had vanished with the fog over the water. The fury that rose in Paul was so hot and complete it blurred his vision. He wanted to tear the world apart with his hands.
Instead, he went to the church.
He didn’t turn on the lights. The only illumination came from the red sanctuary lamp, a single bloody eye in the dark, and the weak moonlight filtering through the salt-crusted windows. He slumped into a front pew, the wood creaking under his weight. His hands came together, fingers laced so tight the knuckles popped white. He didn’t know who he was praying to anymore. The God he’d served felt distant, a cold spectator.
“If this is punishment,” he whispered, the sound swallowed by the cavernous dark, “for two men loving each other… then take it out on me. Not him. Never him. He’s had a lifetime of this. A lifetime.”
His voice broke. The tears came then, silent at first, then heaving sobs that wracked his starved frame. He cried for Jud’s broken body on the office floor. He cried for the hungry sounds he’d heard through the door. He cried for his own cursed existence, a monster who couldn’t even protect the one good, dorky, beautiful thing that had stumbled into his life. He wept openly, forehead pressed to the back of the pew in front of him, his shoulders shaking.
The church door creaked open, then shut with a soft, definitive click.
Footsteps, hesitant, on the stone floor. The scent of lavender soap and, beneath it, the sharp tang of anxiety. Bev. She slid into the pew beside him, leaving a careful foot of space. He didn’t look up.
“Father Paul,” she said. Her voice was uncharacteristically small.
He stayed silent, wiping his face with a shaking hand. The predator in him, the thing that lived on blood and instinct, noted the rapid flutter of her heartbeat.
“I… I didn’t know,” she began. He heard her swallow. “I had no idea what they would do. When they spoke with me after… after they saw him… I understood then. I didn’t mean for that.”
Paul lifted his head. In the gloom, his eyes seemed to gather what little light there was. “What did you mean for, Bev? A scolding? A shaming? You wanted him humiliated. You got him raped.”
She flinched as if struck. “It wasn’t—“
“It was,” he snarled, the sound inhuman. He saw her shrink back. “You pointed them at him. You told them he was a problem. A freak. And you gave two wolves the scent of a lamb. Don’t pretend you’re surprised by the blood.”
Her composure, that iron sheath she always wore, cracked. “I wanted him gone! Yes! I wanted you to see he was unfit! I wanted… I wanted you to have more time for the parish. For… for us.”
Paul stared at her. A horrible, hollow laugh escaped him. “For us?”
Her face was a mask of wretched confession. “You’re the only good man I’ve ever known. The only one who ever looked at me and saw a person, not just a useful spinster. He took you from me. Every moment you spent with him, laughing in the garden, talking late in the office… it was a moment you didn’t spend with your flock. With me.”
The absurdity of it, the towering, tragic selfishness, left him breathless. “So you damned him to a life of sex slavery over jealousy? Because you felt neglected?” He stood up, looming over her. “I am sorry, Bev, more sorry than I can say, that I cannot return any sentiment you hold for me. But that? That makes me want to tear this church down stone by stone.”
“Where will you go?” The question was a desperate pivot.
“Away. I’m leaving. With him. Tonight, if I can.” The plan formed as he spoke it, a wild, reckless lifeline. “I’ll take him somewhere they’ll never find him. You can have the island. You can have all the power, all the control you’ve ever craved. Run your little fiefdom. It’s yours.”
“You can’t leave,” she whispered, horrified. “The people need you.”
“They need something. Maybe it’s you. God knows you’ve been the real power here for years. I was just the decoration.”
“They need hope.” Her own tears were falling now, cutting tracks through her powdered cheeks. “And he… he gave them that, too. In his own awkward way. Don’t you see? It was the two of you together. The serious one and the gentle one. The strength and the… the kindness.” She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “I saw it. I did. I saw how the whole mood of this place lifted since he came. People started coming to mass just to hear him fumble through a reading. They brought him casseroles. They liked him. And I was too swallowed up in my own… my own want… to see that was a good thing.”
The silence that followed was thick, suffocating. Paul sank back down onto the pew. The fight drained out of him, leaving only a vast, weary despair. They sat in the dark, two broken people, the only sounds their uneven breathing and the distant sigh of the ocean.
After an eternity, Bev spoke again, her voice ragged but clear.
“I don’t expect forgiveness. For this, or for… for anything. I expect hellfire, and I expect I’ve earned it.” She took a sharp breath. “But he shouldn’t have to pay for my sins. He shouldn’t be driven out. Not when he’s done nothing but good here. Not when… not when you love him.”
Paul closed his eyes.
“Let me help,” she said, the words clearly costing her everything. “I can’t undo what happened. But I can… I can be the watch dog. If they come back, I’ll know first. I’ll lie for you. I’ll tell the diocese he’s gone, that he ran off in disgrace. I’ll make them look elsewhere. You can stay. You can keep him safe. Here.”
“Why?” Paul asked, exhausted. “Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s right,” she said, and for the first time, it sounded like she believed it. “And because I am so, so sorry.”
In the red gloom, Paul looked at Bev Keane. He saw the fierce, lonely woman who had built walls of doctrine to protect a heart that had been bruised long ago. He saw the architect of Jud’s torment. He also saw, perhaps, the only ally they had.
He gave a slow, weary nod. It wasn’t forgiveness. It was a treaty. A desperate, fragile pact forged in shared guilt and the dim hope of protecting a single, fragile light.
“Okay,” he said, the word tasting strange. “Okay, Bev.”