Chapter 4: Bev's Gaze
The salt-scoured windows of St. Patrick’s did little to hold back the morning’s pewter light. It fell in dusty slabs across the kneeling congregants, mostly the old and the stubborn, a patchwork flock of wool coats and silent endurance. Jud stood near the baptismal font, feeling like a misplaced piece of liturgical furniture. His role after mass was still undefined—somewhere between sacristan and social worker.
From the back pew, Bev Keane did not kneel. She sat, spine rigid, her gaze a surgical instrument. She watched Father Paul move. He was a study in practiced composure, his hand resting on old man Gee’s shoulder, his smile a gentle curve in the dim light. He belonged here, in this crumbling ship of faith, in a way she had always believed was divinely ordained. Her father. Her church.
Then her eyes cut to Jud.
He was helping Maggie Renolds with her coat, his movements all nervous angles. The old woman said something, and Jud’s face broke into a wide, ungainly smile that completely transformed it, banishing the haunted look from his eyes for a blessed second. He laughed, a soft, honest sound that carried in the quiet. And then, as if pulled by a string, he looked up.
Across the gulf of empty pews, his eyes met Paul’s.
Paul, caught in the act of watching him, didn’t look away. Something passed between them—unprofessional, unguarded. A tiny, silent communion that had nothing to do with the Eucharist. Paul’s practiced smile softened into something private, real. Jud’s shoulders relaxed an inch.
Bev’s fingernails, sharp and pale, pressed crescents into her vinyl-clad prayer book. Her suspicion, a low hum since the new priest’s arrival, crystallized into a cold, certain chord. This wasn’t just clumsiness. This was a dilution. A foreign agent in her saintly ecosystem. The islanders were already responding; she saw it in the way they paused to talk to Jud now, accepting his stuttered blessings. He was unraveling Paul’s disciplined grace, exposing a vulnerability Bev had never seen. It was a corruption. A threat.
The last parishioner shuffled out, leaving the heavy door to swing shut with a sigh. The church felt vast and empty, smelling of wax, damp, and decades of incense embedded in wood.
“That went well,” Jud said, rolling his shoulders. The binder he wore beneath his cassock felt tighter than usual, a constant, grating reminder of the body he carried. It was a daily penance, this flattening, this hiding. He was used to the ache, a background noise to his existence. “I think Maggie actually liked my joke about the Pharisees.”
“Her husband was a Pharisee of the tax code,” Paul said, gathering hymnals from the pews. His movements were slower than usual, languid. “So that’s high praise.” He paused, looking at Jud. “You have a way with them. The ones who are all sharp edges. You don’t try to sand them down. You just… sit with the points.”
Jud fumbled with a pile of bulletins, warmth creeping up his neck. Praise from Paul was a physical thing, a warm stone in his gut. “They remind me of people I knew. Before.”
“Before the collar?”
“Before everything.” Jud’s voice went quiet. The ghost of his old life, the one filled with hard fists and harder words, flickered at the edges of his vision. He shook it off. “Need help with anything else?”
Paul looked like he was about to say no, to retreat into the rectory. The isolation he wore was almost a visible garment. But he hesitated. The memory of their laughter in the kitchen, the shared, ridiculous growls, hung between them. “Actually,” he said, his voice oddly tentative. “I was going to hear confessions. It’s… quiet. It would be good practice for you to sit in. If you’re comfortable.”
Jud’s breath hitched. The confessional was a sacred, terrifying space. The latticework screen, the anonymity, the weight of whispered sins. It was where he felt most exposed and most hidden, all at once. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. I’d like that.”
They entered the booth from opposite sides. The old wood, polished smooth by generations of elbows and anxious hands, enclosed them in a tight, dark intimacy. Jud could hear the rustle of Paul’s cassock as he settled, the faint, almost imperceptible scent of him—frost and old paper—mingling with the smell of lemon polish.
The first few penitents were routine. A teenager who swore at his mother. A fisherman who drank too much and regretted it on Sundays. Jud listened to Paul’s voice, a low, resonant balm dispensing gentle admonishments and lighter penances. It was a masterclass in mercy. Jud’s own heart clenched with a complex yearning—to offer that kind of peace, to be seated so firmly in grace.
Then, the curtain on the other side rustled, and a new person knelt.
Silence stretched, thick and heavy. Jud could hear the person’s breath, slightly labored.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” the voice murmured. It was a man, older, rough with salt and smoke. “It’s been… a long time.”
“Go on, my son,” Paul said, his tone encouraging.
“I…” The man’s voice cracked. “I’ve been having thoughts. Impure thoughts. About… about someone I shouldn’t.”
Jud’s blood seemed to slow in his veins. His own body, compressed and aching in the dark, felt hyper-real.
“These thoughts are a burden,” Paul said, no judgment, only a deep, weary understanding. “God knows your heart’s struggle. Can you avoid the occasion of this sin?”
“I can’t,” the man whispered, pained. “He’s… everywhere I go. I smell him. It’s like something in the air. It… pulls at me. Makes me crazy. Makes me feel like an animal. I know it’s wrong. I know what the Book says about men like… about men like him. About what he is. But I…”
Jud stopped breathing. He. Him. The words landed like blows. The old, familiar shame flooded him, oily and hot. This was his fault. His unnatural body, overproducing its siren call, its hormonal betrayal. He was a stumbling block, a living occasion of sin, just by existing. He curled his toes inside his shoes, praying for invisibility.
Paul’s silence on the other side of the lattice was different now. It had weight, a tangible ache. When he finally spoke, his voice was husky, stripped of its professional calm. “The human heart… is a complex landscape. What feels like a pulling… an attraction… can be a trial. But it can also be a path to understanding a deeper love. A love that… transcends possession.” He took a shaky breath. Jud could hear it. “Your penance is this. When you feel this pull, pray. Not for the feeling to be taken away, but for the grace to see the image of God in the other person. In all its… mysterious forms.”
It was the most unorthodox, breathtaking penance Jud had ever heard. It wasn’t about erasure. It was about seeing. Tears prickled hot behind his eyes.
The man murmured thanks, bewildered, and left.
For a long moment, the confessional was utterly silent. Jud felt raw, flayed open. Paul’s words looped in his head: the image of God in all its mysterious forms.
The curtain on Paul’s side suddenly swished open. Jud heard him stand, a slight stumble in the movement. Without thinking, Jud burst from his own side into the dim aisle.
Paul was leaning against the confessional door, his face ashen. He looked gaunt, his beautiful eyes hollowed by a hunger that had nothing to do with food. He was looking at Jud with a kind of shattered yearning.
“I shouldn’t have…” Paul began, his voice a dry leaf. “That penance. It was not by-the-book.”
“It was right,” Jud whispered fiercely. He took a step closer. The pheromones, that cruel biological joke, hung in the air between them. Paul’s nostrils flared, almost imperceptibly. He closed his eyes, a spasm of pain crossing his features.
“Jud,” he said, the name an agony.
“You saw him,” Jud said. “You saw his torment, and you didn’t condemn him. You offered him a doorway. Not a wall.”
Paul opened his eyes. The ancient sadness in them was bottomless. “Some doors,” he breathed, “should never be opened. The cost… is everything.”
He pushed himself upright, visibly gathering the tattered remnants of his composure. “I need… some air. The rectory paperwork…”
He walked away, his stride less than steady, disappearing into the shadows of the vestibule.
Jud stood alone in the empty nave. The warmth from Paul’s words warred with the chill of his retreat. The encounter in the confessional had changed something, named a ghost that was now haunting them both.
He didn’t know that as he stood there, Bev Keane was already in her immaculate cottage, the phone receiver cool in her hand. She had watched them emerge from the confessional, had seen the pale intensity on Paul’s face, the stunned devotion on Jud’s.
Her voice was sweet syrup as the diocesan secretary answered.
“Hello, dear. It’s Bev Keane from St. Patrick’s, Crockett Island. I hope you’re well. I’m calling with a heavy heart, just a bit of concern about our new associate… Yes, Father Duplenticy. Such a trying young man. There seems to be some… confusion regarding doctrine. And his influence on Father Paul is becoming a distraction. Paul is so good, so devoted, but he’s also terribly tender-hearted. I worry he’s being led into… irregularity. Perhaps a visit from the bishop? Or a… reassignment? For the good of the parish, of course.”
She listened, nodding, a thin, satisfied smile touching her lips.
Outside, the wind picked up, whistling through the cracks in the saintly windows, a cold harbinger slicing through the frail, newfound warmth that had just begun to kindle in the heart of the old church.