I stepped back behind the lectern, exhaling with relief. I’d said what I needed to say.
And now it was time to lay down my life.
I couldn’t find Poppy after Mass, but that was okay. I wanted to call the bishop right away, while my mind and spirit were certain. I wanted to move forward, I wanted to explore this new life, and I wanted to start exploring it right the hell now.
It wasn’t until I was actually dialing Bishop Bove’s number that the full, complex reality of what I was doing sank in.
I would be leaving the congregation in a lurch—they would need visiting priests until they could find a new one to stay at St. Margaret’s. Worse, I was echoing the departure of my predecessor. Yes, I was leaving to marry, not because I was being arrested, but still. Would it feel the same to my parishioners?
No more work at panels and conventions, crusading for purity in the clergy. No more work in Lizzy’s name, on Lizzy’s behalf. No more youth groups and men’s groups, no more pancake breakfasts.
Was I really ready to give all that up for a life with Poppy?
For the first time, the answer was a definitive yes. Because I wouldn’t really be giving all that up. I would find ways to serve as a layperson; I would do God’s work in other ways and other places.
Bishop Bove didn’t answer—it was still early in the afternoon, and he could be wrapped up with his congregation after Mass. Part of me knew that I should wait, should speak with him personally, rather than leave a message, but I couldn’t wait, couldn’t even think about waiting; even though there would be more conversations involved than just this voicemail, I still wanted to start the process before I went to Poppy. I wanted to come to her as a free man, able to offer my heart completely and without reservation.
As soon as I heard the tone, I started speaking. I tried to keep my message brief, direct, because it was impossible to explain everything clearly without also delving into my sins and broken vows, and that at least, I really would rather not do on a voicemail.
After I finished leaving my thirty second resignation, I hung up and stared at the wall of my bedroom for a minute. I’d done it. It was really happening.
I was done being a priest.
I didn’t have a ring, and on my salary, I couldn’t go out and buy one, but I did go to the rectory garden to pick a bouquet of anemones, all snow white petals and jet-black middles, and tied the stems together with yarn from the Sunday School room. The flowers were elegant without being flashy, just like her, and I stared at them as I crossed the park to her house, my heart in my throat.
What would I say? How would I say it? Should I get down on one knee or is that something they only did in the movies? Should I wait until I could afford a ring? Or at least had more than unemployment on my horizon?
I knew that she loved me, that she wanted a future with me, but what if I was moving too fast? What if instead of an ecstatic yes, I got a no? Or—almost worse—an I don’t know?
I took a deep breath. Surely, this is what all men dealt with when they prepared to propose. It was just that I hadn’t ever thought a proposal was in my future, at least not for the last six years, and so I hadn’t even considered how I would do it or what I would say.
Please let her say yes, I prayed. Please, please, please.
And then I shook my head and smiled. This was the woman I had been with last night, in our own chuppah, God all around us. This was the woman who had been my own personal communion on the church altar. The woman God had made for me and brought to me…why did I have doubts? She loved me and I loved her, and of course she was going to say yes.
I realized too late that I was still in my collar, something that I had already officially (sort of) quit, but I was already halfway across the park and I had these flowers in my hand and I didn’t want to turn back for a detail that was now so trivial. Actually, the irony of it made me grin a little bit. A priest proposing in his collar. It sounded like the setup for a bad joke.
Poppy would think it was funny too; I could picture the small smile she got when she was trying not to laugh, her lips pressed together and her cheeks trying not to dimple, her hazel eyes bright. Fuck, she was beautiful, especially when she laughed. She laughed the way I’d always imagined princesses laughed when I was boy—sunnily, airily, the fate of kingdoms ringing in their voice.
I opened the gate into her garden, my stomach flipping backwards and sideways, my cheeks hurting from smiling so much, my hand shaking around my fresh bouquet, which was still wet from the morning’s drizzle.
I walked through the flowers and plants, thinking of Song of Songs, of the bridegroom going to his bride, singing as he goes. I know exactly how he must have felt.
As a lily among brambles, so is my love among women.
I climbed the porch, clutching the flowers tight as I walked towards the back door.
You have captivated my heart, my bride. You have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes…
I murmured the other verses to myself as I got ready to open the door. Maybe I would murmur them to her later, maybe I would trace them with my fingers on her naked back.
The door was unlocked, and I stepped inside her house, smelling the lavender smell that was all hers but not seeing her in the kitchen or the living room. She must be in her bedroom or the shower, although I hoped she was still in that pretty mint dress. I wanted to peel it off of her later, expose inches and inches of ivory flesh as she murmured yes to me over and over again. I wanted to kick it away from our feet as I took her in my arms and finally made love to her as a free man.
I took a deep breath as I rounded the corner into the hallway, about to announce my presence, and then something made me freeze—instinct maybe, or God himself—but whatever it was, I hesitated, my breath catching in my throat, and that’s when I heard it.
A laugh.
Poppy’s laugh.
It wasn’t just any laugh either. It was low and breathy and a little nervous.
And then a man said, “Poppy, come on. You know you want to.”
I knew that man’s voice. I’d only heard it once before, but I knew it immediately, as if I’d heard it every day of my life, and when I took another step into the hallway, I could finally see into her bedroom, and the entire scene was laid bare.
Sterling. Sterling was here, here in Poppy’s house, here in her bedroom, his suit jacket thrown carelessly over the bed and his tie loosened.
And Poppy was there too, still in that mint dress, but with her shoes off and two spots of color high in her cheeks.
Sterling and Poppy.
Sterling and Poppy together; and now he was gathering Poppy in his arms, his face bending to hers, her hands on his chest.
Push him away, a desperate voice pleaded inside me. Push him away.
And there was a moment where I thought she would, where her face tilted away and she took a single step back. But then something passed over her face—determination maybe or resignation—I couldn’t tell because then the back of his perfectly groomed head was in the way.
And he kissed her. He kissed and she let him. She not only let him, but she kissed him back, parting those sweet vermillion lips, and I was Jonah swallowed by the whale, I was Jonah after the worm had eaten his shade plant—