Bonus chapter, Sins of Liberty
Joe visited one day when Nicky was away at school. The housekeeper and butler were on duty, but they didn’t know who this priest was—a priest could go anywhere with no questions asked, a little like a policeman. Only Catholics worried about them.
I realized as I looked at him that I carried no spark for Joe. We’d had our worries together years earlier, while Nicky was a baby, before George arrived with his ship of rescue. My first husband was now wearing the collar again, sitting on the porch with me and glasses of tea. I adjusted my lavender skirt with its lace trim while he hemmed and hawed about an apology.
My mind wandered then. His failure to provide so many years ago hadn’t offset the love he was generous with, but a mother can’t feed a family on song and words at the table. We came to the calamity of Nicky’s sickness without enough saved to save him, and, being on the outs with the Church, Joe didn’t have access to the diocese’s charity. He had to give us up, when he should have tried harder to give us more.
The wicker chairs squeaked as we moved in them, his more than mine. He crossed and recrossed his legs. The tea cooled in front of us on the glass table. George was a knight at providing, and pretty good at love, too. Here was my first husband, sitting before me, perhaps hoping our love was not lost.
“I want to be forgiven,” he said.
“That’s what a priest is for, silly.” He liked it when I scolded him gently.
“We’re all men, though.”
“I’ve noticed. What’s your point?”
In a flash, it looked like he had found it, his idea. He leaned toward me, not enough to make an eyebrow arch across the street. Just enough to make my heart quicken as it once did.
“A woman can forgive a man, but only if he confesses. I never did confess, not to you, my love. You were my love then.”
“So you want to confess to me. I’m flattered, but no.” I spooned sugar into my tea. “Or not yet, anyway. First you have to confess to yourself. Then, to another priest.”
“Well, there’s Father Frank.”
“That will do, I suppose. Once he’s given you penance—“
“One of the sacraments—“
“Then you can do that penance, and then confess to me. I just think I’d be no good at penances, especially about a sin that was committed against me.”
He picked up his saucer and balanced it while he dropped sugar into the cup. “Montenegrin said, ‘Where there is love there is no sin.’”
“Pretty words. You were always good at that part. There’s sin, or you wouldn’t want to be forgiven. When one priest confesses to another, how’s the penance? Tougher, I’d hope. You fellows, you men, you’re supposed to know better, to act better. Be closer to sacrifices.”
“I wanted to.”
“That was our dilemma, Joe. You weren’t devoted to sacrifice.”
“I wasn’t a brute about it.”
“Not a major point. It feels the same at first, even if your intentions were good, when your partner isn’t pulling their share. I had Nicky, plus a job, somehow.”
He sat in stony silence. “I swear I’ll repair it,” he said after a few moments. “I need your love too badly to let it remain broken.”
“You mean your promise, don’t you?” I wanted to meet him halfway, just to give him a chance at the forgiveness. “Penance. Please. Maybe Frank doesn’t even know how you failed us.”
A tear crept into his eye, and he didn’t wipe it away quickly. “Whatever Frank says, I’ll do.”
“It might be enough for me.”