As Søren spoke with his secretary, Kingsley studied the office. Seemingly nothing had changed since the last time he’d been in here—and it had been years. Years and years. The walls were painted a creamy white and the hardwood floor was covered by a large faded Persian rug that had once been blue and gold, he would guess, but was now a dull gray and an even duller yellow. Floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases held Bibles and dense theological tomes, some in Latin and Greek, languages that Søren read as comfortably as he read English and French. The desk was large, but not grand. Honey-colored oak, like an old-fashioned schoolteacher’s desk with an antique brass lamp on top. None of the decor seemed particularly “Søren,” and Kingsley assumed everything in the office had been here when he’d moved in and would stay here if he ever moved out. Except Kingsley couldn’t imagine Søren anywhere but in Wakefield, celebrating mass six days a week, presiding over funerals and weddings, and coaching a ragtag team of co-ed intramural soccer players—the Sacred Heart Attacks, their mascot a cartoon heart brandishing a broadsword.
The Heart Attacks’ second-place trophy from the 2010 church league tournament was perched on a small metal box on the shelf. Fucking First Presbyterian had taken the championship. Again.
The trophy wasn’t the only addition to the office, though. Hanging on the wall was a small round sampler Kingsley hadn’t seen before.
Truth makes love possible; but love makes truth bearable.
— Achbishop Rowan Williams.
A gift from a parishioner to Søren, Kingsley guessed, reading the tiny sewn-on letters at the bottom: To Fr. MS from KJ.
Søren got off the phone with Diane and sat in his office chair, swiveling it to face Kingsley who stood at the bookcase by the window.
“Sorry,” he said, sitting back in the chair. “Priests don’t work nine to five.”
“It’s fine,” Kingsley said. “Really.” He turned and sat down on the window bench, though the glass was cold and there was nothing to see outside but the dark, icy branches of an elm tree. “Who is KJ?” Kingsley asked, nodding toward the sampler on the wall.
“KJ? Oh, Katherine Jensen. She’s in the choir, does embroidery in her free time.”
“Does she have a crush on you?”
“She’s ninety-one. But yes, I think she does.”
Kingsley smiled. “You put our trophy in here.”
“I was hiding it in shame,” Søren said, feigning disgust. “I will never forgive First Presbyterian for beating us again. You know they cheated.”
“How?”
“By having better players on their team than we did.”
Kingsley sipped his wine and set his glass down. “What’s in the box?”
“Which box?”
“The locked one. Under the trophy.”
Søren glanced over his shoulder at the box, and his eyes were different when he looked back. “Just letters.”
“In a lockbox.”
“They’re from Elizabeth,” Søren said. “Old letters from when I was in school.”
Elizabeth, Søren’s sister with whom he shared a troubled past. She’d been abused by their father as a little girl. When she was twelve and Søren eleven, she’d instigated an incestuous abusive relationship with him. Her own brother. Søren had said before how difficult it was to even be in the same room with her, that it brought back disturbing memories.
“I shouldn’t have asked,” Kingsley said.
“You can ask me anything,” Søren said gently, as if he were talking to a scared child about to make a difficult confession. “You know that, don’t you? If it’s something I can answer, I will.”
“Really?” Kingsley shook his head. “Forgive me for being skeptical. I feel like you’ve been keeping yourself a secret from me for years.”
“I know,” Søren said with a solemn nod. “I was. In my mind, I’d convinced myself I was protecting you. I think the truth is, I was protecting myself just as much, if not more. But I’m trying to be more honest with all of us. If you want to know something, ask it.”
“You’ll regret saying that.”
Søren grinned. “Try me.”
Chapter Eight
Try him? That blond monster was as arrogant as he was beautiful. Kingsley would show him.
“All right. First question. Where did you get your pajamas? Is there a pajama catalog just for priests?”
“You like them? Eleanor got them for me. And red ones covered in candy canes, too.”
“They make those in your size?”
Søren picked up his wine glass. “Apparently so.”
“They’re very cute.”
“Thank you. I always wanted to be cute.” He took a drink. “That’s your question?”
“I have more.”
Søren held out his hand, palm open. “Ask away.”
“Why do you keep your sister’s letters?”
Søren sat back again, exhaled hard. “The pajama question was much easier to answer. I’ve wanted to burn them many times. However, since Elizabeth writes about my father’s abuse in them, destroying them would feel like destroying evidence. Stuart Ballard—”
“Who?”
“The priest who’s my confessor—he suggested I put them in a locked box, throw away the key, and set them on a shelf where I might see them every day until I’m used to them, and they no longer hold any power over me. It’s called exposure therapy. Seems to have worked. Now they’re just letters in a box. They have some sentimental value, too, I suppose. Apart from the occasional threatening letter from my father, no one ever wrote to me at school. I felt completely abandoned there. Finally, after two years, Elizabeth somehow found out where I’d been sent, and she started writing to me in secret. The first letter I received from her was a godsend. I can’t tell you how crushing my loneliness was there.” He smiled. “Until a certain French whore and masochist came along and changed my life.”
Happiness again, pure happiness, potent as cocaine, hit Kingsley’s brainstem and shot through his whole body.
“Does Nora know that you have those letters?”
“I don’t think so. She’s never asked. I’ve asked her not to ask. Shockingly, she’s obeyed.”
“There’s a small horrible part of me that’s happy I know, and she doesn’t.”
“I don’t think that’s particularly horrible, just understandable, considering. Any other questions?”
“Tell me something else she doesn’t know.” Kingsley grinned, feeling deliciously evil.
“Something Eleanor doesn’t know? Let’s see... Well, this is hardly a deep, dark secret, but I didn’t tell her that I was recently offered a theology professorship at the Gregorian in Rome.”
Kingsley’s eyes widened. “When was that?”
“About a month ago. They wanted me to start next summer.”
“Rome?”
“Rome.”