Page 52 of The Business of Blood
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
“I didn’t know what I was doing! Nor did I understand the severity of the punishment for my delinquency at the time.”
“Ignorance is not innocence, Fi!” he said from between clenched teeth.
“Don’t preach to me, Aidan Fitzpatrick.” The look I gave him could have withered entire fields of wildflowers. “You may be a priest, but you’re no angel. I know your sins.”
“You don’t know the half of them.” He lowered his eyes. “I am compelled to ask; did you repent for this favor?”
I winced. “Not…as of yet, but I fully intend to.” I rushed to add before he could say anything else, “Why, you could absolve me right now, couldn’t you?”
“Fiona,” he groaned.Drat.His head was back in his hands again.
“What was I supposed to do?” I huffed. “I was alone in the world. I was desperate. Broken. It was either that or prostitution.”
His head whipped up, and he speared me with a level glare. “You could have come to me.”
Tears stung the back of my nose and seared my eyes. I suddenly wished to be anywhere else. To be confessing any other truths. “No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at you yet without my heart being torn from my chest. I couldn’t ask for the help or protection ahusbandshould give. You’d forsaken me, Aidan. Everyone had forsaken me.” Annoyed with my own emotion, I dashed an escaped tear from my cheekbone before he could find it there.
His features softened. “God has not forsaken you, and neither will I.”
“Maybe I’ve forsaken him,” I said in a churlish if wobbly voice. “And as for you, it’s not the same, is it? I can’t rely on you. Not like that.”
Gently, he took both of my hands in his, his touch rousing a gentle memory sweeter than the last day of childhood. “Will you forgive me someday, Fi? As a soldier, I was an angry and violent boy... Being a priest allows me the grace of a penitent man. Itriedto come to you when I returned from fighting, but all I could do was remember the ghastly things I’d done on the battlefield. I feared God might not recognize me. That I’d fallen so far from grace, I’d do nothing but drag you down with me.”
I threaded my fingers through his. I was not God. I did not need to forgive. Not yet. But I still loved him. And hated him. “Memories make for powerful ghosts...” I whispered.
He nodded. “And some people deserve to be haunted.”
“Reminiscences haunt me, too.” Another tear fell, but I didn’t want to drag my hands from his to do anything about it. “Memories of you and Finn and Flynn. Of Mary and me. Of you and me. Of Mary andhim. I don’t sleep, but they torment me.”
“Could you not let them go, Fiona?” The earnest expression on his face erased a few of his years. “Some memories are best buried with the dead. Only then can you make brighter ones.”
I shook my head adamantly. “Don’t you think I’vetried? No matter how deep I bury them, still they rise. With a vengeance, they rise. I do not think my ghosts will let me rest until there is justice.”
He interrupted the trajectory of my tear with his knuckle. The air between us warmed with grace and sympathy as he nodded. “There is always a reckoning. I learned there always comes a time when you stop and turn around and face the adversary who chases you. If you take a stand against evil, gooddoeswin. Everyone gets their justice before God.”
A caustic sound escaped me. “I wish I had what you have. I wish I had faith…in anything. A person. God. In an outcome. My own choices.”
His exhalation was just as acrimonious. “Faith isn't always a comfort. Sometimes, it's a burden. But I have faith in your goodness, Fi. That you’ll do the right thing. Youareat a crossroads, and you need to decide. Go to the authorities. Confess. Have faith that justice will be done in your favor.”
Perhaps he was right. Maybe it was time I faced my demons, regardless of the outcome. “I wish…I wish you’d have let me try to make you happy.” More tears welled as I cast my gaze about the room. I hated this hallowed, hollow place. Hated that he’d chosen it over me.
“There are days I wish that, as well,” he murmured. “But there is no choice we can undo by wishing.”
He was the second man to tell me that today.
If wishes were horses…
“Did you love me?” It was a pathetic question asked in a pitiful whisper.
“Oh, Fiona.” The lips Aiden pressed against my temple were anything but ecumenical. His hand on my back drifted to my waist. “My feelings for you cannot be reduced to a single word.Youare my only temptation.”
“Did youloveme?” I demanded, lifting my hands to curl in his cassock.
Palms bracketed my face as though I were in the way of their meeting for prayer. With searching, tender eyes, he mapped the topography of my features. “Of course, I loved you, Fi. Iloveyou still. I pray to God for you every night...but—” His voice broke as his eyes snagged on my lips.
“But?” I breathed.
