Anne chuckled. Tom was really very nice. And such a blend of contrasts. A sort of sexy saint and sinner all rolled up into one.
Every time she thought about that very personal message he had delivered to her earlier, she could feel the blood charging through her body. It astounded her that she could come so unglued just by learning of a man’s interest in her. But then, as she was quickly discovering, Tom wasn’t just any man.
“How’s Tommy?” he asked.
They had reached the car, and Anne waited at the passenger door while Tom dug into his pocket for his keys.
“He’s awake and looking at you,” Anne said as she held up the baby.
Tom glanced over at Tommy. The baby’s eyes were indeed wide and alert—and very blue. A wisp of pale-blond hair curled over his forehead. His light-bronze skin was clear and smooth. It was the first time that Tom had seen the baby when he wasn’t eating, in a fit of crying or passed out in sleep.
The little boy was beautiful.
When Tom gently touched the baby’s cheek, the infant grabbed his finger and held on, looking right into his eyes. Tom experienced that tug in his chest that he had several times before, as if he was being pulled toward something warm and wonderful.
“I think he’s feeling better,” Anne said. “Maybe—”
She stopped in midsentence when an attendant from the retirement home suddenly raced up to Tom. He was a bantam-size man with perky white teeth and was holding out a slip of paper. “This message just came in for you, Father,” he said.
Tom extracted his finger from Tommy’s grasp, took the note and thanked the attendant.
The man turned to retrace his steps back to the retirement home. Tom quickly read the note, which brought a frown to his face.
“Problem?” Anne asked.
“I need to make a stop at the hospital,” he said as he reached down to open the car door for her.
* * *
A
NNE
STOOD
IN
THE
doorway as she watched Tom bend over the elderly man in the hospital bed. There were tubes coming out of the man’s chest and an IV stuck in his arm.
“So, Joe, we missed you in church this morning,” Tom said, his manner light and playful. “I suppose you think I’m going to let you off the hook just because you’re all hooked up here?”
Joe smiled. “Actually, Father, I do need you to get me off the hook for something,” he said, his voice a heavy wheeze. “I need you to marry us.”
Tom glanced to the other side of the bed, where a grave woman with gray-white hair stood, holding Joe’s hand.
“Betty, you’re not married to Joe?” Tom asked.
Betty shook her head as though in shame. “I know we told everybody in Cooper’s Corner we were when we moved in together. But we couldn’t. Joe’s children were so against it. They thought it meant Joe didn’t love and honor the memory of their mother. Please, don’t be disappointed in us, Father.”
Tom smiled. “I could never be disappointed in two people so committed to each other. Is the marriage ceremony what you both want now?”
“Yes,” Joe wheezed, looking over at Betty as though she were the most beautiful girl in the world.
Betty smiled back as though Joe were her ardent young lover. “Yes, Father,” she said.
“Then it would be my pleasure,” Tom assured them, drawing out the
Book of Common Prayer
from his pocket.
As Tom’s deep, rich voice recited the marriage ceremony, Anne listened to Joe and Betty promise to love and comfort each other in sickness and in health as long as they both would live. There was no white dress, no flowers, no organ music, no candles. Just the full joy of love to light their faces.
And Anne felt tears stinging the back of her eyes.
It was later, when she and Tom walked down the hospital hallway to the exit, that she asked, “How much time does Joe have left?”
“Not much,” Tom said.
Anne heard it in his voice then. Tom felt for Joe and Betty. He had not found a nice, safe, comfortable place from which to view their pain. He was part of Joe and Betty’s intimacy of suffering.
“Couldn’t you get in trouble with your bishop for performing an illegal ceremony?” Anne asked after a moment.
“Probably. Going to tell on me, Anne?”
Tom didn’t sound worried. It struck Anne then that this was not a man who did the safe thing. This was a man who got into the full fray of life and let himself feel.
“I could issue a waiver of the three-day waiting period for a marriage license,” Anne offered. “They could make their marriage official.”
“It’s official in their hearts,” Tom replied. “Has been for a long time. They just needed the comfort of saying the words aloud to each other in a ceremonial context.”
“Even if the ritual doesn’t mean anything?”
“Ritual means a great deal,” Tom said. “We’re constantly seeking the tangible evidence to our intangible side. Ritual helps to put the bone and muscle on our beliefs.”
Anne considered Tom’s words and had to admit they had merit. “I suppose if you took all the ritual out of a courtroom, the law would lose a lot of its tangibility. How long have Joe and Betty been together?”
“Ten years,” Tom replied. “They met when they were both in their sixties. Joe’s wife had died of cancer. Betty’s husband had left her years earlier. They totally surprised themselves by falling in love just like a couple of teenagers.”
Yes, Anne had seen that rare kind of love on their faces. It was a shame it was so rare.
“Hungry?” Tom asked as they exited the hospital.
“A little,” Anne admitted.
“There’s a nice spot a few miles from here. We’ll stop there for lunch.”
Anne thought Tom meant a restaurant, but the nice spot turned out to be a sunlit meadow, very private and secluded within a copse of trees. The air was cool, but not unpleasantly so. Tom spread out a blanket on the grass. When Anne and the baby were settled on it, he brought the picnic basket over and sat across from them.
Reaching into the basket, Tom pulled out the last two chicken sandwiches, along with a thermos of hot chocolate. He handed Anne a sandwich and poured them each a cup of the chocolate.
Anne didn’t know if it was because she had missed breakfast or because the fresh air was adding a special seasoning zest, but the sandwich tasted wonderful and so did the hot chocolate. She polished them off in record time.
She stroked the sleeping baby in her arms, enjoying the feel of him, the sun on her skin. The sky was clear as glass. The trees all around them were full of songbirds, and a hawk circled lazily overhead. From deep within the trees came the sound of water rushing over rock.
“Nature’s always been the best cathedral,” Tom said as he lay on his side watching her, his comment perfectly mirroring her thoughts.
“Did you grow up in the country?” Anne asked, curious to know more about this very different man.
“Far from it. I was born in Boston, brought up in New York City.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s as far from it as it gets. Brothers? Sisters?”
“Only child.”
“Maureen said the vestry was at first concerned that you’d never been married. They thought it odd.”
“Do you think it odd, Anne?”
“You don’t get to ask the questions now,” Anne said. “It’s my turn. So, why haven’t you married?”
He hesitated before he answered, and she could feel his eyes on her. “I’ve been waiting for my soul mate.”
“I hear that term a lot these days. Never been clear about its definition. So, what’s the difference between a marriage mate and a soul mate?”
“None, if you’ve selected right.”
“You know what I mean,” Anne said, her eyes rising to his.
“A person who is
only
a marriage mate will see the mistakes in what you do. But a soul mate will
only
see the love.”
Anne wondered if there really were relationships in which each partner only saw the other’s love. “Sounds wonderful,” she admitted. “And totally unbelievable.”
“Wonderful, unbelievable things are called miracles, Anne. And they happen all the time.”
No, Anne didn’t believe in miracles. But a priest obviously had to. She also imagined he had to be extra careful to marry the right person. Was that why he wasn’t marrying the mother of his child? He didn’t believe she was his soul mate?
“What made you decide to become a priest?” Anne asked after a moment.
“It’s a long story and best left for another time.”
“Why not now?”
“Because as the lead in that story, I’m not always a sympathetic character,” Tom admitted. “I’d prefer you learn about some of my good points first.”
“You have some good points?” she asked, not able to resist the opening.
That got a grin out of him. “A few.”
“Name one.”
“Well, let’s see. I don’t rob banks.”
“The former prosecutor in me is impressed. Anything else?”
“I’m a good listener.”
“So was my beagle...after I got him fixed.”
Tom’s laugh was deep and vibrant, and resonated like fine music inside her. A whole chorus of her own feminine chords was eagerly joining right in. She was going to have to be very careful. Tom was proving far too likable for her own good.
“My turn to ask questions,” he said. “Where are you from?”
“I never really know how to answer that question,” Anne admitted. “I was born in California, but I was only there the first couple of months of my life. My father was a career military officer. We moved every eighteen months.”
“The travel must have been fun,” Tom said.
“Sometimes, but I lost a lot of friends and memories.”
“Memories?” Tom repeated.
“The kind that come back when you pick up an old photo or something else from your past.”
Anne told him then about being invited to her college roommate’s home for Thanksgiving and seeing all the stuff she had in her bedroom—dolls, toys, books, old school papers and report cards. Anne had never been able to keep any of those things. “When you’re always moving,” she explained, “you have to travel light.”
“I understand,” Tom said, and oddly enough, Anne could see that understanding right there on his face.
Before she knew it, she was telling him about the places she had lived, how her father had finally retired and moved to Boston, the thrill of getting the news when she had been accepted into law school, and later, the recruitment call from the Boston prosecutor’s office.
“I was with them for eight years,” Anne said.
“Twice as long as your marriage,” Tom commented. “You must have liked it better.”
“When I put some really serious sinners behind bars.”
“And when you didn’t?” Tom asked.
“I don’t like to think about the ones that got away with what they had done.”
“No one ever really gets away, Anne.”
“Maybe not, but it sure would have been nice to see them pay for their sins in this lifetime.”
Tom rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. To Anne it seemed pale after the rich blue of his eyes.
“So you decided to become a judge to see that those serious sinners got what was coming to them.”
Anne laughed. “Hardly. I handle mostly probate, divorces, adoptions and deadbeat dads. Not exactly hardened criminals.”
“Then something else made you change jobs?”
She hesitated for a moment. These were not things she normally talked about. Still, it was surprisingly easy to talk to Tom. She supposed that was part of what made him a good priest.
When he was a good priest.
“I was on the fast track with the Boston district attorney’s office when the governor called with the offer of the judgeship here in the Berkshires,” Anne said. “I was ready to turn it down.”
“And then?”
“Then suddenly my marriage was falling apart and the job offer began to sound like a chance for a new start.”
“So, taking the job here was a way to try to distance yourself from the pain,” Tom said with understanding. “Did it work?”
“It helped,” she admitted. “Although I never planned to stay in either the job or the Berkshires. I froze in these hills my first winter here. But before I knew it, a year had gone by and somehow the job had grown on me.”
“How do you mean?”
His question wasn’t casual. There was genuine interest in his voice, and Anne found herself trying to put into words what it really felt like.
“Law sets the standard for what’s right and wrong. Every time I hand down a decision, I’m impacting lives, possibly changing them forever. I can’t afford to be wrong. The job’s exacting, humbling and exhilarating all at the same time.”
“I know what you mean,” Tom said.
Anne realized Tom wasn’t just politely agreeing with her. She hadn’t thought of it before, but it must be like that for a priest, as well—impacting lives, possibly changing them forever.
“If you don’t want to talk about why you became a priest, can you at least tell me why you’re in the Berkshires?”
“I came because my bishop asked me to, and the Church of the Good Shepherd accepted me. I’ve stayed because of the people.”
“Anyone in particular?” Anne asked, wondering if he intended to tell her now about the mother of his child.
“No one in particular,” Tom said. “And everyone in particular.”
“That was helpful,” she said with sweet sarcasm.
Tom flashed her a grin. “Last summer Phyllis Cooper came by with flowers for the altar. She found me making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for those seniors we visited today. Every Sunday since, I’ve received a basket like this one. Clint Cooper donated the sandwiches today, made from the fresh chicken that Ed Taylor, a local farmer, supplies. Martha Dorn bakes the cupcakes Shirley likes so much. The superb hot chocolate is from the Tubbs’ café. The basket, cup and utensils all come from Philo and Phyllis’s general store. These people give from their heart, Anne, because they have so much heart to give.”
And so, it seemed, did Tom. He was that combination of opposite qualities that Anne never would have imagined possible—a man capable of great commitment to his parishioners, but no commitment to the woman with whom he had conceived a child.
The realization that she was still strongly drawn to him, even knowing the latter, was dangerous to Anne’s peace of mind, even her sense of self. Men didn’t change, no matter how much women wanted to believe they would. She saw ample evidence of that every day in her court. If she let herself feel something for Tom, the likelihood was that he would treat her just like he was treating Tommy’s mother.