Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,79
they are.”
“Want another beer?”
Sister Cortona nodded, and Patrick pulled her another pint. When he returned, she said, “I told you months ago that you should pursue her.”
He nearly dropped the glass of beer on the bar in front of her. “You warned me to stay away from her.”
“No, I didn’t.” She looked incredulous, and Patrick’s frustration amped up about six points. It was almost refreshing after he’d walked around feeling dejected for three days.
“Yes. You did.”
Sister Cortona took a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you a story.”
“Really? Now?”
“You told me to talk to you like one of the preschoolers, and I guess we’re having story time.”
Patrick motioned for her to proceed.
“You know I wasn’t always a nun.” Honestly, Patrick had thought she’d come out of the womb with a habit, but he wasn’t about to risk his neck by saying that. “Before that, I was a girl in love.”
He couldn’t picture her in love. “What does that have to do with me? You’re now a nun, and—”
“I wish I wasn’t.”
Patrick’s knees dropped. Hearing people’s confessions for a decade about everything from bad thoughts to petty theft to marital infidelity had made him mostly impervious to shock about what would come out of people’s mouths. But Sister Cortona had truly shocked him. “Okay . . .”
“If I had gone after her when she asked me to, I wouldn’t be here trying to convince you not to make the same mistake that I made when I was just a wee lesbian.” Patrick laughed. Their binge watch of Derry Girls had more significance now.
“But that was before you’d taken vows, right?”
“Yes, but it’s the same. I was in love, but I was afraid. I was too afraid of disappointing my parents—the fucking homophobes they were, God rest their souls—to do what would have made me happy.”
“You could leave and be happy now.”
“She’s married to a lovely woman and has three kids.” Cortona shook her head. “You, however, have a chance to make a real life.”
“I have a real life.”
“Neither of us do.”
“Then why do you stay?”
“I don’t know. I’m still afraid. It’s probably why I’m so mean. But, right now, I’m a nun so that I can make sure you don’t waste your stupid, pretty face on getting fondled by septuagenarian widows until you’re old and decrepit like me.”
Patrick looked down. “I don’t have anything to offer her.”
“You have yourself. If you decide not to be a coward.”
“That has never been enough.”
“Then you don’t see what I do.” That was the nicest thing that Sister Cortona had ever said to him. It was bordering on mushy. That’s probably why she felt the need to add, “But I’m starting to see why she dumped you.”
“Are you going to tell the diocese about me and Sasha?” He might be considering asking to be laicized, but he was still afraid of causing a scandal. It might jeopardize the pre-K program.
“No. You are, when you tell the bishop that you’re in love and intend to leave.” Sister Cortona looked around the bar. “Nice place.”
Patrick grokked that the subject was closed. He looked around, happy that he was in a familiar place. This was as much his home as the house he’d grown up in or the rectory.
“Are you going to stay?” Learning what he had that night, he was filled with concern for Sister Cortona. If she wasn’t happy, she should leave. It was so simple when it was someone else.
But she blew out air. “I have to stay and break in the new dummy that they send to ruin the place.”
“Do you ever think that it’s beyond saving?”
“St. Bart’s?” Patrick nodded, and she continued, “Every time you give me a hard time about the budget.”
“What about the whole thing?” Maybe if priests and nuns couldn’t have real lives, it wasn’t worth it. A thing that held fetid, grotesque secrets and protected abusers for millennia had been the foundation of his life. He’d never questioned it. And the privilege in that made him feel dirty and ruined. It was only when he could no longer conform to the expectations he’d gladly taken on that he’d begun to question it.
She paused. “It exists and is going to continue to exist. I have no real power in the institution, but I do have power in people’s lives. We feed the sick and minister to the poor, and I don’t always agree with how we do it. Like all institutions, it is corrupt. If we lived in a utopia,