The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,120

“Wait, her? Eleanor? Her?”

Nora cackled softly as she went to fetch the carrier from the guest bedroom. She took the cat, gone limp with the terror of new surroundings, out of the carrier and brought her to S?ren at his piano bench.

“She’s a stray, but a sweet stray, Mercedes said,” Nora told him as she piled the soft furry bundle into S?ren’s arms. “And she doesn’t have a name yet. But I think you two will get along.”

“A cat? You’re giving me a cat?” S?ren seemed dazed by the gift, though he was already settling the terrified cat onto his lap, stroking the glossy black coat with the back of his hand.

“She’s got food and water in the kitchen. Litter box in the downstairs bathroom. You can make Kingsley clean it.” He looked at her, a little dazed. Very rare day when she managed to surprise him. “You only have about a year on the outside. Might as well enjoy it as much as you can, do all the things you can’t do when you’re back in the order. And when you do go back, Céleste can take her. She’s been dying for a cat.”

“Why are you so certain I’m going back?”

“Grace emailed and asked if I was all right. That’s all the email said. I guessed you had contacted her, asking for the letter absolving you of parental responsibility toward Fionn, and she wanted to check in with me. Then Cyrus said you’d asked for the name of his therapist. You have to go to therapy before they’ll let you back in the Jesuits, right?”

“A good guess, but the wrong one. Don’t give up your day job yet, Miss Marple.”

He didn’t look at her, only his new cat who’d started to purr in his hands. He always did have a way with cats.

“So…are you not going back?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I called Grace to reassure her that I had no intention of seeking joint custody—or any form of custody from Fionn—whether I went back or not.”

“Why? If you’re not going back, if you’re not sure, why make that decision now?”

“Hard to explain,” he said, glanced away, breathed.

The cat bumped her head against his hand, and he obligingly scratched the top of her head.

“You would be a wonderful father,” she said. “I know you’re worried you’d be like your father, but you wouldn’t be. I know you wouldn’t.”

“I took advantage of a teenaged girl in my church, Eleanor. I am already like my father.” He looked at her as if daring her to contradict him. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. “If I truly believed, down to the bottom of my soul, that I was better for Fionn than Zachary and Grace, nothing would keep me from my son.” He ran his hands over the cat’s sleek back as if seeking comfort. “I…I wouldn’t be very good at playing Doctor Who with him.”

“S?ren,” she said, wishing she’d never mentioned Zach and Fionn and Doctor-fucking-Who. He took a long breath, then met her eyes, and from the look he wore on his face, she knew the subject was closed. For now.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “So why the therapist then, if you’re not going back?”

“As much as I loathe the very thought of seeing a therapist, I thought it might help. Us.”

“Us?”

“Me,” he said with finality.

“I think we should both go. Can Catholic priests go into couples counseling?”

At least that got a smile out of him.

“So…dare I ask what the bad news is?” he said. “Or are you giving me my other two gifts first?”

The cat jumped off his lap and started exploring her new surroundings. She hopped onto the camelback love seat and started grooming, already at home.

“Bad news. Then more gifts. Fair?”

“Fair enough.”

“Before I tell you, you need to know I didn’t make this decision lightly.”

“What decision?”

“Whether or not you go back to the Jesuits, I’m not going back,” Nora said, “to the Church.”

“What?” He looked at her sharply.

“I’m leaving the Church. The Catholic Church. For good.”

“Eleanor—”

“Just listen. I can’t be around men playing God anymore. I can’t give an organization that won’t ordain women as priests any more of my time or money while they play shuffleboard with sexual predators. The punishment for a raped woman having an abortion is more severe than for a priest who molests a child.”

“Is this because I tried to talk you out of calling the papers? I was wrong, I admit it. That was