Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
“If we’re going to make gingerbread today, we better get started.
The dough needs time to chill before we can roll it out.
” Molly gave her hair one last scrunch with the towel, then tossed it aside and led the way downstairs, Caleb close on her heels.
Her hips moved in enticing ways as she descended the stairs, and he knew, beneath her jeans, she was bare, her underwear from the day before left behind in her room.
How was a man supposed to focus on baking when Molly Proulx was going commando?
“I didn’t realize it was such a process.”
“Still want to make it?”
“Obviously.”
In the kitchen, Molly rifled through the cabinets, pulling out small spice jars and giant bags of flour and brown sugar. “Are you good at math?” she asked as she set a stick of butter on the counter to soften.
“I’m alright. Why?”
“Tessa’s recipe makes something like eight dozen cookies. We’re going to need to cut it down to a quarter of the size at least.” She rose up on her tip toes and reached for a jar of molasses at the back of the cabinet.
Caleb gripped her hip and pressed her back to his front, reaching past her and pulling down the jar with ease. He set it on the counter, but didn’t move away, a warm sort of satisfaction he hadn’t experienced before washing over him when she leaned back against his chest.
“I thought your mom taught you to make gingerbread.”
“She did, but I don’t have the recipe memorized. I texted Tessa this morning while you were chopping down that sickly-looking tree.”
“Hey, you leave my tree out of it,” he said, but he couldn’t stop grinning.
She suppressed a smile and tilted her head towards the pile of X-rated gingerbread men cookie cutters they’d collected from the upstairs hall nativity scene and relocated to the kitchen counter. “I could hardly have these cookie cutters staring us in the face and not use them.”
He pulled the oversized red Fiestaware mixing bowl down from its perch on top of the refrigerator, far out of Molly’s reach. Their hands brushed as she took the bowl from him, sending awareness skittering across his skin.
Ridiculous. You spent the better part of an hour with your tongue between her legs and you’re getting worked up over touching her hand.
Her eyes slid over him, across his shoulders and down his biceps to where he’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, as though she could hear his dirty thoughts.
Or maybe she was just having dirty thoughts of her own.
As her gaze hit the bare skin of his forearms, need pulsed through her blood and pulled the bowl towards herself, positioning it like a barrier between them.
“Of course, Tessa did try to convince me to make snickerdoodles instead.”
He watched as she carefully measured the fragrant spices out into the mixing bowl. “I was never a big snickerdoodle fan. The name always makes me think of dogs. Poodles. Labradoodles. Snickerdoodles. They sound too much alike.”
She laughed and pointed to the stand mixer on the counter. “Make yourself useful and start beating the butter.”
He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I feel like there’s an innuendo there I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“You put your finger on plenty already.”
“And here I thought we were just getting started.”
He captured her around the waist, tugging her against him and dropping a kiss on her lips. How was he supposed to stop touching her? For the first time, he understood why his brother and their friends were so obnoxious about being publicly affectionate with their wives and girlfriends.
She stepped out of the circle of his arms, her smile infectious as she straightened his glasses. “Pace yourself, Father.”
He sighed dramatically but released her all the same. Molly moved about the kitchen with ease, measuring flour and cracking eggs into her assembled bowls. He was so busy watching her, he almost forgot to turn on the stand mixer.
This is what it would be like. The idea rushed through him like the wind, kicking up all the long-discarded thoughts he’d tried to ignore. Thoughts that had coalesced into the shape of a curvy English teacher. Thoughts he knew would not be so easily discarded a second time around.
You could be laicized. You could walk away.
The first time he’d considered leaving the priesthood was shortly after his ordination.
He’d woken one night in a cold sweat, panic gripping his throat at the idea of a life alone with this taciturn God who so often withheld his voice.
But Father Raymond had convinced him to see it through, to trust the Church to guide him.
To trust God. Twenty-five years on, his trust in God hadn’t wavered.
He couldn’t say the same for his faith in the Church.
He thought of the laicization paperwork sitting in his email, of the Bishop’s offer to reassign him instead.
Maybe God put you here to show you a new path.
“If you were in Aster Bay today, what would you be doing?”
The question pulled his focus back to the task at hand.
The butter was well and truly beaten, and he shut off the stand mixer, leaning against the counter as he watched her work.
“I was supposed to be helping Ethan and the guys get ready for the toy drive. The parents pick up this afternoon. What about you?”
She hummed as she thought, her hips swaying to a tune only she could hear as she stirred the sweet concoction in her bowl. “Jo would probably rope me into going Christmas shopping with her. She always saves it until the last minute.”
“Unlike you.”
She glanced up at him, her lips tipped up in a soft smile. He wanted to press his tongue into the dimple that appeared in her cheek. “I was done with my shopping before Thanksgiving,” she confirmed.
“I knew it.”
“And then I would probably spend the evening reading the draft of Alex Lambert’s college scholarship essay.” She paused for a moment, twisting her lips up to the side and glancing around for her phone. “I need to let him know I won’t get to it until after Christmas.”
“Will that be okay? He won’t miss his deadline, will he?”
She scoffed. “No. Even if I didn’t finish reading his essay until after New Year’s, he’d still be more than a month ahead of the deadline. That boy doesn’t miss deadlines.”
“He’s a good kid.” A bolt of pain gathered behind Caleb’s eyes as their earlier conversation about the St. Anthony’s High senior came back to him. He scraped his hand over his jaw. “Will it affect his chances if he doesn’t make valedictorian?”
Molly’s shoulders stiffened, but she shrugged, avoiding his eyes as she combined the wet and dry ingredients. “It might.”
“I’ll talk to Bruce when we get back.” Her brow furrowed as though she wasn’t quite sure if she believed him. “He can’t mess up a kid’s future over a uniform violation.”
She rolled her bottom lip through her teeth and nodded slowly, turning her attention back to her baking, but the air between them soured, as though they were vibrating at different frequencies.
“What aren’t you saying?”
She sighed, using the back of her hand to push her hair out of her face as she turned back to him. “It’s not about the uniform violation, and it’s not just this kid.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Bruce Day is waging war on every student who dares to be anything other than a model Catholic, and he believes he has the full support of the Church. That is the issue you need to address with him. Not the uniform violation.”
His headache intensified, like there were strings behind his eyes slowly being pulled tighter and tighter. “It’s a Catholic school, Molly. He does have the support of the Church.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded tightly.
When she made to turn away again, he caught her around the waist, stopping her mid spin.
She wouldn’t meet his eyes, so he bent his knees, looking up at her through his eyelashes.
“But he doesn’t have my support. And I will let him know I do not believe he has God’s either. ”
Her eyes flashed to his. “He won’t believe you.”
“He’s entitled to his own relationship with God. And so are those kids, no matter what he thinks the Church says.”
“How can you stand it? How can you believe the teachings are wrong and perpetuate them anyway?”
“Both can be true. The Church can be flawed and also be worth preserving.”
“When too much of the foundation is rotten, you don’t try to preserve the house. You knock the whole damn thing down and build something new.”
He dug his hand into his hair, tugging at the ends. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a metaphor. How much of the Church needs to be flawed before it’s no longer worth perpetuating its teachings? How many rotten boards can be a part of the frame before you’re better off starting fresh?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to keep up with her metaphors. “You want me to start a new religion?”
“No. I’m just trying to understand where your tipping point is. How much of the religion you preach must be antithetical to your own beliefs before you’re no longer willing to align yourself with it?”
He blinked at her, the question reverberating through his bones, drawing the fraying threads of his convictions to the surface, doubt and shame winding around his limbs and binding him in a never-ending battle between his intentions and his reality.
“I’m not the only one aligning myself with the Church.
Last time I checked, you work for it too. ”
Something like disbelief flashed across her face. “I work for the school.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
Anger flickered in her eyes. “Maybe I won’t for much longer.”
“What does that mean?” She pressed her lips together, clearly not willing to elaborate. “What am I supposed to do, Molly? It’s been twenty-five years. This is all I know.”
“But it’s not all you are!”
He hung his head and huffed out a breath. She slipped her hand into his, palm to palm, fingers lacing together as though she could knit together those fraying threads with their interlocked hands.
“You do so much good, Caleb. You help so many of the kids you set out to reach when you joined the priesthood. Sometimes I wonder…”
“What?”
“How many more could you reach if you weren’t required to put yourself in opposition to the Church to do so?”
“If I weren’t a priest, you mean.” He’d never said the words out loud before to anyone but his confessor and the Bishop, given voice to the fragile wisp of an idea flickering in the darkest recesses of his heart.
She dropped his hand. The loss of her touch stung. “I’m just trying to understand,” she repeated, her voice small.
“So am I.”
“You said God sent you a sign when you were in college and so you became a priest. But what about the other signs he’s been sending you?”
“God hasn’t spoken to me in years,” he said, unable to contain the bitterness in his voice.
She cocked her head to the side, brows drawn together. “Maybe you’re just not listening.”
“I’m trying! I keep asking for a sign, for something—anything—to show me the path forward. And nothing!”
He scrubbed his hand over his hair, the ache in his chest yawning open as he swallowed the rest of it.
He didn’t deserve a sign from God, not when he was actively breaking his vows again and again.
Not when he was desperate to end this conversation, not just because he wanted to stuff these feelings back into the little box at the back of his heart, but also because he wanted to kiss her again, to go back to the dream world they’d been living in.
“I’ve given my life to Him and it’s still not enough.” Though whether he meant it wasn’t enough for himself or for God he wasn’t sure.
She exhaled slowly, smoothing her flour-dusted palms over his chest. “You are a very good priest.”
“Not so good,” he said, pressing his mouth to her temple just to feel the warmth of her skin against his lips.
She smiled, though it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“I didn’t mean… You are not responsible for the faults of your religion.”
He considered her statement, rolling it around his mind. It wasn’t quite right, but he couldn’t figure out why. “Religion is not the same thing as faith, and I know you may not believe this, but I’m not interested in perpetuating the religion. I have only ever been interested in the faith.”
“And yet you work for the religion.”
“I do,” he conceded.
But what if he didn’t? What if he chose a different life?
Please, God, send me a sign.