Chapter 40
Forty
Jason
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been…” I do some quick calculations in my head. “Three months since my last confession.”
Between the wedding preparations, travel planning, and getting my assistant director up to speed to substitute for me while I was away, I haven’t been to confession since the last week of Advent, just before the madness of the Christmas season started.
I also haven’t been since I got back from Costa Rica. Not even on Ash Wednesday.
“Go ahead, my son,” Father Gabriel murmurs. He’s a shadowy figure behind the screened window between us, and I’m grateful that he can’t see my face for this. And that I won’t be able to see his face.
“I’ve had sexual relations with a man.” Might as well get the big one out straightaway.
I’ll save the small stuff for later—the unkind thoughts about certain choir members, the white lies I’ve told Mrs. Kowalski to keep her from setting me up with her divorced daughter, the number of times I’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain—all these sins pale in comparison.
Father Gabriel blows out a puff of breath I swear I can feel even through the rough mesh screen. “Ah.”
There’s a faint whiff of coffee and suddenly I wish I were having brunch with Kelsey and Adrienne instead of parking myself in the confessional booth after eleven-thirty Mass.
Father Gabriel is silent for an uncomfortably long moment. His silences are a well-known tactic. He’s waiting to see if I’ll add any more details. The number of times I’ve committed this sin, for example, which I do not want to confess.
Or a rambling justification for my behavior, of which I have none.
“And who is this man?”
But I’m not expecting this question, and it throws me for a few seconds. “Um…”
“Not one of those anonymous online hookups, was it?”
How the hell does Father Gabriel know about online hookups?
I don’t even know about that, other than that apps for that exists.
I’ve never used one, never even thought about using one.
I suppose Victor has an account, although he’s never said as much to me.
I shake the image of him signing in and swiping for a meetup with some anonymous man after a hard workout with a celebrity client on location.
“No, Father. He’s…” How on earth do I explain my relationship with Victor? It was complicated enough before we started sleeping together. “I’ve known him for a long time.” I skip mentioning the tiny details that he’s my stepdaughter’s father, my dead wife’s ex.
And I do not tell him that our first sexual encounter was the night of Leah’s funeral. I will never confess that. Not out loud, anyway. Not to any priest.
“And what are your feelings for him?”
Another question I don’t expect. “I…“ I don’t know how to answer it, either.
Father Gabriel stays quiet. The only sounds are the creaking of the wooden bench seat I’m sitting on when I shift position and the quiet shuffling of someone passing the confessional booth.
“I like him, Father. He makes me laugh. He’s kind.
He’s generous and more perceptive than I’ve ever given him credit for.
He’s…” I stop myself before I gush to my priest, of all people, how hot Victor is and how amazing the sex with him is.
“He makes me think that I might have been wrong about a number of things," I say instead. "Including myself."
“Including sin?” Father Gabriel asks.
That’s a dash of cold water on my warm and fuzzy feelings about Victor.
Because it is a sin, what I’m doing with Victor.
The church’s attitude toward LGBTQ people has softened somewhat over the years, and St. Sebastian is more welcoming than most churches.
But having sex with a person of the same sex is still a sin, and a mortal one, at that.
“Yes, Father. I think so,” I say.
According to Church doctrine, every time I take Victor’s cock into my mouth, or push inside him, I’m putting my immortal soul in danger.
I know this. Father Gabriel knows I know this. I wouldn’t be here in the confessional booth otherwise.
And Father Gabriel knows it’s me. The confessional booth was built to provide anonymity, but Father Gabriel has been the pastor at Saint Sebastian’s the entire time I’ve been employed here. He knows my voice.
Father Gabriel clears his throat. Ready to lecture me on the wages of sin, I presume. I start speaking before he can. “I loved my wife.”
”I know you did, son,” he says. He greeted Leah every Sunday. He presided over her funeral Mass. And yet, I don’t think he has any idea how much I loved her. He’s been a priest for twenty-something years, celibate and alone, except for God.
“I loved her more than my own soul,“ I say. “If the Church had told us that our relationship was a sin, I would have left the Church in a heartbeat to be with her.”
“Is that how you feel about this man?” Father Gabriel’s voice is more curious than judgmental, but I bristle at the question anyway.
“What I feel for him is nothing like what I felt for Leah.” I can’t help the snappish tone in my voice, and I’m even more annoyed that he might misinterpret what I mean. “I’m saying that it seems very un-Christ-like for the church to bless some relationships but hold others to be sinful.”
I keep going because I am on a roll now. “And if you compare same-sex relationships to incest or pedophilia, I’m walking out of here right now.”
“Jason,” Father Gabriel says calmly, “Have I said any of those things?”
I take a deep breath and try to calm my racing heart. “No,“ I say when I can speak in a lower tone. “I apologize, Father.”
“No need,” he says. “I’m well aware of the pain the Church has caused her LGBTQ children.”
“Are you, Father? I just got back from my stepdaughter’s wedding, where her other father had to get ’ordained’,” I use the same finger quotes Kelsey used even though I doubt he can see them through the mesh divider between us.
“On the Internet so he could marry two women. Why couldn’t she marry the person she loves best in the whole world in the Church, the way her mother and I did? ”
Father Gabriel lets out a deep sigh that sounds pulled from the depths of his own soul. “I find the Church’s doctrine on same-sex relationships as frustrating as you do.”
I highly doubt that, unless he’s in a same-sex relationship of his own. Though, if he is, he’s an even bigger sinner than me.
“Our parish welcomes gay and lesbian members,” he continues. “You know that. You’ve performed and sung at blessings I’ve done for gay and lesbian couples.”
“But a blessing isn’t the same as marriage, Father.”
“No,” Father Gabriel admits. “If it were up to me, I would marry same-sex Catholics, but I’m limited in my authority by the Diocese and the official Catholic doctrine, especially about the sacraments. However, I do believe the Church will change. Eventually,” he adds, after my skeptical snort.
“I don’t know if I can wait that long, Father.”
“Is this man so important to you?”
“Important enough to risk my soul, you mean?” I’m still snappish, still angry, though it’s not really Father Gabriel I’m angry with.
“You said that what you feel for this man is different from what you felt for Leah. But different isn’t the same as sinful. What is it that you feel for him, Jason?”
I open my mouth and close it again. The bench creaks under me.
"I loved Leah so much. I was faithful to her.
I was present for every terrible day of her illness and every ordinary day before it and I have never for one moment regretted marrying her.
There was nothing missing in our marriage.
Nothing that needed—" I stop. "What I feel for Victor doesn’t change or negate what Leah and I had.
But whatever this is—whatever that makes me—it didn't start when she died.
I've just been refusing to look at it directly for a very long time. "
I said earlier that I'd have left the Church for Leah. That her love was worth my soul. And I meant it. I meant every word of it. But I never had to make that choice. The Church blessed what Leah and I had. It cost me nothing to love her. This—being with Victor, admitting that I’m bisexual, even if only to myself—this is the choice that actually costs something.
I have been so careful, for so long, to protect my soul from this particular risk, and I’m not sure I am better for it.
I am not sure that the careful, protected version of me is a man whose soul is actually in better shape than the one sitting here right now, trying to tell the truth for the first time in fifteen years.
Father Gabriel sighs. “I wish more than anything that I could tell you the Church condones sexual relations between committed same-sex couples. I can say that I believe with all my heart and soul that God loves all his children, and that we are all made in His image. I also believe that Jesus would never reject anyone for their sexuality, and we know this because he befriended people who were considered sinners in his day.”
Father Gabriel’s perspective on God and sin is why I’ve stayed at Saint Sebastian all these years.
“So, if you need absolution for what you’ve confessed to me as a sin,” he continues.
“I will grant it to you, because I know God loves you, exactly as you are. But I ask because it sounds as though this man is having an impact on more than just your sex life.”
“You mean, is he important enough to risk my job?” A couple of years ago, the music director at another church in Brooklyn was fired because a parishioner sent a photo of him kissing his boyfriend to the bishop.
“Even if he isn’t the one I want to spend the rest of my life with”—and I’m increasingly beginning to think that Victor might be—“I know the Diocese would insist that you fire me if I were in a relationship with a man.”
Father Gabriel is silent for a long moment, which tells me all that I need to know. He’s doing the best he can within the bonds of his vocation and the strictures of the Church.
I've known this moment was coming since Kelsey’s wedding day in Costa Rica. Probably longer. What I didn't know until right now, sitting in this confessional trying to explain myself to God through the intermediary of a priest who cannot help me, is that my job isn't what I've been protecting.
I've been protecting the version of myself that doesn't have to answer the question Father Gabriel just asked me. The version of myself for whom the answer is simple, because the question doesn't apply.
That version of myself is not coming back.
And while I hadn’t planned to take any specific action when I entered the confessional, I’ve suddenly lost patience with myself for dithering over what I know in my soul to be the right path. “You’ll have my resignation letter before next Sunday, Father.”
“Jason, no. I beg you, please don’t make any hasty decisions. Think about this, pray over it, and let’s discuss it in a few days.”
“I have thought about it, Father, and I will pray more about it, but I doubt I’ll change my mind.”
I leave the confessional booth without waiting for absolution or whatever penance Father Gabriel was planning to give me.
When I exit the church, I blink at the winter sunlight that, pale as it is, contrasts sharply with the dim interior I just left.
There’s a man sitting halfway down the steps.
His long legs clad in dark jeans are stretched out on the steps below him and his elbows are braced two steps above him.
He’s wearing a navy blue coat but no hat and the sun glints on the almost-blond strands of his hair.
I jog down the steps and crouch down next to him.
“What are you doing here? Didn’t think you’d ever darken the door of a church again.”
He twists to smile up at me and his eyes dart over my shoulder to the church behind us. “Haven’t reached the door yet, have I?”
“Fair point. How did you know I was here?”
“I got into town Friday and called Kelsey this morning. She said she’d invited you to brunch but that you were going to confession after Mass.
“Ah.” I look down at the striations of color in the marble steps. “Victor, I don’t want you think that—”
“Hey,” he interrupts. “It’s none of my business. Sacred bond of the confessional and all that.”
When I don’t respond, he nudges my shoulder with his. “Jason, I will never interfere with how you practice your faith. I know how important it is to you.”
How can he, when I’m increasingly not sure I know?
“Anyway, I came to see if you wanted to have brunch with me now that you’re done.” He checks his watch. “I don’t know whether Kelsey and Adrienne are still eating, but I could text her and see—”
“No,” I say swiftly. “I mean, you know I love the girls, but, um…I’d like to have brunch with just you. If that’s okay, I mean.”
He gives me a sunny smile and plants his hands to push himself to his feet. “Let’s do it, then.”
I stand, then reach a hand down to him. He looks at it, then over his shoulder at the door to Saint Sebastian’s.
When I wiggle my fingers impatiently at him, he reaches up and clasps my hand.
I pull him upright. When he tries to let go of my hand, I don’t let him.
Instead, I entwine my fingers with his. We’re two men holding hands on the steps of a Catholic Church and I do not care who sees us.