Woman of God Read online

  The door was ajar, and it creaked on its hinges when I opened it and stepped into the dimly lit nave.

  James was standing at the altar, reading.

  “Yo. James!” I shouted.

  He looked up, peered down the center aisle, and shouted back at me, “Brigid, it’s you! You’re here!”

  He stepped down from the altar, strode down the aisle with arms outstretched and a huge grin on his face.

  “It’s so good to see you,” he said.

  I went into his hug, again feeling that great surge of warmth when he held me. It felt too good. Oh, no. I stepped away, looked into his face, and said, “James! You look terrific.”

  “You too, Brigid. You too. Life is treating you okay?”

  “The short answer is yes,” I said, grinning up at him. I forgot that I’d been annoyed with him. I noticed that he was stronger and leaner than the last time I’d seen him, and that his gorgeous blue eyes were no longer sad.

  “I saved your spot for you,” he said.

  He walked me back up the aisle, and I laughed when he offered me the end seat in the first pew. He sat down next to me.

  “So, how do you like it?”

  I took a good look around the church, which was so simple and unadorned, it reminded me of a chapel in a monastery. There was no stained glass. The altar and the floor were made of hand-hewn boards, and the pews looked as though they’d been polished by centuries of people sitting, standing, and sitting again.

  “I love it,” I said, getting some of my equilibrium back. “She reminds me of a dignified lady of a certain age.”

  “Very apt, Brigid. When I saw this church for the first time, I said, ‘Jesus Mary Joseph.’ So that’s what I call it.”

  “Hah! And somehow that name just stuck?”

  “Like crazy glue,” James said with a grin.

  He told me that the previous priest had died many years before and that the church had fallen into disrepair.

  He said, “Some people in this town followed my trial and contacted me about their opening for a priest. When I said I was handy with a hammer and a saw, that cinched it. The job was mine. Small salary. Lots of work.”

  “Hah! Not everyone’s idea of heaven,” I said, laughing.

  He grinned. “It’s perfect for me. Like hitting a home run with bases loaded.”

  “I’m happy for you, James,” I said.

  “You brought Birdie?” he asked me.

  “Did I bring her? I thought you gave me a direct order. Bring the damned cat.”

  James laughed like crazy, actually cracked up with a full-on, whole-body laugh.

  He was nervous, too.

  “Well, let’s get her, please,” he said when he got his breath back. “I’ll make you both something to eat before Mass.”

  Chapter 83

  THE RECTORY’S old oaken kitchen was as rough hewn and handsome as the whole of the church. James fried eggs, made toast and tea, and set out cat chow for Birdie.

  When he sat down across from me, James began telling me about his concept for Jesus Mary Joseph, which he called JMJ.

  “The idea here is that, while we embrace Catholic traditions, we’re way open to change. I didn’t step away from Mother Church for nothing.”

  “What kind of change?” I asked.

  “To start with, no one gets turned away,” he said. “We are inclusive, not exclusive. God loves everyone.”

  “No argument from me,” I said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” he said, clinking his teacup against mine. Then, without missing a beat, he said, “So, get this, Brigid. Despite the threat of excommunication, women are being ordained outside the laws of the Roman Catholic canon. I’m all for that.”

  My mind kind of spun as I listened to James speak with passion and conviction about the role of women in the Church, same-sex marriage, and the inclusion of all people who wanted to know God. I saw that he was trying to bring at least his church into the real and modern world.

  “I’ve been lecturing,” he said. “Sorry, Brigid. And look at the time. Come to Mass. Or just make yourself at home.”

  James left the rectory, and a few minutes later, bells sounded out across the churchyard.

  I washed my face, did the dishes, set Birdie up in the bathroom with a litter box. I fluffed my hair, straightened my pretty blue dress, and went to church.

  My customary front pew was taken, but I was happy for once to sit in the back. I noticed right away that, unlike St. Paul’s, JMJ was filled with young couples, many with small children. Those bright faces of the young churchgoers filled me with hope.

  James came through the side door of the church and went to the altar wearing dress pants and a dark-blue long-sleeved shirt with a collar, but no vestments.

  A few people clapped and whistled. Someone called out, “Good morning, Father.”

  He smiled and said, “Back at ya, Slade. But I’m no one’s father. Um, Ms. Mary Jane, texting can wait.”

  Gentle laughter washed over the body of the church, and watching James begin the celebration of Mass his way gave me more of that hopeful feeling. The choir sang, accompanied by a boy playing an organ that was probably as old as the church. James led the service, praying in both Latin and English, tossing in his own commentary when he thought an explanation was in order. And, although the service was informal and very different from what I was accustomed to, praying to God in this place uplifted me.

  Did God see all these joyful faces? Was He here?

  I closed my eyes and opened myself to God without any hope of reaching Him. It had been a long time since I had floated on a burning sea from a hotel room in Jerusalem.

  But He was with me. Soft rain misted my eyelids and my folded hands, a faint breeze ruffled my hair, and a single word came into my mind.

  Home.

  Chapter 84

  THAT EVENING, James and I walked up through a wooded hillside behind the church. Leaves and residual snow crunched underfoot, and the three-quarter moon spilled pale light around us.

  James was telling me about the angry letter he’d received from Cardinal Cooney’s attorneys—but I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying.

  I was in communication with God.

  I put one foot in front of the other, following James under the milky moonlight and deep shadows thrown across the path by forest trees. The sensation I was having was unlike anything I’d felt before.

  It was as if I were passing through the trees and they were also passing through me. I was insubstantial, and yet I was breathing, in the flesh and the moment, hearing James’s voice as we climbed up a wooded path.

  James said, “Brigid, take my hand. This part of the walk is tricky.”

  I took his hand, and I felt his solid grip. And at the same time, my fingers closed on my own palm. I thought, Dear Lord, what does this mean?

  The air seemed to swirl around James and me.

  God. Tell me, please. What is happening?

  The sounds of the wind and the night birds and the crackling of sticks underfoot and God’s voice were all as one.

  Be with James.

  “Be with James”?

  I remembered a time when I was speaking with God, and He said to me, Be with Colin. And I had gone to Colin within that vision and spoken with him, and he had spoken with me—even though Colin had already died.

  James was alive.

  I was in that place deep inside my mind where somehow, I could hear God, and I asked Him, Do you mean, be with James in the moment?

  James was saying, “See that hump over there? That rocky outcropping? That’s where we’re going. Okay?”

  The sense of God’s presence left me. I heard James’s voice clearly, and when he squeezed my hand, my fingers wrapped around his.

  “Cool,” I said, in a voice that wasn’t quite my own.

  James showed me footholds and held my hand until we were seated on top of the smooth hillock of stone.

  “I feel very close to God right
here,” he said.

  I nodded. But I couldn’t speak.

  “Boston is that way,” James said, pointing through a cleft in the woods. “Tell me about your job, how it’s going for you. I want to hear it all.”

  “Will you hear my confession?” I asked him.

  “Your confession, Brigid? Well. Not as your priest. I’m just James. And you can tell me anything.”

  “As James, then,” I said. “It’s been many years since my last confession. I don’t actually remember the last time.”

  “Just talk to me, Brigid,” James said. “I’m here.”

  Be with James.

  Chapter 85

  I WAS sitting close to James on that mound of stone, feeling the pressure of his body against mine. The breeze was faint but entirely worldly. An owl hooted. Two deer, twigs snapping under their feet, bolted across the path below the outcropping.

  “I once killed a man,” I said.

  I credit James for not saying, You did what?

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked me.

  I didn’t want to look back to that killing field in South Sudan, but I had to do it. I had never told James anything about Colin, the hospital, the last day, when Colin insisted that I stay in the camp. But I told him all of it now.

  “I defied him,” I told James. “And in doing so, I took a life and also became instrumental in Colin’s death.”

  James said, “Brigid. Oh, my God. Poor Brigid. Go on.”

  I told him about the injured boy I had been trying to protect and that an enemy soldier had rushed us.

  “I shot him, James. I shot him dead. I never thought in my life that I would kill anyone. I have never killed a chicken or a fly, but this man was going to shoot. I swear to you. I swear to God.”

  James put his arm around me and pulled me to him, and I pulled away.

  “There’s more,” I said.

  “Keep going,” he said. “I’m here.”

  I told him about begging Colin to help me get the wounded boy off the field when a second helicopter had come in, firing down on us, and that bullets had gone through Colin’s chest. That he had died trying to speak, and that I had never-ending guilt about his death.

  “Good God, Brigid. Of course you feel guilt. You loved him.”

  “I did.”

  As the moon floated ever higher into the sky, I told James about flashes of anger that I have had toward Karl for Tre’s death. “I know it wasn’t his fault,” I said.

  James squeezed my hand, and I kept going. I told him about seeing my “father” the very day that I had met James for the first time. “He told me that he wasn’t my father and that he never loved me.

  “I hate him,” I said. “He’s no one to me, and that’s the truth. But why am I still attached to him? I don’t need him, and I don’t want him, and I can’t forgive him for what he’s done.”

  “He was your father, even if he was not your biological father. Isn’t that right, Brigid?”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t look at James anymore.

  Had I shocked him? Had I told him too much? Or not enough? I was still holding back. I forced myself to look into his beautiful face, and I said, “James, I have spoken with God.”

  “Of course. Of course you have.”

  “No, not just in my prayers. He has given me visions. He comes into my mind and conveys thoughts and words. I swear to you, it’s not a mental trick. I know this sounds crazy, but these—these thoughts that appear in my mind did not come from me. They came from God.”

  “Brigid. The day I first saw you huddled in the front pew at St. Paul’s, hugging yourself, I knew there was something very”—he searched for a word—“godly about you,” he said. “I believe you hear from God. It has happened before to others who believe in Him. Tell me more.”

  I told James about my God-given visions of the killing field and of Father Delahanty, about the multitude of birds and about the burning sea. But I didn’t tell him that only moments ago, God had put three words into my mind: Be with James.

  I said, “He has told me to live my life to the full extent of it. That He can’t watch out for all of us all of the time. We have to take responsibility…”

  My voice trailed off, and then James was saying, “How many lives did you save in that emergency room in South Sudan, Brigid? How many lives in Germany?”

  “I never counted.”

  “In your heart, have you done your best for the people you’ve touched?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. I believe I have.”

  “God has forgiven you—if there was ever anything to forgive. Can you forgive yourself? Can you love yourself as God loves you?”

  I blurted, “I have feelings for you, James. And you’re a priest.”

  He said, “Oh.”

  He enfolded me in his arms, and I hugged him fiercely back, pressing my face to his jacket, not daring to lift my eyes and my lips to him. He held me for a long time before saying, “Do you trust me to get us safely out of these woods?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ve never made this trip in the dark before. With the help of God and a little moonlight, let’s give it a try.”

  Chapter 86

  I SHOWERED while James prepared dinner, and as I stood under the tepid spray, I thought about my vision while walking through the woods.

  I had been passing through the trees and the trees had been passing through me, which seemed to mean that I was part of the woods, and maybe the world, as they were part of me. Moving through the living forest spoke to me of my passage through time and perhaps eternal passage and unity with all things.

  I washed my hair and meditated on Be with James, which God had said in the same way I remembered him saying Be with Colin when Colin was dead. And still, in that vision, Colin had spoken to me.

  I wondered now if Be with Colin and Be with James were ways of saying Be.

  Be aware. Be conscious. Be present. Absorb everything. And, specifically, Be with James as he leads you through the woods to a high place where you open your heart and he hears you.

  What did James think of me now?

  I dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and walked down the hallway to the kitchen, where soft lights shone on golden oak.

  James was at the stove.

  He turned, smiled, said to me, “I hope this is at least palatable.”

  He dished up an aromatic stew and even put a small bowl of it down for Birdie. I was so hungry that my awkwardness with James fell away. The stew, the bread, the wine, it was all delicious, and after dinner, we played with Birdie, who couldn’t stop looking at James.

  “She remembers you,” I said.

  “But of course. I took her out of a garbage can. Didn’t I, Birdie? Fetch,” he said, throwing a ball of paper, and she brought it right back.

  James said, “Brigid, the dishes can wait. Let’s go outside. Put on your jacket.”

  We sat together on the rectory steps watching the light traffic. A couple walking by waved to James.

  I was conscious of all that, but my mind was on James. I had told him that I had feelings for him. He was a priest and had taken vows of celibacy. Clearly, he cared about me, but not in the same way I was feeling. He cared about me as a shepherd cared about a lamb in his flock.

  I leaned away from him and said, “James, if I leave now, I can be in Cambridge by midnight.”

  He said, “No way, Brigid. What’s the point of driving two hours at night when I have a perfectly good second bedroom with a semidecent bed? Will you stay? I’m not ready to say good-bye to you again. Okay?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He said, “Brigid, I’m not a priest as defined by Rome. Not anymore. I’m just James.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He reached his arm around me, pulled me close, and then he kissed me. As I marveled at the feeling of that kiss, he kissed me again, and I kissed him back and I stopped thinking.

  James said, “You’re always in my thoughts,
you know.”

  I blinked up at him. He was so familiar to me, and at the same time, I had never spent time like this with him before.

  “Do you think you could love me?” he asked.

  I blinked some more. Could I love him?

  “Could I love you? Do you not see me staring at you with big moony eyes?”

  He grinned. “How do my eyes look to you?”

  “Moony,” we said together. We laughed and then James released me.

  He closed his eyes and folded his hands. And after a moment, he stood up, reached his hand down to me, and helped me to my feet. I didn’t want to ever stop holding his hand.

  When we walked through the door to his bedroom, I heard the words in my head.

  Be with James.

  With the help of God, that was what I would do.

  Part Four

  Chapter 87

  SIX MONTHS had passed since the morning I drove into a church parking lot expecting to return home that night.

  Since then, I had rented out my brick house in Cambridge, resigned from my job at Prism, and taken a new job at the Spring Street Women’s Clinic, and I was living my new life to the fullest extent in JMJ’s rectory with James.

  His church was flourishing. There were overflow crowds that included people from other faiths, and clergy from other churches, who came to JMJ because they wanted to replicate what James had done in their own parishes.

  On that high-summer morning, James wore plaid and denim. He held Sunday Mass on the wide deck he and other men and women in town who also knew how to use hammers and saws had built behind the church.

  Rows of folding chairs were set up on the lawn. Daisies encroached from the field, and James and the choir had to compete with birdsong.

  James spoke to the congregation about changes he saw happening in pockets of church communities across the country. Priests were getting married, women were becoming priests, and more liberal views on same-sex marriage and abortion were shifting people’s view of what it meant to be Catholic.

  “These changes will feel radical and worse to some, but those who believe that God is love will have an easier time understanding that anything that gets between a person and his love of God is wrong.”