The Silent Shooter

Three-5

WE DON’T GET BACK TO Helen’s apartment until after dark. As I walk her to the door, I kiss her and say, “Sweet dreams, my love. The next time we get to talk alone, the whole world will know.”

With eyes fired with determination, Helen smiles and says, “Bring it on.”

I am humming softly to myself when I get to the Rectory. Anna and I have already gone over everything for tomorrow, but I pop my head in the living room on my way up to bed and ask, “Are we still all set?”

“Everything’s in order, Tom,” Anna says reassuringly. “Just enjoy these last few hours of freedom. You’ll belong to the world tomorrow.” Then she pauses and adds, “I don’t want to pry, but what did your Mom say?”

“Oh, no,” I moan. “I forgot all about her. I’ve got to call her, right? I mean, I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Of course you have to call her, and tonight. You can’t let her hear about it on the news tomorrow.”

I groan inwardly as I head up the stairs, pulling out my cell phone as I go. She answers on the second ring and I say, “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“Oh, hi, Tommy,” she says in a voice that’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. “I guess I’m OK. I haven’t been feeling well lately. You know, my life seems so empty without Sonya. Of course, it's nice to be able to buy stuff with all that money she left me, now that they finally agreed it couldn’t be tied to what those terrible people had her doing.”

“Right, Mom,” I say, “I’m sorry for your suffering, but I have some news that I hope you’ll like.”

“Are you finally moving back to Bellamy?” she asks with just the tiniest ray of hope in her voice.

“No, Mom, I’m not moving back to Bellamy. You see, the Church has granted special permission for me to get married.”

“What?” she asks. “You’re leaving the priesthood and getting married?”

“No, Mom, I’m not leaving the priesthood, but I am marrying Helen. The Vatican has given me a special dispensation.”

“Why would they do that? Is it because of your injury when you were here? Are you like some kind of eunuch now and she’s going to be like a nurse to you?”

“No, Mom,” I say as calmly as I can. “Everything healed up very nicely after the attack. We were initially committed to never being together as a married couple and thought we would have to remain just friends. But things have changed.”

“So why are they letting you get married? I thought you promised you wouldn’t do anything like that?”

“Because they decided that I could, Mom.”

“Well, why did they do that?”

“Because, Mom, it's a new program that they’re trying out. My Archbishop was involved in it, and so they’re using Helen and me as something of a test case.”

“So if it doesn’t work out with you, no other priest will be allowed to get married?”

I sigh. “That’s right, Mom, it’s all up to us.”

“Well, I hope that it works out then. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for the Church in general, though I’m sure it’s hard to get young men willing to commit these days to really love God as much as the priests did when I was young.”

“I see what you mean, Mom, and I appreciate you taking time to talk to me. But listen, I have to be up early tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy day.”

“Well, are you two going to come see me? It would be nice to be able to tell people you are finally able to marry. A lot of them have really wondered what went wrong with you that you decided to become a priest after, you know, everything with Joan and all.”

“We’ll get down there as soon as we can, Mom. It’s gonna be pretty busy here for a while but I’ll see what I can do. OK, you have a good night now, I love you, bye-bye.”

I hang up as the guilt rises in my conscience. “Honor your parents,” I tell my parishioners and I try, I really do. But the truth is that my mother drives me crazy. Before Helen came back into my life, my feelings about Mom took up most of my time with my confessor. Since then, my feelings about Helen have dominated. But hopefully that will be changing, if not now, then sometime after Christmas.

With Mom duly informed, I take a long shower and try to relax. I pray Night Prayer and then I don’t know how many decades of the Rosary before finally drifting off.