She took a deep breath and walked farther into the church, which was empty. She chose a pew midway down the aisle and sat, feeling the scratched wood beneath her fingertips. How many generations of parents and children had worshipped here? After a moment, she closed her eyes and slid onto her knees. She recited the Lord’s Prayer once, twice, and then again, and as a feeling of peace settled over her, she began to speak to God, to ask him, no beg him, to protect Mathilde.
She was so immersed in the prayer that she didn’t hear approaching footsteps, nor did she notice a shadow looming over her. When she opened her eyes, she was so surprised to see a tall, middle-aged priest gazing at her from just a few feet away that she let out a small scream.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, taking a step back. He was standing in the aisle, and he looked embarrassed. “I thought perhaps you were here to see me.”
It was a strange thing to say; weren’t priests supposed to leave you alone with your prayers? Still, his eyes looked kind, and gradually, she relaxed. “No, Father,” she answered. “But thank you.”
He studied her for a few more seconds. “Well then. I apologize for the interruption. Peace be with you, my child.” Without another word, he walked up the aisle, limping slightly, toward the back of the church, where he entered a small room that Elise recognized as a confessional. She stared at the door after he’d closed it. Had he assumed she was here for confession?
But perhaps the priest had seen something in her that she hadn’t been able to recognize herself. Of course she needed to go to reconciliation, to confess her sins to God, to ask for his forgiveness. She had so much to be sorry for, starting with her complicity in drifting away from the church, and ending with her failure to protect her daughter. Perhaps God would hear her prayers then.
Shakily, she stood, mentally preparing herself for her first time in a confessional in years. Before she could take a step in that direction, though, the main door of the church opened, and a man about her age slipped in.
Elise couldn’t put a finger on what it was that struck her as strange about him. Perhaps it was the way he didn’t look toward Jesus on the altar, as she had instinctively done, and didn’t cross himself. Maybe it was the way he met Elise’s gaze, his eyes narrowing slightly, though he didn’t acknowledge her. Or was it the way he averted his eyes, ducked his head, and hurried into the confessional, slamming the wooden door behind him?
She hesitated, and then, her heart thudding, she began to walk quietly toward the confessional. Something felt wrong.
Suddenly, raised voices came from behind the wall, first from the side the man had entered, then from the side of the priest. Elise tensed. Should she do something? Then again, she knew that if this confessional was anything like the ones from her youth, there was a wooden screen separating the parishioner from the priest, and since she hadn’t heard anything crack, she assumed the priest was safe for the moment on his own side of the partition. Still, she continued to move closer.
Her eyes darted around as the man inside yelled something unintelligible. There was nothing that looked like a weapon nearby, and Elise feared that if she ran all the way down the aisle to the altar to grab a candlestick, she’d be too far away to help if the priest needed her. Her gaze landed on a Bible sitting on a nearby pew, and after a second, she grabbed it and raised it up to feel its weight. The cover was thick and solid, the words of God giving it several pounds of heft. If she flung it at the man with all her might, she might stun him long enough to let the priest get away, if indeed he was in trouble.
She had barely formed the intent when suddenly the door to the confessional burst open, and the man strode out, hardly glancing at her as he hurried toward the main entrance of the church. It was only after the door had banged open, letting a burst of sunlight in, that she realized she’d hoisted the Bible up defensively over her right shoulder, ready to strike.
“What were you planning to do with that?” the priest asked mildly, and she spun around to see him emerging from his side of the confessional, eyebrows raised.
Guiltily, she lowered the Bible and slid it back onto one of the pews. “I—I don’t know. I heard raised voices, and I—” She didn’t know how to finish.
He studied her. “You were prepared to help me. Why?”
“I—” she began again, but then faltered. “It felt like the right thing to do, I suppose, though now that I think of it, perhaps using a Bible might have been sacrilegious.”
The priest’s lips twitched, as if he was fighting back a smile. “Had you saved me, I suspect God would have understood. In fact, you could have confessed it in there.” He gestured toward the booth he’d just emerged from. “If you’re the confessing sort.” She could hear the question in his words; he wasn’t sure if she was Catholic. But she also had the sense that she would still be welcome here, even if she wasn’t.
She smiled slightly. “I haven’t been the confessing sort in a while, though I once was. I don’t remember yelling at my parish priest in the confessional, though.”
He laughed at this, a surprisingly joyous sound, given the situation. “I assure you, yelling is still not the preferred method of reconciliation.” He watched her for a few seconds more, and he seemed to be struggling with something he wanted to say.
“What is it, Father?” she asked after a moment.
“You are not French.” He said it without malice, but she froze, suddenly aware of how foolish she had been to drop her guard. In Paris, since the start of the Occupation, she’d been terribly careful to ensure that she spoke to strangers as little as possible, and that when she did, she spoke with an impeccable French accent. But here, perhaps in thinking about the church of her youth, she had been careless and had apparently let some of her American r’s and careless ou’s slip through.
“Of course I am,” she said, but she couldn’t meet his eye, couldn’t say it convincingly, because she was acutely aware that she was lying to a priest in a church.
“What brings you to Aurignon?” he asked, his tone unchanged. He still sounded kind and gentle, so she snuck a look at him. He didn’t appear to be plotting her demise.
“I needed to…” She trailed off. “I had to leave my home.”
“I see,” he said, and when she glanced at him again, she could tell he understood what she was saying, that she was running from something, and it was this, more than anything else, this act of being seen, that brought tears to her eyes. Quickly, she wiped them away, but he had noticed. “It is difficult to leave home,” he said gently.
“Yes,” she agreed, tears rolling down her cheeks now. She was unable to stop them. “I’m sorry for this.”
“There’s no need to apologize.” He cleared his throat and seemed to be considering something. “Do you have a place to stay?” he asked.
She shook her head, the tears coming faster. “I was told only to come to Aurignon, but…” She hesitated, unable to explain more without saying too much. “No. No, I do not.”
He was silent for a while and seemed to be thinking about something. “Do you have any experience with children?” he asked.
She blinked a few times. “I have a daughter,” she whispered. She shouldn’t have said it, but it was the only response in the moment, and it cracked something wide open in her. The tears flowed faster and after a few seconds, she doubled over, the pain of it all too much to bear.
She felt the priest’s hand on her back, solid, comforting. “She is not with you,” he said, a statement rather than a question.
All Elise could manage was a brisk nod, and the priest seemed to make up his mind about something.
“There is a house on the edge of town, just down the hill, past the fountain. Take a left on the rue de Levant, and keep walking for thirty minutes or so until the roads ends. They have a spare room, and a need for some assistance. Tell them Père Clément sent you, and that Madame Roche should come see me as soon as she’s able. Do you understand?”
Confused, she nodded. Perhaps it was a family in need of an au pair. Was that why he had asked her about children? In any case, she wasn’t sure whether being around someone else’s sons and daughters would help ease her pain or would make it worse, but she had nowhere else to go. “Why are you helping me?”
“It felt like the right thing to do, I suppose,” he said with a small smile, and she smiled back through her tears in recognition of her own words from moments earlier.
“Thank you.” As she turned to go, she could feel his eyes on her back. She walked a few steps up the aisle before turning back around. “I’d like to return for confession at some point,” she said. “If that’s all right. It’s just that I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
“Of course,” he said, and she could see that he understood. She was grateful for that, and as she began to walk away again, she heard his voice behind her, and it stopped her in her tracks. “Madame, I will pray for your daughter—and for you.”
She didn’t turn. She couldn’t, for fear that she would shatter completely. Feeling the eyes of the priest, and perhaps even the eyes of God, on her, she made her way to the door and left the church, moving into the warmth of the autumn sunshine.
* * *