with a highlighter and handing the book to me. “Thank you,” I said, opening to a random page where the picture of a cross rose up from the New York skyline and across the top, Sisters of Charity.
Two nights later on Christmas Eve, I was sitting in front of the crèche after Midnight Mass when Father Infanzi, revved up from saying Mass for the largest crowd of the year, asked me to go for coffee. I had wanted to stay in front of the manger, hoping the Baby Jesus would give me the courage to finally tell him about my calling, especially given the beautiful homily he’d delivered. After his joke about how Italians know the meaning of the word “manger” from the order, “Mangia, mangia,” which got him the big laugh he was hoping for, he explained that Christ not only humbled himself by coming as an infant, but also by being lain in a manger where animals ate from. He is food for the world, for us. It was the most precious explanation of the Incarnation I’d ever heard, and I felt the same profound warmth as when I drank Christ’s blood. But then Father switched to his brother’s excitement when his wife gave birth. He used the phrase, “born of love for his wife.” I had been sitting in the lector’s seat so close to the pulpit that if I reached out my arm, I could touch Father’s garment, feel his thigh beneath it. Julie and Nick were expecting their first child in a week, the first baby in our family, which made me feel more insecure. When Father ended by explaining that Deism is the opposite of Christianity, that God couldn’t get more involved in our lives than by taking on our human nature, something inside me broke, and a tear fell from my eye. How could God give me the gift of womanhood and then ask me to give up marriage and motherhood? Why was He taking care of every other woman but me?
“I promise not to keep you out too long,” he said, looking at me like an eager boy.
“You know what, Father? Coffee sounds nice.”
There was no one in the diner whom I recognized, which I was glad about, though I still told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Father was wearing a long, black coat that made him look so handsome, it hurt. He took it off, revealing his cleric shirt with only the tip of the white tab collar showing, and then he stuffed it in the booth and sat down. I stood at the rack near our booth with my coat in my hands so he’d get the hint. “Oh, gosh,” he said, “I should be getting that for you.” I said, “That’s okay,” as if I hadn’t given it any thought.
Within minutes we were drinking coffee and exchanging the gifts we hadn’t told each other we were buying. I bought him How Houses Learn, a book about how the character of houses develops over time. I didn’t realize it, but I was implying that his character needed developing. When I’d hung around after morning Mass the day before, he admitted that he hadn’t been an ideal seminarian. First, he brought up the fact that when he was walking down the stairs in the rectory to meet Janine for the first time, all he could think was: “Whoever this girl is, she smells really nice. The seminary never smelled like that.” It was something he’d already told me, but I pretended it was the first time. Then he told me that sometimes when he was in the seminary, he’d throw enough clothes for the weekend in a laundry bag, so the rector would think he was going home, but he was headed to Atlantic City with Matt.
“Really?” I said, disappointed but also a little turned on. It was something like me telling my mother I had sorority meetings on Thursday nights in college when I was really headed for the bars. Then he said, “I almost didn’t make it to ordination.”
“What?”
“Three priests voted me in, three didn’t, and one was indecisive.”
“Wow. Really?” I said, my heart sinking.
“I’ve never told anyone this before. I never told my mother.”
“Why?” I asked, starting to feel uneasy.
“I figured once they voted me in what was the point?”
“How did they convince the indecisive one?”
“One of them said to him, ‘We have a real man here, and you’re going to let him get away?’” Father propped his elbow on the back of the pew, his hand so close to my face he could graze my cheek. Then he added, “The indecisive priest later told me that he pictured me in the suburbs with a wife, kids, and picket fence.” He said it as if he were fishing for me to say, “I do, too,” as if he were suggesting we get together. He was telling me what he’d been trying to all year. He was hungry, maybe even a little angry. A peaceful priest doesn’t take a woman out and talk about how good her sister smells, doesn’t repair a single woman’s home and then get nervous when he’s asked about it. The split vote made complete sense. It was the same ambivalence I pretended I didn’t feel. Father was going to help me answer God’s call. We were going to be each other’s best friend and celibate significant other. He was a fulfilled priest. I wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. I had no idea how much I was fooling myself. His hunger and anger mirrored mine. Despite the knot it my stomach, I said, “I’m glad you wound up here and not the suburbs.”
“How Houses Lean?” he asked, ripping off the last bit of wrapping paper.
“Learn, How Houses Learn,” I said earnestly. “You know, because you like houses? Because you would have gone into contracting?”
“Maria, this is beautiful, just beautiful,” he said lifting it over our coffee cups, trying his best to look at it and not me. “How Houses Learn,” he repeated slowly. Then he put it down and handed me a meticulously wrapped gift. “And this is for you.” I rubbed my hands together to express goodie. I tore the paper, stunned to see the name of my favorite store and then a pretty soft wool turtleneck in the perfect earthy color.
“Wow, how did you know my style? I like it so much.”
“I’ve been looking at you for a while now,” he said his face turning rose.
I looked into my cappuccino before I raised it to my lips.
“Last year you sent me a card. This year I get to sit with you.”
“I remember. It was a black and white of Shirley Temple putting an ornament on a tree.”
“That’s it,” he said, taking a gulp of tea.
“Did you like this year’s card?” I asked sheepishly. It was a picture of Raphael’s cherubs. Inside I wrote: Although I come across as very together and composed, I feel as if I’ll always be working through past hurts. Meeting you and initiating the friendship has given me the chance to trust a man again. The fact that you listen and are genuinely excited by the things/stories I share is such a gift (more than you can know). I treasure you in my life. May all the good you do for others be returned hundredfold to you (as I’m confident it will).
“Of course I did. What a blockhead I am. I loved it.”
We were in the diner for over an hour before I asked him what time it was. He was wearing a thick, expensive-looking watch, a Rolex, though I didn’t know it at the time. I asked him if it was new. “This? Just a gift from someone in the parish,” he said loosening his collar from his neck. It was an awfully showy gift for a priest to accept, one that could only be from a woman, but this was a man who knew which store to shop for me in, what fabric and color and even size I liked. No man had ever zeroed in on me so quickly. I was so swept away that I didn’t realize when he changed the subject. In fact, by the time he got my coat off the rack and held the door for me, I’d forgotten about the watch. Then standing beside our cars—mine a red, two-door with a spoiler on the back and his a Chevy sedan with the bumper sticker that read, Pregnant? Call 1-800- 325-LIFE—he said, “This has been my best Christmas ever,” and I said, “I’m
