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Early. But it didn’t matter. “I’ve met someone.”
She cleared her throat. “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”
I tried again. “Mom. I’ve met someone. A woman.”
There was a loaded pause on her end and then the scuffle of sheets being ripped off and a door closing. “What on earth, Zeph! You can’t just say things like that, your father was in bed beside me.”
“I don’t care. I think I’m in love with her, Mom.”
The noise she made was something of exasperation and outrage. “Zeph! Are you drunk? High? You’re a priest! Have you forgotten that?”
I sighed. “No, I haven’t forgotten.” How could I when she liked to remind me every five minutes joining the priesthood was the only proud moment she’d had with me.
“So, what? You’re just going to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Zepherin! You will not. I absolutely forbid it.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not a child, Mother. You can stick your head in the sand if you want, but it won’t change anything.”
She breathed heavily into the phone, and I was quite sure she would have been beet red. “Who is this woman? The prostitute from the hospital?”
“Tammie? No. She’s just a friend. I don’t even have her phone number.” I wished I did so I could reach out to her about Toby. I’d been trying to find her, and following every scrap of news I could find on the boy, but nothing had changed. He was still missing.
Mom didn’t let me explain any of that. She just barreled on with her accusations. “If not the prostitute, then who, Zepherin? One of her trashy friends? She has no problems tempting a priest away from his calling? What kind of whore does that?”
I clenched my fingers around the phone. “Don’t ever call her that again. We both know I never had a calling to join the priesthood. I was forced—”
“Forced? Nobody forced you, Zeph. Your own wicked desires were what got you there. Have you forgotten about what you did to Annie? Your counselors all agreed—”
“Excuse me, we’re looking for Father Byron?”
I spun around to find two uniformed police officers at the entrance to the church. Covering the speaker on my phone with my cheek, I shook my head. “I’m sorry, he’s not here at the moment. Can I help with anything?”
“We’re here to pick up the HR files relating to the two deceased priests.”
A trickle of worry worked its way down my spine. What could they possibly want with the church files of the two perverts I’d killed? It wasn’t like there were written confessions in there that explained why they’d had to die. Did they have other evidence that had made them return? Or did they have no theories, and digging through the history of two old men was a shot in the dark? Either way, I didn’t like that they were here, watching me with a quiet intensity. I needed a minute to think. I raised one finger in their direction. “One minute, Officers. I’ll be right with you.”
I turned my back on them and addressed my mother who was still squawking in my ear. “I need to go, Mom. I just wanted you to know that things have changed.”
“I want to meet her.”
That wasn’t happening. Not after the way she’d acted the last time she’d met Lyric. It would be a thousand times worse if Mom thought Lyric was responsible for me leaving the church. “You already sort of did.”
“What does that mean?”
“You met her once at church. The other day when she was here cleaning.”
I waited for it. The explosion of my mother’s brain. I was sure it would have an audible sound as it split in two from the steam her anger caused.
“Bring her to James’s first birthday party on the weekend.”
I raised an eyebrow at her inviting Lyric to my nephew’s party. My sister, Kelly, went all out for her kids’ birthdays, and they were more like wedding receptions than your average backyard party. They were always held at my parents’ place because it was much grander than the place Kelly and her husband, who was a teacher, owned. I was sure my sister used the parties as a chance to show off to her Edgely Academy school mom friends.
Normally I went, because it was expected, did my unclely duty with a fun present, and then left as soon as the cake was cut because Kelly turned into a different person around the snobs from her kids’ school. One I barely recognized and didn’t always like.
But bringing Lyric would make it bearable. And Kelly had an in with the Edgely Academy crowd. The principal had been at her five-year-old’s party last spring, chatting away with an attentive bunch of school parents. Lyric had been so upset after her interview at the school, this could be a chance for her to set the record straight. Her grandmother’s accident wasn’t so fresh anymore, so maybe the principal would give her a second, less formal, chance. I could ask Kelly to put in a good word for her.
