The piece ended and Søren closed the fallboard and picked up a wineglass from atop the piano.
“I won’t insult you by asking you how you are, Wesley.”
“Thank you,” Wes said, taking a seat in the window of the music room a few feet from where Søren sat on the piano bench. “But I don’t mind telling you, I’m scared out of my mind and trying not to be. I’m not succeeding at that.”
“None of us are. Myself included, if that gives you any comfort.”
“It does. A little.”
“There’s no shame in being afraid. Even Christ was afraid in the Garden of Gethsemene. He prayed that the cup of his crucifixion would be taken from him. And he was so scared he sweat blood. I keep checking my forehead.”
Wesley half laughed.
“She’d love this, you know. You and me alone in a room together talking,” Wes said, wishing Nora could be here to see this.
“She would certainly enjoy seeing both of us so discomfited.”
“When she’s back, we’ll all go out for a nice dinner together and she can watch us be all awkward and uncomfortable while she sits back and eats up every second.”
“A lovely thought...her being back. Dinner notwithstanding.”
“Kingsley...he’s going after her now, isn’t he?”
Søren nodded. “If he can. I told him that under no circumstances is he to do anything to risk his own life. If he can get her out without risking himself, he will try. Otherwise, I’m afraid he’ll come back empty-handed.”
“Are you more worried about him than her?”
“I am equally terrified for the both of them. Eleanor is a symbol of something Marie-Laure hates, a symbol that I moved on and found happiness with someone else. But Kingsley is her own brother, who she thinks betrayed her. She would be merciless to him if he were caught.”
“What’s she doing with Nora, then?”
“Marie-Laure is being merciless to me.”
“You’re not the only one who loves her, you know. I love her, too.”
“I know you do. And she loves you.”
Wesley’s eyes widened in the shock of hearing those words from Søren’s mouth.“Don’t look so surprised, young man,” Søren said, almost smiling. “I’ve known how much she loves you for well over a year now.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
He inhaled and didn’t answer at first.
“Does it bother me that she loves you? No. God is love. I’m sure you’ve heard that somewhere. When someone loves someone else, they are acknowledging the God inside that person. It’s a spiritual act, loving someone. She sees God in you. So do I.”
Wesley raised his hands and rubbed at the headache blossoming behind his eyes. He breathed through his hands to center himself before dropping them to his thighs and meeting Søren’s gaze.
“How are you like this?” he demanded, the questions pouring out of him like wine into a glass. “How are you a priest and a sadist? How can you say you love God and yet you sleep with Nora? How can you hit women and still claim to be a man of the cloth? How are you...you? I can’t figure you out, not to save my life.”
Søren paused again. Wesley had never known anyone to do that—to stop and think before speaking.
“You might be surprised that I’ve asked that of myself many a time. When I was a child especially, I had these thoughts...desires... I didn’t understand them. I saw what my father was, how he was with my stepmother. Brutal, violent, dangerous, merciless.”
“Your father was abusive?”
“Yes, he was a monster. He did horrible things to his wife and my sister, to my own mother. I was only five when I was sent to school in England. I withdrew as much as I could there into my schoolwork. I feared I’d been tainted by my father, feared I was like him.”
“You are, though, aren’t you? I mean, you enjoy hurting people.”
“I do, yes. It is different, however. My stepmother was powerless to stop my father from grabbing her by the hair and dragging her into the bedroom. She had no recourse, no safe word, nothing. Whenever Eleanor and I are together, anything I’m doing to her she can stop with a single word. I know she’s told you all of this. Why do you need to hear from me?”
“I want to get what she sees in you. Other than the obvious.”
Søren laughed softly. “The obvious? I suppose that’s your tactful way of saying I’m not horrific to look at.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Wes conceded.
“I’m going to tell you something private, something I never imagined I would talk about with anyone other than Eleanor.”
Wesley crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to hear anything private from Søren, but he knew he couldn’t leave, not yet, not when he still hadn’t done what he needed to.
“Okay...tell me.”
“Eleanor and I met when she was fifteen. She was seventeen before I told her what I was. I waited until after my father died to tell her. It wasn’t a conscious choice. Looking back I think I feared Eleanor would attempt to exact some sort of vengeance on my father for what he did to my sister.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“After he remarried and fathered my younger sister Claire, I made certain he could inflict himself on no other woman again.”