"Yes, yes." The bishop waved a hand vaguely. "Unfortunately, they don't come in here with 'pervert' flashing over their heads in bright red letters, son." His mouth set. "So maybe you let me do my job, all right?"
Justin took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, hiding his irritation. If the bishop noticed, he ignored it. "Hmmm. Well and so. Your instructors at Mundelein speak well of you, true enough. 'An agile and flexible mind,' Professor Taub says. 'A man who isn't afraid to think for himself, or to say what he thinks.'" He grinned. "Got into a few sparring matches with the old goat, did you?"
Justin flushed, though part of it was pride. Professor Taub had been one of his professors in theology, and one who delighted in playing devil's advocate, taking up contrary, sometimes even heretical positions, in order to sharpen his student's skills. His sharp mind and acid wit made debating him a hazardous practice. But Justin had managed to pin him down a time or two. "If every professor had been of his quality, sir, my time at Mundelein would have seemed much shorter."
"Or actually
been
much shorter," the bishop said with a laugh. "God knows he doesn't suffer fools gladly. Or at all. One of him is enough. Many more, and the dropout rate would triple overnight."
"You know him, sir?"
"We went to graduate school together, when we were both a lot younger. He decided to stay on the academic path, while I went into administration. Pity, really. With a mind like his, he'd probably be an archbishop now. Maybe even a cardinal. Of course," he said, "maybe it's for the best. Brian always hated the political side of things. All he wanted was to study and learn, and to pass what he learned on to others.
"Well." The shrewd eyes studied him. "We can definitely use you, Father Kelly. You probably know that it's standard practice for a new priest to be sent to a larger parish. Preferably one with several other priests who can help him get his feet wet before he is given a parish of his own."
Justin nodded.
"But I've got a bit of a problem on my hands." Whitford steepled his fingers. "Tell me, young man. Have you ever heard of Fertile Valley?"
His brows knitted. "Fertile Valley? Illinois? No." It seemed a strange name for a town in a state that wasn't exactly renowned for its high mountain peaks and lush valleys.
"Yes, Illinois. It's a small town, well south of here, down near the rivers. Not a big place. Twenty-five hundred, maybe three thousand people. Farm town, you know? Set in their ways, don't like change. Your people would mostly be German and Irish Catholics who came over from the old country two hundred years ago and haven't moved since, with a few Swedes and Norwegians pitched in. They had the same parish priest for nearly forty years. But Father Snodgrass retired last fall and moved out to New Mexico.
"Since then, I've sent three priests there. None of them lasted more than six weeks." He shook his head. "You get that, sometimes. A town just doesn't take to the stranger, and I'm not going to make a man stay in a place where he's not wanted. No one is happy, and before you know it, half the church has walked away and found someplace else to worship. Or decided that it would be a lot nicer to sleep late in Sundays.
"Last week, after Father Cobden requested a transfer, I received a letter from the head of the Woman's Auxiliary. Very polite it was, too, but it didn't take too much to read between the lines. They want new blood, not an old priest who has bounced around half the country and isn't good enough to settle anywhere. Someone," he lifted a piece of paper, and read, squinting, "'someone who is not so set in his ways that it would take a forklift to get him out.'" He smiled mildly and put the paper down again.
Justin blinked. "And you chose...me?"
"Why not? You're young, just out of the seminary, and you even have a talent for preaching a decent homily, if what I hear is true. I know it's not a place where a young man with a lot of ambition goes, but there's nothing that says you can't request a transfer in a couple of years.
The older man leaned forward. "I'll be honest, Justin. You'd be doing me a favor if you took this position. St. Catherine's isn't a troublesome parish. They're good, hardworking people who don't cause a lot of bother. Not like some parishes, where everyone starts screaming bloody murder every time a gay couple gets married. I just need someone who can mind the house for a while. And after a year or two, if you're not happy there, I'll send you to a parish more to your liking. Chicago, St. Louis, someplace where you can stretch your wings, if you have a mind."
Justin shook his head. "No, sir. St. Catherine's will be fine, I'm sure." He smiled crookedly. "My hometown isn't very big. I didn't really enjoy living in the Chicago area, to be honest."
What he didn't say was that having a bishop's favor in his pocket was something valuable. Something that could be cashed in later on in his career, if he wanted to. And on the flip side, he didn't want to be known as someone who thought he was too good to take a posting at a small-town parish. According to shop talk at Mundelein, that was the sort of thing that could follow a priest forever, and wreck his career before it began.
And besides. My own parish! Not taking orders from some old war-horse who has been there since before the Second Vatican Council, and thinks the mass should still be in Latin.
So he squared his shoulders, looked Bishop Whitford square in the eye, and said, "I'll take it, sir. When do I start?"
Three days later Justin was driving south down the interstate, all his worldly possessions packed into the trunk and the back seat of his old Plymouth. The windows were down, and warm spring air ruffled his hair, almost drowning out the sound of the ballgame on the radio, where, the good Lord be thanked, the Cardinals were beating the unholy bejesus out of San Diego.
My own parish. Finally.
There had been times when he had thought that this day would never come. The confusion of his family. The jeers in high school. The times in college when he had been tempted, so tempted, to put aside his calling and do something easier. Something that would not require him to live a life of chastity and abandon any chance of a wife and children of his own. The harsh years in the seminary, when many of the instructors had seemed almost spitefully eager to drive him away. But all of that was forgotten now, lost in the thrill of his first posting.
He left the interstate at Marion, cutting west towards Carbondale, and then turned south again, guiding the car down a narrow two-lane highway. Crops were in the fields on either side of the road. Mostly corn and soybeans, the twin pillars of Illinois' agriculture industry, but there was also wheat, coming up from the ground in pale green shoots, many weeks away from ripening to rich gold, and in some fields he caught the unmistakable aroma of alfalfa. The weather was warm, but without the awful humidity which would occur later in the summer, when it pressed down on you like an anvil. Eventually, the road began to rise and fall as it left the griddle-flat plains of central Illinois behind and entered the more hilly regions of the southern portion of the state.
After a quick stop to stretch his legs, he was on the road again. The day grew warmer, and traffic was light. Once in a while, he passed through deep tracts of green woods, and the sounds of insects rose on either side of the car like a wave. A last climb up a steep hillside, and then he came to the summit. Warned by the beep of the GPS on his phone, he pulled the car over to the side of the road and got out to take a look. The day was almost eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the hum of cicadas in the underbrush and the soft sigh of the wind in the trees. He could smell the hot asphalt under his feet. Off to the northwest, the dim shapes of thunderheads, dark blue and smoky gray, were slowly growing.
At his feet, the road fell away in a long, gentle slope. A wide valley ran from northeast to southwest. It was widest in front of him, narrowing on either side. The afternoon light fell on dozens of fields, flung out like a rumpled patchwork quilt done in colors of brown and green and gold. A slash of deeper green showed where a large creek or small river ran through the valley, maybe the same one that had carved it millennia ago. In the distance, perhaps five miles away, he could glimpse the streets and houses of a small town. And in the middle, a white steeple of what might be his church. Far away, he could glimpse, on the edge of sight, blue hills that might be in Kentucky.
"Fertile Valley," he whispered. Somehow, the name seemed completely appropriate. He breathed in deep. The air was rich and strong and full of the smell of life and growing things. "Well. Let's go."
Disappointingly, the steeple he had seen from the hilltop did
not
