The Scent of Winter: A Novella Read online

  “Yes.”

  Kingsley laughed. He didn’t want to laugh, but he had to. But only because it was true. “You’re right,” he said. “I would have. But I would have hated myself after.”

  Søren said nothing.

  Kingsley sighed, exhaling steam along with his anger. “Are you as heartless as you seem to be sometimes?” he asked.

  “If I were heartless, I wouldn’t have been as devastated as I was to see Wesley moving in with Eleanor. I wouldn’t have been furious to think you two had purposefully kept such a secret from me. Especially since I asked you… No. I begged you to let me know how she was while I was gone. We stood together at the bottom of the stairs at your house and you promised me you would.”

  “I did,” Kingsley said.

  “But you didn’t keep your promise.”

  “No,” Kingsley said. “And I was wrong to do it. But you made certain to punish me, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Søren said. “Though I punished myself as well. I could have had you back and through my own fault, lost you again. From where I stand, my loss was far greater than yours. You lost me. I lost you. And you’re worth much more than a billion dollars to me.”

  Kingsley swallowed hard. He didn’t realize until Søren had said all that how much he’d needed to hear it.

  He inhaled deeply and caught a scent in his nose. The scent of winter.

  “I love that smell,” Kingsley said.

  Søren closed his eyes and inhaled.

  “Snow,” Søren said. “Clean snow. Someone’s fireplace in the distance, probably ours. Pine needles. Moonlight. Starlight.”

  “You,” Kingsley said. “Smells just like you. Even when we’re making love and the room is hot as a sauna and I can’t tell your sweat from mine...your skin smells just like this.”

  Kingsley inhaled again. “I love the scent of winter,” he said. “I love the scent of winter enough to suffer the cold for it.”

  Søren exhaled heavily and steam rose like smoke from his lips and up, up into the sky.

  “Kingsley…”

  Kingsley waited for him to continue, but it seemed to be all Søren could say.

  “It’s not normal for a man to smell like snow,” Kingsley went on. Might as well, if they were being honest tonight. “I think sometimes you’re not quite human. Like you said, the night in the forest, our first time together, you weren’t chasing me like children chase each other, or lovers who play at running from each other only to run back. You were hunting me. Hunting me like a wolf. I never hated my dogs when they nipped at me. You keep Rottweilers as pets and you’ll get teeth marks in you from time to time. It’s simply in their nature and I loved them for that little bit of wild wolf in their blood. And you. Whatever you are. Why would I think I could fall in love with a wolf and never get bitten?”

  Kingsley paused, smiled.

  “That being said,” he continued, “I do love it when you bite me.”

  “Even when I break the skin?”

  “Especially then,” Kingsley said. “Answer this question, though. When you returned from Syria, you came to see me first, you said. Not her. Why? Was it because I was closer?”

  “I didn’t fly into New York. I flew into Bradley. Claire has a house in Old Saybrook and I was planning on staying there with her a few days. Bradley, as you know, is in Connecticut. I was closer to Eleanor’s house than yours by an hour’s drive.”

  “Then why did you come to me first?”

  “Because she knew I loved her. You didn’t. And I felt I would die if I couldn’t tell you as soon as possible.”

  “Have you told her any of this?”

  “No.”

  “Will you?”

  “Eventually.”

  “She’ll forgive you in a heartbeat,” Kingsley said. “Forgive you without question, won’t she?”

  “I have no doubt that’s true,” Søren said.

  “She’s self-aware. A gift. She knows the pain she’s caused others. She’s quick to forgive because she wants to be forgiven.”

  “Something about that in the Bible,” Søren said. “If I had my collar on, I’d tell you the exact verse, but I’m off-duty tonight.”

  Kingsley smiled.

  “But when you tell her…will you tell her you came to me first?”

  “I will if you ask me to. If you need her to know that, I will tell her.”

  “It will hurt her.”

  “Yes, it undoubtedly will,” Søren said. “And I’ve already hurt her deeply this year. But that’s what we do, the three of us. Hurt each other.”

  “Don’t tell her. Let her think you came to her first. I know you love me. I don’t need you to hurt her to prove that to me. I love her, too.”

  “Can you forgive me?” Søren asked. “You don’t have to tonight. But it would mean a great deal to me if you’d consider forgiving me eventually.”

  “I forgive you. Of course I do.” Kingsley paused to inhale another deep beautiful breath of pure winter air. “I thought of telling you so you would know what you were coming home to. But I was afraid that if you knew about him, that he was moving in with her, you might not come back to us at all. You thought I didn’t tell you out of vengeance. The fact is, I didn’t tell you out of cowardice.”

  “She had every right to love him and live with Wesley. You had every right not to tell me about him. And while I had every right to be hurt, I didn’t have the right to take my pain out on you and her like I did.”

  “Would you have come back if you’d known about him?”

  “Yes. For you.”

  “Ah, now you tell me.”

  Søren grinned. “Let me make it up to you,” he said. “Name it.”

  “All I want is for you to take me back to the cabin and beat me and fuck me within an inch of my life.”

  “The French use the metric system,” Søren said.

  “A millimeter then,” Kingsley said.

  “That can be arranged,” Søren said softly, and then kissed him within a millimeter of his life. “This way.”

  Kingsley followed him southwest through the woods until they reached a narrow country road. On one side stood forest. On the other, a snow-covered field edged with white-tipped shrubs and outlined by a barbwire fence.

  They made quick progress on the road. They could go much faster when they didn’t have to watch every step.

  “Can I ask a follow-up question?” Kingsley asked. Søren nodded. “Why tell me now? Did you just forget to tell me you were in love with me six years ago? Were you having a blond moment?”

  Søren smiled but didn’t laugh.

  “Too many secrets, I suppose,” he said. “They’re weighing heavily on me. And Eleanor, too. We had to clear the air recently of a few secrets we’d been keeping from each other. It was harrowing to say the least, but we both felt better once we’d done it.”

  “You said you’d hurt her already this year? What happened?”

  “I kept one secret too many from her. She found something in my Bible I’d never shown her, nor had I planned to show her. Habit, I suppose. All three of us have to keep secrets in our work. I don’t know anything about any of Eleanor’s clients anymore. Or your work at your new club.”

  “That’s for your own good. Plausible deniability.”

  “Unfortunately we three have gotten so good at keeping secrets, we keep them from each other, even when we don’t have to. Even when we shouldn’t.” Søren stopped and faced the woods. “We have as many secrets from each other as there are trees in that forest. No wonder we all keep getting lost.”

  “Who’s getting lost, Søren?” Kingsley asked. He knew that look on Søren’s face. He wore it when his mind and his heart were elsewhere, across the ocean, where his son lived. Kingsley knew that look because he’d worn it himself every day since learning about Nico.

  “Fionn,” Søren said at last.

  “Fionn? I don’t think he has any secrets.”

  “He is the secret. That’s the t
rouble.”

  “You’re a priest. He has to be a secret.”

  “Does he?”

  “I don’t know,” Kingsley said. “You tell me. What are you thinking of?”

  “I’m considering telling my superiors about Fionn,” Søren said.

  Kingsley’s eyes went wide with shock. This was unexpected news.

  “Won’t there be consequences?” Kingsley asked. What he wanted to ask was, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  “Undoubtedly. Jesuits aren’t supposed to go around fathering children. Then again, they aren’t supposed to do a lot of things I do. Best case scenario, I’ll be asked to take a long leave of absence. Worst case—excommunication. But that’s highly unlikely. But whatever happens, it won’t be pleasant.”

  “Why do you think they need to know?” Kingsley asked.

  “Not them. Fionn.”

  “Fionn needs to know?”

  “Last week, I was at your house,” Søren said. “And Céleste needed help tying her shoes. She came to you and stuck her feet in your face.”

  “She does that. Often.”

  “I watched you tie her shoes and it was such a simple thing. The child who needed help running to her father. Her father helping her without giving it a second thought. It’s how it should be, isn’t it? Since then I can’t stop thinking of it… What if Fionn needs my help someday? When he’s ten or eleven or fifteen or sixteen… What if he wants to talk to me but is afraid to because he believes he’s my dirty little secret? I need him to know he can come to me. I need him to know he’s not something that has to stay hidden.

  “You and Eleanor chose to be with me knowing I was a priest. Eleanor knew we could never marry and have children. You knew that I’d have to introduce you as my brother-in-law if you wanted to be part of my life. But Fionn had no choice in this. And someday he may need help, the sort of help only I can give him.”

  Kingsley sighed. For a long moment, the only sound was their boots crunching across the snow.

  “You know,” Kingsley said. “Nico and I are exactly the same height. Same belt size. Same shoe size. Same size hands. Nora even says we—”

  “I hope this isn’t going where I think it is.”

  Kingsley laughed.

  “She says we stand the same way,” Kingsley said. “What I’m saying is he takes after me. It must scare you to think Fionn might take after you in ways you’d prefer he didn’t.”

  “I pray about it every day,” Søren said. “I pray for him.”

  “Does God ever answer?”

  “Not in words. Only in joy. There were four times in my life I felt utterly certain God was real and He was pointing His finger into my life, telling me what path to take. The day I met you. The day I joined the Jesuits. The day I met Eleanor. The night I fathered Fionn. All four of those moments fill me with the deepest peace and the most incredible joy when I think of them. Fionn especially, since I know what joy he’s given Grace and Zachary.”

  “And the joy he’s given me and Nora,” Kingsley said.

  “And me,” Søren said.

  Kingsley smiled, and felt a glowing warmth inside him. “It’s good to hear you talk about him. You don’t very often.”

  “We’ve been in a magnificent snowy forest for over three hours and you haven’t once said it’s beautiful.”

  Kingsley shrugged. “What can I say? What words would do it justice?”

  Søren nodded. “My point exactly.”

  “There’s really a chance you’ll be kicked out of the order when you tell them about Fionn?” Kingsley asked.

  “Grace is married. It was adultery.”

  “She had her husband’s permission to be with someone else.”

  “Even the most liberal people have trouble understanding the concept of the marital free pass. You’re asking a lot of the Jesuits.”

  “She was a woman desperate to have a baby. I know how she felt. It was nothing more than sperm donation.”

  “We had sex, Kingsley.”

  “So it was sperm donation the old-fashioned way. We’d all been through hell that week. Any angel would have fallen.”

  “I appreciate your defense of my indefensible behavior. But the simple fact is, I knew the rules, I broke them, and now I must accept the consequences.”

  “Do you want me to try to talk you out of telling them?” Kingsley asked.

  “Only if you think I’m doing the wrong thing. If I were expelled from the order or excommunicated, Fionn might blame himself the way children always blame themselves for the sins of their parents. I would never want that. And I would never want anyone in the Church telling Fionn he was conceived in sin. I knew a priest in Rome who left the Church to marry, and both his wife and his children were treated very cruelly.”

  Søren took a breath, and Kingsley saw his eyes were clouded with concern.

  “He’s a child,” Søren continued. “He should never be the center of a scandal. This is why I’m so torn. You’re a father. What’s your advice?”

  His advice? Søren was asking his advice? It was an awesome responsibility, advising Søren about something with such potentially life-altering consequences. Kingsley was inclined to demur. He considered Søren’s calling to the Church something between him and God alone.

  But tonight he would speak. Kingsley had held Fionn and wept with the joy Søren had spoken of so movingly, the deep joy nothing and no one could touch. So he knew the answer to this question. He knew it as if God were whispering it in his ear and all Kingsley had to do was open his mouth and God’s good true counsel would come out.

  “You should tell them about Fionn,” Kingsley said. “Tell them you have a son and tell them with pride. Whatever happens, we’ll take care of you and Fionn. I’ve only held him once, but I already love him like my own child. So you tell your superiors about your son, and then tell them to fuck off if they brand him a sin. What do they know about bringing children into the world anyway? What could they possibly know about that kind of love?”

  Kingsley found himself suddenly shaking, and not from the cold.

  After a pause, he said, “I thought I knew. I was wrong, though. I thought I knew how much fathers loved their children. Then I had Céleste and Nora found Nico. I thought when you loved your child, you’d tear out your own heart to save their life if you had to, if that was the only way. I didn’t know until I held my baby girl in my arms, five minutes old, that I’d tear out my own heart so she could play soccer with it in the backyard. I didn’t know until that moment I laid eyes on Nico that I’d kill anyone who harmed a hair on his head. I’ll tell your Jesuit superiors myself if you want me to. I’ll tell them you’re a better priest because you have a son. You brought a child into the world and that makes you more like God, not less, because God fathered a child with a girl who was married to another man, and those priests have been worshipping that girl’s scandal of a son for the last two thousand years. And if that child wasn’t a sin, no child ever could be. Especially not yours. Never yours. Never Fionn. You’ve never held him, but I have. That boy is perfect. Absolutely… But of course he’s perfect—he’s your son.”

  Søren stared at him for a moment before taking off his gloves and shoving them in his pockets. Then he placed his hands on Kingsley’s face and brushed the tears off his cheeks. Søren had shed a few tears of his own.

  “I’ll tell them,” Søren said. “I’ll tell them every word you said.”

  “Good,” Kingsley said. He took a shuddering breath and rested his forehead on Søren’s shoulder. “Good.”

  Kingsley was still shaking and didn’t know why. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Søren said. He caressed Kingsley’s hair and kissed his temple. This wasn’t one of Søren’s three kisses—it was a fourth type. A kiss of comfort, a kiss of blessing.

  “Fatherhood does this to you,” Kingsley said. “Makes you a little crazy. I miss my children.”

  “I miss my son, too. And I haven’t even met him yet.”r />
  “I can’t wait until you do. When Nora introduces you to him, make sure I’m there. Please.”

  “Of course you’ll be there. I want you there.”

  Kingsley breathed again, a deep breath. Finally, he pulled himself together and was able to step away from Søren, clear-eyed, calm.

  “You think our girls are out there wondering what we’re doing?” Kingsley asked.

  “I’m sure it’s crossed their minds,” Søren said, drawing his gloves on again.

  “When we tell them what we did on this trip, let’s skip over the part where we stood in the forest crying like babies while talking about our children.”

  “It’s not a very commanding portrait of dominant manhood, is it?”

  “Slightly humiliating,” Kingsley said. “Walk. Please. I need a very tall glass of red wine, and I need it twenty minutes ago.”

  They walked on for a few minutes in silence. Companionable silence. The silence of lovers who’d just done something even more intimate than making love and now needed a few quiet minutes to put their armor back in place.

  They rounded a bend in the road. In a flurry of movement, something shot out from one of the shrubs that lined the lane.

  “What the hell?” Kingsley said.

  Søren grabbed him by the arm, halting him mid-step.

  “Snowshoe hare,” Søren said, pointing ahead at a furry blur. “We must have flushed it from the bushes. See it?”

  The little rabbit-like creature with the white fur sped across the wide bend in the road, leaving tiny V-shaped tracks behind him.

  “Not us,” Kingsley said. “Her.”

  As soon as the hare was in the open, a bird came from seemingly nowhere, bursting from the woods in a flurry of feathers and muscle and flight. The hare darted left, then right, and Kingsley watched it, not knowing who to root for in this deadly battle—the hawk or the hare.

  The hare made a break for the shrubs along the field and the hawk followed, disappearing into a thick copse of aspens.

  “Reminds me of something,” Kingsley said.

  “What?”

  “Our first night together.’

  Søren looked at him through narrowed eyes. It was not a friendly look.

  “I didn’t say which one of us was the hare,” Kingsley said.