The Angel (The Original Sinners) (33 page)

“Long story. How are you, Mom?”

Nora felt her mother’s eyes on her face, studying her intently.
Nora kept her expression neutral as she returned the gaze. The years were being
kind to her mother. At fifty-two, the woman looked barely forty-two. Of course
cloistered nuns were notoriously healthy. Their lives were so regimented and cut
off from the stresses of the world that many of her mother’s sisters in the
order lived well into their nineties and remained active during even their final
years.

“I’m well. Very well. Come, let’s walk, shall we?”

“Sure.” Nora followed her mother through the gate and into the
motherhouse. A sign warning that all men were barred from entering the enclosure
greeted them as they passed into the recesses of the house. No men…not even
priests. It was for that reason Nora fled to her mother’s abbey when she left
Søren. As much as he’d wanted her back, he would never have stepped foot inside
this place. At night sometimes she’d wake up in the tiny cell she’d been given
and imagine him waiting outside the gates of the abbey for her. She’d sworn
she’d heard the unique roar of his motorcycle engine more than once. All that
time they’d been apart, he’d known exactly where she hid.

“How have you been, Ellie?” her mother asked as they passed
through the back door and onto the lawns.

“Great. Amazing. I started working with a new editor last year,
a new publisher. The new book hit all the big lists.”

“That’s wonderful for you.”

Nora cringed at the placid tone in her mother’s voice.
Wonderful
for you.
Not wonderful. Just wonderful for
her. Her mother disapproved of her books, her erotic writing. Always had. Always
would.

“You might like the new book. Almost no sex in it. Well,
compared to my other stuff.”

“That’s quite a change for you. What brought that on?”

Nora shrugged and said nothing as they stepped onto one of the
winding paths. Out of the corner of her eye, Nora studied her mother. She hated
how much they looked alike—the same small straight nose, the same changing eyes,
the same pale complexion.

“Nothing. Just playing around, trying to write something
different. Expanding my horizons…” Nora cringed. God, she sounded like she was
giving an interview with her trite answers.

“You look well. In one piece at least.” A slight smile played
across her mother’s lips.

“Is that your way of asking if we’re back together?”

“You can’t blame me worrying about you, can you?”

Nora sighed. Classic motherly deflection. She loved how her
mother could take all the aspects of Nora’s life that were the most personal,
the most private—her relationship with Søren, her sex life, her need to submit,
her hunger to dominate…things that had nothing to do at all with her mother—and
make them about her. Mothers must go to some sort of school to learn how to do
that so well.

“We’re back together. And we’re happy. And I love him. And I
always will. Oh, yeah, we’re still kinky as hell too. In case you were also
wondering that.”

Her mother exhaled angrily.

“Eleanor, his is a man of God. He is a priest. Do you have any
idea what seducing a priest means for your soul?”

“Seducing a priest?” Nora rolled her eyes. “Back in the day he
was an abuser who’d seduced me. Now suddenly I’m the seducer here?”

“You’re a grown woman now, not a child anymore. You know better
now. You know you could have a life apart from him. Going back to him? That’s
willful disobedience.”

“It’s love. And I’m not disobeying anyone. Until God Himself
tells me he and I aren’t allowed to be together, then we’re going to be
together. It hardly renders him unfit for the priesthood. Almost all Protestant
ministers are married, and Jewish rabbis. We Catholics are the freaks making our
ministers stay celibate. Can you get more medieval than that?”

“He chose to become a priest knowing celibacy was one of the
requirements. If he cannot honor that, he should leave the priesthood.”

“Yeah, let’s take the best priest in New England and turn him
into, I don’t know, a piano teacher just because he’s in love with me. And we’ll
let all those priests who like to rape the altar boys stay in the Church. Last
time I read the Bible, I don’t remember sexually assaulting children being part
of doing the Lord’s work.”

“You were fifteen—”

“I was fifteen when I fell in love with Søren. Fifteen years
old when I told God, the devil and anyone who would listen that I would sell my
soul for one night with him. When will you believe, when will you understand…
Mother, I seduced him.”

“And that’s why he doesn’t belong in the Church. There are some
priests who manage to keep their vows.”

“Yes, the ones who haven’t met me,” Nora said purely out of
spite.

Her mother winced and Nora suppressed a twinge of guilt.
Goddammit. She had a priest for a lover and a nun for a mother. Between the two
of them she had enough Catholic guilt to start her own religious order. After
ten years, Nora still couldn’t believe her mother had made good on her threat to
have her marriage annulled and become a nun.

“I pray for you, Eleanor.”

“I know you do. It won’t be answered. Not with a yes
anyway.”

Nora knew her mother prayed for her every single day, prayed
the same prayer every day—Father, please save my daughter from that man.

But Nora never wanted to be saved.

“For the record,” Nora said, breaking the awkward silence, “I’m
only here because he wanted me to come see you. He wants us to get over our
problems.”

“How thoughtful of him. Now when is he planning on getting over
his problems?”

“He doesn’t have any problems. Except that he’s up for bishop,
a position he doesn’t want.”

“I’d hardly worry about that. God would never allow such a man
to take a position of power.”

“That’s true. God’s very good about making sure only saints get
to rule kingdoms and countries.”

“You lost your mind and your faith when you went to his
bed.”

“Neither actually,” Nora retorted. “Just my virginity, and I
sure as hell don’t miss it.”

“Ellie—”

“This is ridiculous. He’s the one who’s lost his mind if he
thinks you and I are ever going to work this out. I love him. He’s a good man.
He’s the best man I’ve ever known. I know you don’t get what we are, but I don’t
care. It’s not your private life, it’s mine.”

“I’ve accepted that, obviously. Otherwise I would have called
the bishop on him years ago.”

Nora clenched her jaw to keep quiet. The reason her mother
hadn’t called the bishop on Søren had nothing to do with what she did or didn’t
believe. The day her mother discovered the truth about her and Søren, Nora had
threatened that if her mother did anything to harm Søren in any way, Nora would
leave forever and her mother would never see her again. The threat worked,
although only God knew why. When they did see each other, they always
fought…just like this.

“Ellie…” Her mother stopped in her tracks and turned around.
Nora avoided eye contact at first. She hated seeing her mother like this,
swathed in a wool habit, her hair covered with a wimple, her entire body hidden
in a sea of fabric.

“What, Mother?”

“Can you just try to love someone or even let someone love you
who doesn’t want to hurt you? Is that too much to ask?”

Nora bit her bottom lip and didn’t answer. The question hit far
too close to home for her.

“Nora? Will you answer me if I call you Nora?” her mother asked
in a voice soft with concern. At the utterance of the name she’d chosen instead
of the one her mother had given her, Nora blinked and two tears fell from her
eyes and to the ground.

“I tried,” Nora whispered hoarsely. The muscles in her stomach
clenched and her throat tightened.

“You did?” Her mother sounded both shocked and happy. “Who was
it?”

Nora swiped at her cheek.

“His name’s Wesley. He worked for me. But it was more than
that. He was my best friend. And…” Nora paused for a breath. “I love him so
much. He got sick once and I couldn’t find him. And I’d never prayed so hard for
anything in my life, prayed that he would be okay.”

“He loved you too?”

Nora nodded. “Like crazy. I didn’t realize it for a long time.
I never thought someone that sweet and pure really would ever want someone like
me. But he didn’t see me like that. He didn’t see Nora Sutherlin who writes
erotica and does kink…I was just his Nora, his crazy friend he wanted to love
and be with and keep safe. I think he would have stayed with me forever if I
hadn’t kicked him out.”

“Why…why would you kick him out of your life if you loved him
so much? If he loved you?”

“Because all that kid wanted was to love me and not hurt me.
And you have no idea how much that hurts someone like me. And I wanted to love
him without hurting him…and I hurt him so badly. He deserved better than me. I
made him go.”

Nora flinched as her mother reached out and cupped her face in
her hands as she had so many times when Nora was still Ellie, still a child,
still needed a mother’s touch.

“My Ellie… You sent him away on a fool’s errand. There is no
one better than you, my beautiful girl. Not in all of God’s creation.”

Only her years of training at Søren’s feet had instilled enough
self-control into Nora to keep her from collapsing into her mother’s arms.

Nora crossed her arms over her chest and stared past her mother
and tried to think of anything and anyone but Wesley.

“It’s for the best,” she finally said. “Whatever the reason we
broke up, it’s for the best. Wesley…he…”

“You still love him, don’t you?”

Nora touched her face and came away with her fingers wet with
tears. She held out her hand and let her mother see them.

“Many waters…”

Her mother took Nora’s hand in hers and squeezed.

“I never saw you cry over him, that year you were here. Not one
tear.”

“Some hurts are too deep for tears.”

Her mother shook her head.

“Or maybe not deep enough. Try, Ellie. Try for me. Just once,
try to be with someone who makes you cry like this, out of love. Not out of pain
or fear. Is that too much to ask?”

Nora shrugged and shook her head.

“It’s too late. It’s been so long I’m sure he’s moved on by
now. I hope he has, anyway.”

“Liar,” her mother teased and Nora laughed. Laughed? Laughed
with her mother while talking about a guy? So shit like this did happen in real
life, not just movies. Who knew?

“I have to go,” Nora said. “Things to do. People to beat. It
was good to see you again.”

Her mother clasped her hands in front of her in a posture of
resigned piety.

“Of course. Try not to let another six years pass without
coming to visit again.”

“I didn’t think they’d let me back in after all I pulled.” Nora
grinned, remembering all the trouble she’d caused back here behind the gates
where no men could come.

“Are you kidding? They still talk about you. You’ve given us
six years of dinner conversation.”

“I live to serve.” Nora bobbed a curtsy before heading back
toward the back doors. She walked quickly, wanting to be out of this world and
back into hers as soon as possible. All these celibate women freaked her out.
She couldn’t imagine giving up sex for a higher power. Even her Wesley had given
up waiting and had surely slept with his sexy older girlfriend by now. The
thought of another woman laying her hands on her Wesley put almost murderous
thoughts in Nora’s head, thoughts she had no right to have.

They walked through the motherhouse toward the gate. Her mother
opened the door that led back to the real world, to the unconsecrated ground
where Nora lived.

“I’ll come visit again. Soon, I promise,” Nora said. “Can I
bring you anything? Smuggle in anything? Pizza? Swedish fish? Pot?
Anything?”

Her mother smiled.

“Just my daughter, happy and in one piece.”

Nora indicted her body with a sweeping gesture of her
hands.

“One piece,” she said.

“And happy?”

“Believe it or not, yes. Maybe not by your definition, but by
mine.”

“Then I can live with that.”

Nora paused and looked at her mother. She wanted to say
something more, say something else, but she couldn’t find the words. Or she knew
the words but didn’t have the courage to say them.

“I’ll see you later, Mom.”

“Oh, Ellie?”

“What, Mom?” Nora turned back to her and gasped as her mother
slapped her hard and quick across the cheek.

At first Nora couldn’t speak from shock alone.

“That seems to be the only way you let someone tell them they
love you. So be it,” her mother said, lowering her hand.

Nora stood up straight and smiled.

“That didn’t feel like love to me,” Nora said, stepping through
the gate. “Just felt amateur. Next time I visit, we’ll work on your
technique.”

Nora strode to her car and fought tears the entire way. She
refused to believe her mother was right. She wasn’t going to give up Søren
simply to satisfy her mother and society’s restrictive, vanilla, fucking boring
definition of what love was supposed to be.

Didn’t matter anyway. The only vanilla guy she’d ever loved was
Wesley, and she would never see him again. Søren surely wouldn’t allow it. Not
if she told him the truth that her feelings for Wesley crept along inside her
heart like the snake in the garden. Life with Søren was paradise, a dark,
dangerous paradise but still, a perfect naked Eden.

“Almost perfect,” she whispered to no one as she sat behind the
wheel of her car. She stuck her key into the ignition but before she turned the
car on, she heard the ominous sounds of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Nora snatched her phone out of her bag.

“Søren…” she breathed with relief. “God, I’ve missed—”