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Sydney blinked. Every household in America baked with Kendall Mills flour. He was that Kendall? They had to be worth millions, maybe even billions.
“I—I don’t think I want to know anything more,” she said in a throbbing voice.
“That’s because you’ve had me on some kind of pedestal and don’t want to find out I’m not the saint you’ve envisioned. But we can’t hope to have a life together if you never let me explain my past.”
There could be no future. She knew she couldn’t make him give up everything for her, but she was starving for information about him because she loved him so terribly.
Defeated for the moment, she bowed her head.
“I realize you’re terrified of the man behind the robes,” he said with a compassion she didn’t want to feel. “You know all about the priest, but you know nothing about Jarod Kendall, the man.”
“It doesn’t matter, Jarod. The Church would take you back again—” She couldn’t prevent more tears from falling. “Whatever you’ve done, you can explain to them, tell them you’ve made a mistake—”
She heard a sound come out of him that could have been anguish or frustration, probably both.
“I didn’t make a mistake when I decided to become a priest. I haven’t made one by leaving, After you’ve heard what I have to say, you’ll view things differently. Tonight I intend to tell you everything I couldn’t speak of while I was still ordained.”
Because she could feel her defenses crumbling, it scared her to listen to any more explanations. When she’d known him as a priest, he’d been shrouded in mystery. It had added to her fascination of the mystique surrounding him.
To hear it all bared…
Sydney cupped her mug and drank thirstily as if the steaming brew would somehow fortify her against the power of his forthcoming revelations.
“Several of my mentors in the seminary felt the call as early as adolescence. Not so with me. In fact I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I knew I wanted to be a priest.”
Their gazes met. “Do you remember in my office when you told me that organized religion meant nothing to you, Sydney? I could have told you I felt the same way growing up.”
She averted her head. After all their history together, it was so hard to hear this kind of truth come out of him.
“When I think about it, I suppose my journey began as a gradual process that started in my mid-teens. I had a big group of good friends, but it was my best friend Matt Graham with whom I spent the most time. Matt happened to be a Catholic who played on the parish basketball team in East Hampton where we all lived.
“Occasionally I went to practice with him and did his homework for him while I waited. One of the younger, energetic priests, Father Pyke, noticed me sitting on the sidelines and insisted I join them. He said my height and natural athleticism would be the added weapon they needed against the other teams in the diocese.
“Since I found it harder and harder to go home after school and hear mother crying in the bedroom, I hung around the church gym with Matt quite a bit.”
Sydney cringed, sensing some awful revelation was about to be disclosed.
“Before long I found myself confiding in the priest about the problems plaguing my family. Obviously I needed an outlet to ease my pain, especially because my brother and sister were both away at college.
“Since I didn’t want to confide in my friends, Father Pyke was the lucky one who got to hear my sorrows. I found a certain comfort in realizing I could talk to him and know it wouldn’t go any further. Looking back at that particularly difficult time with my family, I can see why I was drawn to him.
“He was a great listener. When he heard the ugly truth about my father being a womanizer, he didn’t patronize me with empty platitudes.”
A groan came out of Sydney. Hearing this was too painful.
“My parents are socially prominent people who’ve always had a hectic agenda that has kept them running from one event to another with no regard for their children’s emotional needs.
“Little by little I told the priest all our ugly secrets. I was hurt and angry over my father’s behavior because it wounded my mother who drank too much. The fighting between them was getting worse.
“At one point my mother told me the latest woman my father had been seeing was married, making an awful situation even more reprehensible. Yet she wouldn’t think of leaving him because they both needed each other’s family money more than they craved peace or honor.”
Jarod was painting a horror story that would have been too much for any child to bear. Moisture dripped off Sydney’s cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, Jarod.”
“You can’t comprehend it, can you. Sydney? At the time, neither could I,” he said with a profound sadness that went bone deep. “For one thing, our family has been in the Hamptons for generations. Because of that fact, a lot of people know my parents, or know of them. Intermingled with my pain was the shame I felt that they were the major topic of conversation behind closed doors.”
She cringed. No boy or girl should have to live with that kind of hurt. The tragic picture he was painting devastated Sydney who couldn’t help but contrast his up-bringing with her own happy home. Though there’d been differences of opinion on certain issues from time to time, there’d been no strife between her parents to destroy her security.
