Priest_by_Sierra_Simone 3

confessor, Father Brady, is really good, and he’s based in downtown Kansas
City.”
She tilted her head ever so slightly, like a bird. “But I don’t live in Kansas
City anymore. I live here, in Weston.”
Well, shit.
Tuesdays. Fuck Tuesdays.
I said early morning Mass to a mostly empty sanctuary—two hat-wearing
grandmothers and Rowan—and then I went for my run, mentally cataloging
all the things I wanted to get done today, including putting together an
informational packet for our youth group trip next spring and writing my
homily for this week.
Weston is a town of river bluffs, a topography of fields sloping towards the
Missouri River, punctuated with punishingly steep hills. Runs here are brutal
and vicious and clarifying. After the first six miles, I was covered in sweat
and breathing hard, turning up my music so that Britney’s voice drowned out
everything else.
I rounded the corner onto the main drag through town, the sidewalks
mostly clear of people browsing antiques and art shops since it was a
weekday. I only had to dodge one elderly-looking couple as I forced myself
up the steep road, my thigh and calf muscles screaming. Sweat dripped down
my neck and shoulders and back, my hair was soaked, each breath felt like
punishment, and the morning sun made sure that I was greeted by waves of
August heat rolling off the asphalt.
I loved it.
Everything else bled away—the upcoming renovation to the church, the
homilies I needed to write, Poppy Danforth.
Especially Poppy Danforth. Especially her and the knowledge that the
mere act of thinking about her made me stiff.
I hated myself a little for what had happened yesterday. She was clearly a
well-educated, intelligent and interesting woman, and she had come to me,