“You could get one of those life-sized dolls,” Massey muttered.
“I beg your pardon. What was that?”
“Nothing.” Massey tapped the dottle out of his pipe, selected a fresh pipe from the rack, and began the ritual anew. “Well, David, we are now faced with a number of predictable, hypothetical, rhetorical questions. I don’t feel we need to get into it too deeply. You know what you must do.”
It was a rhetorical question in the form of a statement. Yet David was unsure of his response. Still, he couldn’t help being frank. Not now. Not after he’d opened himself so candidly to his respected colleague. “Not really,” he said. “It seems there are at least two, maybe three alternatives. I could maintain the status quo. Martha is not aware of anything. I’m slightly more than fulfilled with two women almost programmed to fit my moods.”
Massey’s mouth was a tight line. “David! I want to remain as nonjudgmental as possible. But really. .!”
“No, no, I understand,” David interrupted. “I know in my heart that’s not a viable alternative. It’s completely unfair to Pamela. And I feel guilty as hell about it. That’s why I’m here. But even though it’s not going to solve anything, I had to mention it as an alternative.
“Then there’s breaking up with Pam. It would tear me apart. Her too. But that’s the obvious, ‘moral’ choice no matter how much pain is involved, isn’t it?”
Massey continued to puff wordlessly.
“But there’s a third possibility. What if I confessed the affair to Martha and offered her the choice of divorcing me? Uncontested. That would let me marry Pam and we’d be happy. Of course, it would shatter Martha. But, I think, only for the moment. She would promptly get so reinvolved with her real estate, that after a short while she’d wonder who was that person who once shared her life.
“So, Father, I don’t find the future as cut and dried, as rhetorical, as it might seem.”
Massey removed the pipe from his mouth and shook his head. “David, David. . the alternatives to what you correctly called the ‘moral’ situation don’t exist for you.”
“Don’t exist?”
“Maintaining the status quo, continuing your adulterous relationship with Pamela will drive you mad. I’ve seen it happen to too many good men. Your conscience will never let you rest. The guilt has forced you to seek me out. It’s clear from your own lips that you know it can’t continue as it has.
“Besides, you risk losing everything if you continue this clandestine affair. Just as you also risk losing everything should you divorce Martha and ‘make an honest woman’ of Pamela.”
“Lose everything? I don’t. .”
“David, there are two grounds for deposing a priest.”
“Yes: in the case of faith or morals. I know.”
“You’re not in the process of denying any of the doctrines of the Church. You aren’t making heretical statements. The matter of faith is clear-cut and fairly easy to judge. The area of morals is a horse of a different color. There are gray patches. But a priest’s adulterous relationship qualifies nicely.
“Just how do you suppose your congregation would feel toward you if they knew you had engaged in adultery with a vulnerable woman who was your dependent client in therapy?”
It was the word “vulnerable” that reached him. It burned his soul like a brand. It was true. She was very vulnerable and he had taken advantage of her vulnerability.
“I think,” Massey continued, “there is no question that you would not survive a morals challenge. And it makes no difference whether you keep Pamela as your paramour or divorce Martha and marry Pamela.”
“No difference!”
“No difference. In the eyes of your people, nor, I assure you, as far as the bishop is concerned: You will have betrayed the professional ethics of the therapist-client relationship. It is bound to come out that you were romancing someone who had come to you trusting that she would receive professional help.”
“But that’s not true! Pam’s therapy was concluded before-a long time before-we became lovers!”
“Try to convince others of that. Besides, even if you could convince anyone, the next charge that would be brought would be that you were setting her up for the later affair. One is just as bad as the other.”
Benbow considered his position as Massey had outlined the probabilities.
Massey could surmise what the younger clergyman was thinking. “That’s not all,” he added.
Benbow met Massey’s eyes evenly.
“You are the author of a book, a novel that, I understand, sold rather well.”
Benbow nodded.
“It’s a good book, I think,” Massey said. “I read it. Enjoyed it. Going to write more?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Thought as much. The formula was good, good enough to bear repeating. The Episcopal Church played a big role in your book, David. You brought an authentic touch to it. The reader could tell that right off. What if by the time you get around to writing the next book, what if you are a deposed clergyman, disgraced in the eyes of your Church as well as in the psychology profession?”
Massey paused to let the full impact of that possibility pervade David’s mind.
“Under those circumstances,” Massey continued, “think your reading public would be as enthusiastic about a writer who’s been held up to ridicule and scorn by two respected professions? Think the publisher would risk ‘taking a bath,’ I believe they call it, by publishing a writer with so uncertain a future?”
David was speechless. It seemed that Massey had finally stumbled upon a few genuinely rhetorical questions.
“That’s a pretty bleak picture,” Benbow said at length. “Think that would really happen?”
“Don’t you?”
“I suppose so. If it got out. After all, I have no intention of publicizing my relationship with Pamela, professional or romantic.”
Massey tipped his head forward and studied Benbow as if looking over the top of glasses, which, in reality, were nonexistent. “David, you must know that in this day and age it is difficult to hide such things. What you’ve told me this evening did not come as a total shock or a complete surprise.”
“It didn’t?”
“You know how clerical gossip is. Oh, there’s been nothing of a documented nature that I’m aware of. But your habits have changed. You’re probably not even aware of that. Just subtle things. Like being away from the rectory on given evenings. Now and again someone would ask Martha about it. She’d quite innocently give the excuse you gave her. Presbytery meetings, confirmations, other events that Martha accepted at face value, but which the inquiring clergy knew had never taken place, or that if they had you were not present.
“Now I don’t want to unnecessarily distress you. I don’t think anyone has guessed what’s really going on. But they’re not far from the truth. David, you are on extremely thin ice. If you don’t do something about this, you’re going to fall in. And if you do, you’ll likely drown.”
Benbow was pensive for a few minutes. Finally, he said, slowly, heavily, “There doesn’t seem to be much choice then.”
“It took longer to reach that conclusion than I would have expected. But, no, I think there is not much choice.”
After a few more moments’ silence, David said, “This is going to be tough, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’ll make it without God’s grace. I wonder, would you mind if we had the rite of reconciliation?”
“Confession? If you wish. Certainly.”
Benbow made his confession of sin, which did not much differ from the prior conversation. Before granting him absolution, Massey told him, as a penance, to meditate on the 51st Psalm, which begs so eloquently for God’s infinite and ready mercy.
David Benbow left Father Massey’s rectory that evening clean and determined to walk the straight and narrow.
17
And so he did. For a while.