Chapter 29: Tower of Babel
“I am thinking this will take too long,” Vijay said as he shimmied down an aisle of red velvet seats.
Kamat turned around to say to him, “I hope not. I forgot to bring my crosswords.”
Vijay looked over his shoulder at Rupert and William who had already found their seats. “Are we to sit here for this whole thing?”
William glared in warning and Vijay frowned as he sat beside his wife. He leaned closer to her and whispered loudly, “I feel imprisoned.”
“You are going to feel my fist if you do not stop talking,” Kamat replied, her nostrils flaring slightly. She adjusted her skirt and huffed, getting comfortable in her seat.
“Why is everyone so uptight? All these people here, they talk and whisper. Why do I get evil eye from the ex-priest when I am speaking?”
“Because we know you won’t bloody well stop!” Rupert said, smiling as he started to chuckle. He tilted his head backwards in the direction of his son and rolled his eyes. “William wants everyone to be quiet.”
Vijay’s long arms jutted out straight in front of him as he looked at them incredulously. “It is just parents and teachers. Who cares?”
“Vijay,” William said slowly, “when those house lights dim, you better keep your mouth shut. This is important to Buffy and for some reason, she wanted you here.”
“It is because she likes me, unlike the rest of you.”
“She also likes those television shows with the wife swapping,” Kamat said quietly. “Reminds me of my uncle and his all the time needing reassurance that his cock still works.” She shivered in disgust and opened a tin she’d procured from her purse that was filled with peppermints, holding it out for Vijay to take one.
“We all need the reassurance, my princess,” he said, his toothy grin obscured slightly when he crunched down on a candy. “Luckily, I only require one of you.”
Kamat smiled smugly and stared ahead, seemingly unconcerned by her husband’s want for her. The two of them munched on their candies, wishing they were somewhere other than a high school auditorium.
* * *
The house lights dimmed and the screeching sounds of violins struggling to find the right key echoed over the large theater.
William checked his watch and chewed on the inside of his cheek, his left knee bobbing anxiously when the orchestra finally began to play the overture. He rolled up the program and clasped it between his knees as his eyes scanned the stage in excitement.
William had been on pins and needles all day in anticipation for that evening, driving Buffy crazy with all of his questions. He was so interested in everything she did, wanted to be a part of her life, and yet he’d tried to give her the space she might need to experience what little bit of her youth she had left. He was worried she would miss it, worried even more that she’d resent him if he kept her from growing.
It had been difficult for William to deal with the times Buffy was gone for so many hours to rehearse. He read lines with her, helped her study and did whatever she’d allow him to help her with, which he was grateful for. He saw her changing, watched her determination to prove her parents wrong turn into real goals and real dedication and he’d never been more proud of her. But he was terrified, too. Terrified that she might not need him any longer. And he needed her desperately. Every day spent with her only proved to William that a life without Buffy would be cold and futile and meaningless.
There were only three weeks left before she graduated, three more weeks and she would be done with high school. Three weeks left for William to get the courage to show her the one part of his past that he’d hidden from her, from himself, from everyone. And he would, because after this, after she knew it all, there would be nothing left for him to hide behind. No other nook or cranny of his mind to stuff his secrets in. He’d finally show her what a sad, pathetic man he really was. How even though he was years older, he was just as lost as she had been those months they were apart. In fact, Buffy was proving to have a better idea of what she wanted out of life, what she could potentially become, than William ever had.
At least, not since his determination to become a priest. Those goals, the light that had once been waiting at the end of the tunnel, had long ago vanished. Without the façade of holy authority, William didn’t know what to do with himself.
Rupert and Vijay had finally returned from Marrakech and at their insistence, William decided to take a few months off before he jumped back into teaching at that Sunnydale high school.
Which ended up giving him entirely too many hours to think about how unproductive he was being, magnified just how wrong he’d been all these years, and made him angry that he’d missed out on so many things. That he’d attempted to find himself in a life he knew nothing about, a life that paralleled his deepest regret, his biggest secret. He wasn’t allowed to hate himself, though, not when Buffy was always there at the end of the day. Not when he loved her more than he could ever put into words. And he wouldn’t try to now, because the play was beginning.
The curtains opened, the music softened, and he looked down upon a scene of five girls in Victorian garb, scattered about a makeshift living room in front of a fireplace. Buffy was lying on a rug looking rather bored.
She had the first line, which William muttered quietly along with her when she said, “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.”
“Is that Buffy?” Vijay said, leaning over Kamat to tap William on the shoulder.
“Yes! That’s Buffy! Be quiet,” he whispered loudly.
“Well, I didn’t know,” he said without lowering his voice, shrugging his shoulders and frowning. “You force us to sit in the nose bleed seats and I cannot tell a fly from a donkey’s ass.”
“Shh!” Rupert and William said in unison.
* * *
William sat in rapt awe, entranced by Buffy’s acting. Though he wasn’t interested in the story of Little Women, he was fairly certain that he would watch Buffy read the newspaper aloud with the same esteem he was currently feeling. She was wonderful, and there wasn’t a stitch of prejudice in that assessment. All eyes were on her as Jo and the German professor moved closer to one another in the final scene of the play.
He’d prepared himself for the kiss, he had. It was just a teenage boy after all and William was a man who knew every inch of her. But his mouth still tensed up in irritation when the German professor took Jo’s hands in his, excited that she’d accepted his proposal of marriage, and pressed his lips against hers. The music swelled and he embraced her.
William’s hands clenched the arms of his seat and then the curtains closed. He exhaled, smiled, and jumped from his seat. He was the first to start clapping and once the audience joined in, he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly.
Rupert stood beside him, shaking his head in mirth as he clapped. Vijay and Kamat rose obligatorily but would not clap for something they didn’t enjoy.
“It was not that great,” Vijay said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“If you ask me, Jo should have married Laurie,” Kamat said with a puckered brow, her arms folded beneath her breasts. “He loved her most of all and was a good friend to her family. She was stupid to turn down an engagement with so many money problems. Selfish girl.”
“The suspension of disbelief must be grand with such poor props,” Vijay said.
“It’s high school,” Rupert said, “not Broadway.”
“And this is good excuse?” Kamat shook her head. “Lazy is the man who shrugs at crap.”
“If you’re finished insulting my girlfriend, we may go now,” William said, his disappointment evident when he raised one eyebrow.
“We did no such thing!” Kamat hurried to say as they followed after William. “I insulted the play, not Buffy. She was very loud and I could hear her lines clearly.”
“Be sure and tell her that,” he said, smiling over his shoulder. “She’d love to hear your input.”
* * *
William snuck behind the stage to catch his girlfriend before the masses filed in to greet them. He was going to walk up to her, grab her and kiss her, but then he saw her with her friends, laughing about something, and he thought he’d hang back and watch her instead. She didn’t know he was only a few feet away and a part of him felt like he was intruding on her time with her friends. Something hit him hard then, a realization he might have done well to notice months and months before.
Buffy was eighteen, and a senior in high school.
Of course, abstractly he knew this. Of course he did. But this was the first time he saw her that way in a long while, as a young girl who was having a good time with her friends, red-cheeked and full of adrenaline and simply…youthful.
She still spoke the same way with her friends as she did with him, moved the same way, but there was a sparkle in her eyes he hadn’t noticed before. He wondered if he was the reason why he hadn’t seen it. If he’d snuffed it out every time she was with him. If he were making her older than she needed to be. He shouldn’t be watching her.
“Will!” She’d seen him and she was slightly embarrassed, chewing on her bottom lip and ducking her head when her friends started giggling.
“Hey, sorry…I’ll just…” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder towards the exit and started to walk away, but she grabbed his arm, smiling warmly at him and then tugged him over to her friends.
“Guys, this is William,” she said excitedly, linking her arm with his.
“Buffy talks about you nonstop,” one girl said, rolling her eyes.
“Yeah, she even called me William once during rehearsal,” the German professor kid said when he’d walked over to the crowd.
“Shut up, Jason,” Buffy said, nuzzling into William’s side. She whispered, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
And just like that, William’s fears had been put to rest and he found himself feeling a bit shy and stupid for ever doubting her.
“You were wonderful,” he said, leaning down to kiss her on the forehead.
She smiled at him, that same twinkle lingering in her eyes, and he knew with clear certainty that he’d done nothing to extinguish the girl she was becoming. Maybe she’d only just arrived.
* * *
William wasn’t sure if he was afraid of what Buffy would think of him, or if he was struggling with the fact that this would be the first time he’d ever step foot in this place. Perhaps it was a bit of both, but Buffy agreed to come. She didn’t even hesitate in her request.
“The day after I graduate, we’re going,” she’d said. “Will, you need to go.”
“But I don’t think you understand what we’re getting into,” he’d pleaded, still leaving out the biggest part of the story. “This isn’t going to be a vacation.”
She’d glared at him. He’d sighed.
“I love you and you’ve done so much for me. Let me be there for you,” she’d said with that voice of hers, that sweet and caring voice that she reserved only for him and he could no longer delay the inevitable.
Buffy was no longer in high school. She’d walked the stage and grabbed her diploma, waved at William, Rupert and the Bachchans who had become her new family, and crossed the threshold into adulthood.
It had happened so fast.
Life was happening so fast, something Buffy said last night after they’d had a celebratory graduation fuck in his old bedroom.
“Do you regret anything?” he’d asked her, running his fingers through her damp hair, catching his breath.
“Nope,” she’d said simply. No pause, no moment to think it over. She didn’t regret a thing. “And quit looking for reasons not to get on that plane tomorrow.” She had smiled at him and he fell in love with her all over again.
“I hate that you’re so smart.”
“You love that I’m smart.” She straddled his waist and kissed his throat, humming sweetly. “God, I’m glad high school is over. Now I can make love to you all the time.”
“Until I go back to work in the fall.”
She’d groaned, pulled the sheets over her head, and slid down his body to suck his cock. Buffy had a knack for always having the last word. And really, he didn’t want to think about working, either.
There wasn’t a thing she could say now, though. Not a word she could utter that would soothe the war inside him, the nerves that wracked his body, the tension in his muscles as he looked up at the building he’d never entered before today.
He knew he was squeezing her hand too hard. Thankfully, though, for the time being, she remained quiet. After he dared a glance at her slack-jawed expression, he figured she was letting it sink in as well. Their past meant something different now, and he knew that she was working it out in her head, trying to analyze what it all meant. This was the part he was most afraid of. What awaited them on the other side of the door in front of them was uncertain. But it would be nothing compared to what was right next to him, the girl he wanted to spend his life with, what could potentially change once they went back to their lives in California in a few days.
Her silence was unnerving as much as it was needed at this time. But he felt her move nearer, felt her fingers tighten around his, and that was enough to urge him forward. It was enough to reassure him that maybe all was not lost.
William Giles, a man who was once a priest, a man who had relinquished his vows to Christ only months ago for the girl whose hand he was currently clutching, took a deep breath and walked up the front steps that led to the door of Carmelite Monastery at Golders Green in London.
It was time to meet his mother.
* * *
Carmelite Monastery was beautiful.
From the outside it looked to be more of an estate than a church. It was surrounded with lush and large trees, built of modest brown bricks and scarcely had any ornamental details unlike most Catholic churches and abbeys. The quadrangle building with its cloisters of gardens reminded William a bit of St. Mary’s courtyard, but this particular one demanded your reverence. The words, “To Thee, O God, Silence is Praise,” were painted proudly over the archways inside the building, a constant reminder to the small number of nuns that lived there.
They spoke only when necessary, had everything they needed delivered to them, which meant that they never left the monastery. To be a nun here was to be a woman who had nothing but her faith and her matrimony to God.
It almost made William want to cry. For he, too, had once given up everything for a life he had thought made him whole. Standing here now, beneath a crucifix in the gardens, William knew he’d only been hiding. He had never devoted himself to anything but a long existence of denying who he really was. It seemed his mother was doing the same, or perhaps she wasn’t. Perhaps her devotion was real and William was only a failure.
“Sister Anne Marie will see you now,” a nun said softly, jarring him from his daze.
He and Buffy turned to face the nun, their fingers still entwined, the calm still heavy between them. The woman looked to be almost eighty years old, but her smile made her seem older than that. Ancient. She was meant to wear the habit.
Without another word, she’d turned around and walked through the garden, into an adjacent building, down a hallway, with Buffy and William following quietly behind her. His heart was racing, his eyes were stinging already, and he had no idea what to expect when the older nun opened a large door that led to a lobby where several nuns were sitting, sewing in absolute silence.
All he’d ever had of his mother’s was a photograph, his birth certificate to prove that she existed, and a ring his father had once tried to give her. A ring which had been more of an apology than any sort of proposal, an apology for what he’d done, for giving her William. She was only sixteen then, and she’d said no to Rupert. That ring was now proudly displayed on William’s eighteen-year-old girlfriend’s finger. He hadn’t thought much about it when he gave it to her, but he was a lot more like his father than he had ever admitted to himself. If she still wanted him after this, he’d buy her another ring. He’d buy her one that wasn’t tinged with guilt and shame. He’d buy her the ring that would make her say yes.
But when he scanned the women over, he finally landed on a pair of blue eyes that looked a lot like his, though they were lined with wrinkles, and he realized he was looking at his mother. His chest burned and his legs felt weak and he knew he’d started to cry when Buffy’s hand left his so that she could wrap her arm around his waist and offer him some support.
Anne rose from her seat and walked over to them, smiling peacefully, not like a mother who had just seen her son for the first time, but as a nun would smile at any of God’s children. It made him inhale sharply and get a hold of his emotions. She extended one arm gracefully, gesturing towards another door, and she nodded before turning to walk through it.
“We can go right now,” Buffy said softly. “Whatever you want.”
He didn’t answer. He simply walked forward.
AN: A slight note for those of you schooled in religion and their practices: I am taking artistic license here because in reality, William would never be allowed access into a monastery such as one that houses cloistered nuns. Visitors are prohibited except for very special circumstances and it takes a while to get access. But for the sake of the story, we’re ignoring that rule. 🙂