“Is this why you didn't let me go on a school trip to the Bieszczady? Look, Mom, I don’t want to say you didn’t see what you saw, but maybe there’s a logical explanation for it? You and Dad ate wild berries. Maybe some of those weren’t what you thought they were?” he offered, trying his best to not sound accusatory, because Mother despised any and all drugs.
She grasped Adam’s fingers in her own sweaty hand. “I am not crazy. I beg you not to go. Nothing good awaits you there. We will never find out how you really came to be, but it’s for the better. Let’s leave it behind and trust the Lord protects you.”
Heat turned Adam’s head into a pressure cooker. Did his own mother just suggest he’d been some kind of devil baby that needed special protection in order to stay on the righteous path? Was this why she’d been so insistent on keeping him close to the Church since he could remember?
“Mom, you probably just got pregnant because you and Dad relaxed—”
“No! Adam, listen to me. Dad was tested when we tried for a second child, and he… is incapable of having children.”
That made Adam frown. “I’m a miracle child then. Let’s leave it at that.”
“You were born with a tail!”
Adam stilled, staring at her with his insides churning, and the scar on his tailbone itched. “What?”
Dad chose this moment to come back with the jar of fruit. “Here we go. Dessert.”
“Dad! Mom just told me I was born with a tail! What? Is that true?”
Adam expected Father to laugh it off, so he froze to the chair when that didn’t happen. What in all hells were his parents hiding? Why had they never told him any of this?
Father’s frown was deep and contemplative. “Hm. Well… yes, but it was really small. The doctors told us it happens more often than people think.”
Mom’s voice got a higher pitch. “It was not! It was the length of his entire body!”
Father put the large jar of compote in the middle of the table before opening the tableware cabinet and pulling out Mother’s most precious china bowls. “Honey, you were panicking, and unwell. I’m telling you it wasn’t nearly as long as his body.”
“I can’t believe this. And that time he sleepwalked all the way to the train station? And managed to sneak on board a train to Sanok? Where do you think the devil was leading our Adam, if not back there? I’m going to be sick,” she said with tears in her eyes, and rushed out of the room before slamming the bedroom shut.
Adam wanted to follow her, but Father grabbed his arm. “She’ll be okay. It’s just a very sensitive topic. For the record—because I’m sure she told you this story—I saw no pregnant nuns. There’s no convents in the area either. If you ask me, I think it was hallucinations. We participated in the Ivan Kupala night festivities and drank a mushroom broth offered by the local wise woman. We didn’t think and just had a whole cup each. It’s embarrassing, but if that drink somehow made it easier for us to create you, then that’s all that matters.” He smiled and patted Adam’s shoulder. “I hate that you’ll be so far away, but… maybe this break from the hustle and bustle of the city will be good for you? A time to soul-search a little. See for yourself if this is the life you want.”
“What else would I want?” Adam asked, shocked that his closest family still questioned his calling.
Father must have sensed the accusation in his tone, because he wouldn’t look into Adam’s eyes. “We always felt you were… different. Not because you were born with a tail, but because you’re a very sensitive young man, and I worry that… the path you chose might be a way to stay in your comfort zone. Sometimes, embracing who we are instead of fighting it is the only way to happiness.”
A cold shiver ran down Adam’s spine. Was Father using euphemisms to suggest he thought Adam was homosexual? Was that also why Mother had encouraged him to pick up priesthood since Adam had entered his teens? The possibilities made his head thud, and he backed away, grabbing the jar.
“I… thank you. Can I take this with me? I don’t think Mom’s up for dessert anymore,” he said, itching for a change of topic. Dybukowo now felt like the perfect place to escape this conversation. And maybe the archbishop had been right? Maybe a simple life away from the possibility of temptation would finally heal Adam’s sinful obsession?
If there was one thing Adam was sure of, it was that there would be no gay men in Dybukowo.
Chapter 2 - Adam
It was so dark Adam could barely see anything beyond the streaks of water drizzling down the windows of the old bus. The trip from Warsaw, which had been supposed to take seven hours, had extended into eleven already, and the serpentine mountain roads made no promises of cutting Adam’s misery short. At one point Adam and a few other men, had to push the bus through a deep mud puddle in the punishing downpour, and now he was stuck behind an elderly lady eating an egg sandwich, his teeth clattering from the icy touch of his clothing.