It’s remained as big a secret as the wounds on my back. If anyone were to find out, they’d use this place against me. They would hurt the people inside it. And I won’t fucking have that. I’ve worked too hard to make it what it is. A real sanctuary.
Father Simon moves behind the altar as I reenter, lighting candles near the crucifix. It hurts to bend my knee at the side of the last pew. My chest aches where I was shot. My muscles are all overtired. But following the ritual feels better than not following it. When I’ve finished I drop into the closest seat, fold my arms over the back of the next pew, and put my head down.
It’s against church etiquette. It’s not the worst I’ve done. Fortunately for me, Father Simon is a forgiving priest. He’s also the only priest who knows about Caroline. He is the only one who knows about the wounds, and the pain. Another reason I arrange private midnight Mass. Sometimes I need to be here. And sometimes I can’t fucking stand. Sometimes I need a minute in what he calls my personal attitude of prayer.
He moves unhurriedly down the nave a minute or two later, making no comment as he goes. He’ll be waiting for me in the confessional.
I spend another few minutes breathing in incense and polished wood, then follow him. The confessional itself is large, wooden, and meant to look like an antique. It’s not. I had it built for the church eight years ago. The one at the church where I was baptized, the one where I was an altar server—that confessional was too narrow. After Caroline, I couldn’t stand to be in a space that small. I made this one easier to breathe in. There’s a narrow shelf near the grate where I can lean, which is good, because I’m so fucking out of sorts that sitting up straight would be the last straw.
In the dark of the confessional, I can only see Father Simon’s outline through the wooden grate. I make the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” He murmurs this along with me, and I hear him settle in afterward.
“Good evening, child of God.”
“You always say that to me. Child of God. But it’s not the usual greeting.”
“Some penitents cannot help but close their hearts if I say my child. I say it to remind you that I am standing in for Christ, not for your father.”
Well.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been…” Jesus. How long? An eternity, and not long enough. “Five weeks since my last confession.”
“May God help you to know your sins and trust in his mercy.”
“Amen.”
“For the steadfast love of the Lord will never cease. His mercies are never ending. They are new every morning.”
So is His judgment, but that’s not why I’m here. Not all of why I’m here.
“Tell me,” says Father Simon.
“I’ve been busy.” From the moment I got Phillip Constantine to sign that contract to now feels like a hundred lifetimes.
“It’s been a long time. I thought you had forgotten me.”
“No, Father. I’ve broken every commandment at least twice, but I never forget.”
He pauses. The first time Father Simon did this, I wanted to tear the confessional down around me and light it on fire. I was sure he’d turn me out. Confirm what I already knew. “I sense a struggle in you. Something’s changed since you were last here.”
Something. Someone. Haley walked into my life, and now I’m another person. Or now she’s seen the heart of me. I don’t know which, but a heavy despair pulls at me with grasping hands. This is the only place I don’t have to hide it. It’s too late, and I’m too wrecked, to hide it. “What do you do when you’ve sinned, you’ve committed crimes, you’ve hurt an innocent and—” Fuck. Hard to breathe. “And you don’t regret it?”
“God’s mercies are never ending,” he answers. “As is love.”
My sharp laugh is answered by fresh pain where the bullet wound has mostly healed. “Is that what this is?”
“That is not for me to say. But I think you have much to tell me.”
I let out a breath. Will the agony to ease up a little. “I confess to Almighty God that I forced a woman. Not the way people think it will happen. Not in an alley with a knife in my hand. I used a pen instead. I forced her to sign an agreement. She had no choice. I used her love of her family against her so she had no choice, and then I used her body for my own pleasure. Again. And again.”
“Hmm. Go on.”
Father Simon has never been shocked by what I tell him. He has never broken the seal of the confessional. We had a frank discussion about that once. He’s bound to go to his grave with these secrets. But in this church, in my fucking church, there’s a line. As far as I know, no one has ever confessed to hurting a child, and I would know about it.
“I almost killed a man. I wanted to.” Rick’s throat in my hands. His eyes widening. “I don’t regret any of that, which must be another sin. And there’s something else.”
“Confess.”
“I confess that I took revenge on a woman. On Caroline.” Thank fuck he already knows about Caroline. “I hurt her. With a whip. I thought—” I swallow around an ache in my throat. “I thought it would free me, but I just felt hollow afterward.”
“Paul gave us guidance on this, child of God. Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath.”
“Yes, yes. Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”
“Yet you took matters into your own hands.”
“We’re supposed to be messengers of God.”
“And God told you to seek vengeance?”
I lean my head on my hand. “I swore I’d return the favor for what she did to me. And then I survived to do it, which seems like encouragement, if not endorsement. Whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap.”
Father Simon waits. I haven’t made a convincing argument. There isn’t one. I’m here to confess, not to argue about Caroline.
“Her name is Haley,” I tell him, and my heart punches at my rib cage. “And I want to keep her. It would be—it is a sin to keep her.”
“I disagree.”
The sound I make isn’t appropriate for a confessional. “I’m sorry, Father. I’m fucking—I’m shocked you would say that. I have to let her go. How can I let her go?”
“If God has given her to you, then would it not be a sin to send her away?”
“God didn’t send her to me. I went after her family. Her father. And then I found her, and I took her.”
“The Lord moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.”
“That’s a poem, Father, though I appreciate your sense of humor.”
He sighs. “You are a good man. If Haley needs your protection, then you will find a way.”
A flicker of anger. Of grief. “Your faith is clouding your vision. I’m not a good man.”
“The children who study at the after-school program you fund would disagree.”
My face goes hot with suspicion. A sensation of being seen when I didn’t want to be witnessed. It’s true that I have made good here. Anyone who works with children has been background-checked to within an inch of their lives. There are rules in place to protect them. Protocols. I am heavily involved with the teachings at the after-school program. I’ve forbidden the staff from using guilt as a cudgel. It’s different here. I have pissed off the diocese and the Vatican on more than one occasion because of it. “That’s not—”