The man falls quiet, then, his tone more modulated, he states, “She—”
“Before you carry on with that sentence, she can do whatever she wants, it is you who sinned. It is your sins I want to hear, not hers. And if she did sin, I’m sure she’ll come here and tell me herself. She can ask for forgiveness and I can give her absolution.
“What she did has nothing to do with you, Paulo. So, before you utter another word, before I toss you out of this booth, you will stop right there and reconsider your confession.”
The strength in his voice, the passion, it’s there all of a sudden.
Where at the lectern he was wooden and almost lifeless as he invoked his sermon, now? He’s alive.
And it makes parts of me tingle that shouldn’t be damn well tingling in church.
I gulp, trying not to be turned on by his strength, by the way he stated everything that needed to be said.
The sinner here is this Paulo schmuck.
Not the woman who dared to wear a short fucking skirt. Like that’s a goddamn crime.
Tension throbs through me as I wait for the bastard’s next words, and I can almost feel the prick’s mind churning, trying to figure out how to make this right, how to say what he wishes to confess without making himself look too bad.
I know how it feels to confess. You always try to lessen the sin, try to make yourself look better than you actually are. I never wondered how boring that must be for the poor priest who’s having to listen to it.
“I touched her.”
Three words.
Each one stuns me. Not in surprise, but like I’ve been tasered. Each syllable makes me feel like he’s taken out a knife and stabbed me somewhere.
Like a memory playing in my head, a sorrowful soundtrack to my past, I hear Diana’s admission as to what her father put her through, Linda’s too. They entwine with Nerea’s and Wanda’s... all women I’ve saved from men. All of them who I’ve taken out of danger.
I want to help the girl this bastard touched. The need to find her, to save her is a dull ache in my body.
Too often, the victims are blamed. Too often, they’re cast in the shadows because they daren’t let the light touch them.
They shun family and friends for their cruel husbands and boyfriends, they cut their support from their lives because they’re manipulated by the sacks of shit who should love and adore them, who should cherish them, but instead, who work hard to isolate them. To bind them in all ways.
To turn their relationship, something that should be a source of joy, into a prison cell.
And the sad thing is, it works.
Isolating, separating them away from friends and loved ones, works.
I feel like, some days, I’m the only one who sees them.
It’s how I find the people I help. Just like with Diana, who was trembling on the phone, I notice what others prefer to avoid, and from then, I act.
But here, now, I can’t act.
I’m hearing things from the side I never wanted to hear.
And, God, poor Savio.
Dear Lord, how he must feel having to hear this, having to deal with the self-pity. Like Paulo is the victim and not the girl he’s touched?
“You repented your sin two weeks ago, Paulo. A similar sin.” His tone is back to being wooden. “Did you learn nothing when you sought penance?”
“I-I tried, Father. The temptation—”
“Temptation is meant to be fought,” Savio snaps, and once again, fire zooms around my veins. While the excess of energy should tire me, it doesn’t.
It energizes me.
“I-I tried.”
“Not hard enough. What did you do?”
“I-I can’t—”
“You can and you will.” A harsh breath escapes him. “She’s your niece, Paulo. She’s fifteen years old. What on Earth is the matter with you?”
When the man starts sobbing, I’m not surprised. He’s painting himself as the one who’s being wronged here, and it makes me hate him. Makes me loathe him.
I think of Linda. Of how she passed away at the hands of a man who vowed to love her. I think of this poor girl, whoever she may be, being touched by a man who is supposed to love her like she’s his own daughter. Blood of his blood.
Flesh of his flesh.
Sickness pools in my stomach, but instead of making me want to puke, I feel anger.
It vibrates inside me, just like it throbs in Savio.
I’ve never felt this way before.
In the past, I just wanted to help.
I wanted to get the person I was helping away from their abuser.
This is different.
This is...
I suck in a breath.
Violent.
It whispers through my veins, poisoning where it touches.
Clenching my eyes closed, I wait for his next words, dreading them even as I know to brace myself.
“I never mean to—”
“But you still did.” Savio’s ire is real. Just like mine. It seems to choke us, even as it floods us with life. “Do you feel repentance for what you did?”
His sudden about-face has me jolting in surprise.
While I had no desire to hear whatever that bastard had to say, for Savio to suddenly give him an out?
It doesn’t make sense.
“Yes, I do. I truly want redemption. I’m sorry, so sorry.”
“They all say that,” I hiss under my breath, even though neither man can hear me.
They all whisper words of apology, begging for a forgiveness they haven’t earned as they weep, on their knees sometimes, trying to get their victim back.
I tip my chin up, silently pleading for Savio to condemn this man. The only weight a priest can truly throw around is the refusal to absolve someone. He can’t go to the police, can’t do anything to make someone truly ‘behave.’ But he can refuse to let them atone.
It’s what always pissed me off about the mob and stuff. Maybe it was all in the movies, but the idea that a priest would condone murder and shit never sat right with me, and it told me someone beneath a cassock was taking bribes.
Jerks.
“I want to stop this,” Paulo whispers. “I don’t understand why I do it. Why I need—” Savio says nothing, and Paulo’s gulp is audible. “I hate myself. I-I tried to kill myself yesterday, Father. Anything to avoid these feelings, these thoughts—”
I blink at that, taken aback. And the anger whirls from me. Not because his niece’s abuser doesn’t deserve my anger, but because now I’m confused.
When Savio sends him on his way with a few token Hail Marys, I’m even more confused.
What just happened?
How did we go from a fury so strong it made the church vibrate with it to a penance so weak, the kid earned more time on his knees than Paulo did.
For a second, I falter.
I’d admit it.
But then, I think about the darkness in Savio’s eyes, think about what I saw in them, and I know something isn’t right.
When Paulo retreats to a pew, almost flinging himself on his knees, his shoulders shaking, I wonder if it’s all an act. Then I ask myself who he’s playing the role to. God? Savio isn’t watching, and he’s the only one Paulo thinks knows his dirty secret. So is he truly sorry?
As I pluck my bottom lip, another parishioner wanders over to the booth, and when she confesses to getting jealous over a neighbor’s lasagna recipe, it’s such a contrast to what I heard before that I almost want to laugh out loud.