Rachel
I’d wanted to come back for so many years. But that part of my life was a locked box, and I’d been afraid to open it for fear of finding things inside I couldn’t stuff back in. Yet over the last four days, since Caine had revealed so much, the call to come back here had gotten so strong I couldn’t ignore it any more.
There was no service going on, but in the last ten minutes people had started to wander in and sit in the pews near the confessional. Perhaps, they were waiting for a session to start. I sat on the other side of the church, lost in my thoughts for the better part of an hour. My attention kept drifting over to the people going in and out of the confessional door—the sinners. A woman with a young child walked in and sat down. The little girl was probably about ten years old, not much older than I was when I’d started to come on Saturdays.
After an older gentleman exited the confessional, the woman leaned over and said something to the little girl before going inside for her turn. It reminded me of when I used to come with my mom before she got sick. I closed my eyes and saw Mom and me sitting in those pews twenty years ago.
“You know how when you have a stomachache or a fever and you go to the doctor?” she said as we waited for her turn to go into the weird room.
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is where you come when something is bothering you inside here.” Mom patted her chest.
“When my chest hurts? Like when Riley had pa-noma?”
Mom laughed. “Pneumonia and no. Not your chest. What’s inside of you that makes you feel a certain way.”
I crinkled up my nose. “What’s inside of me?”
“Your soul. It’s the thing you can’t name. It’s the truth of what makes you you.”
I laughed. “I don’t understand.”
Mom smiled. “You don’t have to right now. Just remember this is a place you can come to talk to God about anything.”
“What if He’s busy?”
She leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Then one of His angels will be listening.”
I hadn’t even realized I was crying until a tear landed on my folded hands. Opening my eyes, I looked over to where the little girl was sitting, and the pews were all empty. She was gone, and so was her mother. They’d gone without my even noticing. The open confessional door caught my attention. Looking around, I realized I was the only person left in the church. My chest had a crushing sensation inside from the old memories of my mom.
“Well, this is where you come when something is bothering you inside here.”
“What’s inside of me?”
“It’s the truth of what makes you you.”
Before I could debate it, I’d stood and headed over to the confessional.
It was surreal to step inside after all these years. I might be twenty-five now, but it was a ten-year-old girl who took a seat. Nothing had changed. The room looked the same as it had the last time I’d stepped inside. I could hear breathing on the other side of the confessional—the priest was waiting. And this time I’d seen him walk in. I knew it was actually a priest.
Eventually, after I debated walking out over and over, I took a deep breath and slid open the wooden window that covered the lattice screen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been fifteen years since my last confession.”
Except for a few go on and tell me more comments, the priest had been relatively quiet. After a rocky start where I wasn’t sure how to begin or what to say, I miraculously babbled on for the better part of half an hour. It was the most I’d ever spoken to anyone about my mother, my sister, my guilt, or the years of struggle over being ashamed for what I’d allowed to happen.
“What brought you here today? It sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of tinking of late.” Thinking—I thought I’d heard a brogue.
Even though I’d come here with confusion over Caine, we really hadn’t spoken about him much. What was bothering me, I’d realized, had little to do with him and more to do with me.
“It’s a really long story.”
“I’ve got nothing but time, my dear.”
I guess priests have heard it all, because after I finished my crazy story, he didn’t sound even the slightest bit shocked.
“Is there anything else you’d like to confess today?”
“Well, it’s been a really long time, so I’m sure I have a ton. I use bad language pretty frequently.”
The priest was quiet for a moment. “For your penance, I want you to say one Hail Mary and one Our Father and complete two acts of forgiveness.”
“Okay.”
I stood and looked at the lattice. The priest was facing the door, and I could only make out a vague profile.
“Thank you for listening, Father.”
I had one hand on the door when he stopped me. “Rachel?”
“Yes?”
“That first act of forgiveness should be easy. You haven’t done anything wrong. You need to forgive yourself.”
After I said my prayers, I returned to my car. It wasn’t until I was halfway home that something dawned on me. I hadn’t told him my name, yet the priest had called me Rachel.
On the way back, I did a lot of thinking. I decided to stop in at O’Leary’s and ask for a few days off. My head wasn’t in a good place, and I really needed to work on my thesis anyway. It was late afternoon, and the bar was quiet, with just a few ex-cop regulars hanging around with Charlie.
“Hey, Charlie. You have a minute?”
“Sure, sweetheart. You’re a heck of a lot more pleasant to look at than these two old guys.” He thumbed his finger at his buddies with a smile.
I took a seat at the other end of the bar, and Charlie filled a glass with Diet Coke before coming to talk to me.
“Would it be okay if I took a few days off? I can ask Ava to cover me.”
“Everything okay?”
“I just need to get caught up on some schoolwork.”
“Sure. Of course. And don’t worry about getting Ava to cover you. I’ll cover your shifts.”
“Thanks, Charlie. I really appreciate it.”
“Oh, by the way.” He walked to the register and lifted the money tray, removing an envelope from underneath. “Glad you and that professor broke up. I ran him. He’s got a record.”
“You ran him?”
He tossed the envelope on the counter. “Yeah. Told you I was going to check out the guys sniffing around you girls from now on. Guy’s got a record for assault. It’s old, and it was sealed because he was a juvie. But not too many criminals change their stripes.”
Rather than attempt to explain anything, I just said thank you. It was a fitting end to the day I’d had. When a few new patrons came in, Charlie went to make some wings, and I decided to open the envelope.
It was surreal to read a police report that involved Caine and Benny. The top half was all informational—name, date, location, time of incident. At the bottom of the page was a section labeled Narrative of Incident, and a paragraph had been written in an officer’s chicken-scratch handwriting:
On 8-3-02 at 15:35 hours, suspect committed an act of assault on an unrelated thirty-nine-year-old man. There were no witnesses to the attack, but when I arrived on the scene, the suspect was standing over the victim, who was unconscious. I observed cuts and blood on the suspect’s knuckles, consistent with the victim’s assault. Ambulance number 4631 was dispatched and arrived on the scene at 15:48 hours. The victim regained consciousness during the time the paramedics were treating him. The suspect admitted he had assaulted the victim but refused to give a statement other than requesting that police and social services be sent to 3361 Robbins Lane within the town of Pleasantville. Units were dispatched to the address to investigate. The suspect was searched and cuffed and placed into the back of the squad car while the scene was secured. He remained there until 16:50 when he was transported to the 33rd precinct for processing of charges on second-degree assault.
While I’d already known everything I read, somehow seeing it all on paper hit me. Caine had put my sister and me before himself, making sure we got the attention we needed before even considering what might happen to him. He’d done the same thing again a few weeks ago—or, at least he thought he had—choosing to sacrifice his own happiness for mine when he’d broken things off to avoid dredging up the past.
I closed my eyes. The memory of my mom that had come back today as I sat in the church once again flooded my thoughts. She’d told me to come to the church if I ever needed to talk, and God would listen.
“What if He’s busy?”
She leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Then one of His angels will be listening.”
Suddenly everything was clear. It wasn’t Caine I needed to forgive. He’d never done anything but try to protect me. I needed to forgive myself in order to accept him into my heart. I could run the other way, but it was too late, he already had my heart.
Charlie must have noticed me in deep thought and mistook that for being upset.
“You okay?” He pointed to the ripped envelope on the bar and the papers I’d been reading.
“I am now. Thanks, Charlie.”