Page 43 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

Tiny nods, barely visible in the heap.

“Neodcházej… počkej!” Eliska’s tiny voice. Don’t go … wait.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

It’s Lucia who answers, her Portuguese accent thick. “You stay for sleep?”

“You want me to stay until you’re asleep, or to sleep here with you?”

“Until we sleep.”

I really should get to the meeting. I don’t want to be up all night, but at their little nods, I sit down.

It’s quiet for long stretches. The abbey’s structure makes settling sounds, creaks, and ticks. An owl hoots somewhere outside. The girls murmur.

“Go to sleep,” I whisper.

“Too quiet,” Mathilde grumbles.

Too peaceful.

That thought hurts. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I consider what to do. Before she left and married Parker Lazarus, Alice—our old team leader—used to sing during the quiet nights. She has a beautiful voice. It carried warmth into all the cold corners. But she knew Nina Simone and other, more soulful songs. Tawny has her record collection. I could maybe play a few, if I knew how to set up the turntable. The only songs I know the lyrics to are from the musical Annie. I watched it on repeat during my days inside the asylum.

“Do you want me to sing something?” I ask anyway.

The overwhelming consensus is, surprisingly, yes, so I reluctantly settle in and hope the men have gone to sleep, because this could get embarrassing.

“Just thinking about tomorrow,” I sing softly, “clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow…”

As I sing the orphan Annie’s refrain, I think about that time in the asylum. How I latched onto this movie and watched it on repeat, preferring to sink into the life of another unfortunate redheaded girl who was much worse off than me.

My mother blamed me for my father’s death. Before that, her cruelty came in veiled comments about me ‘flaunting’ my looks. About me, ‘asking for trouble.’ But over the following years, her attention turned foul and toxic. Bitter. I would hear her whispering to the other women at church, affirming their suspicions that there was something wicked inside me, too old for a child to bear. Too sexual. Men couldn’t help themselves around me.

The funny thing was that back then, I wasn’t like this—I didn’t have an overpowering need for sex, a need to touch and to be touched in return. To feel.

No … I developed that afterward.

I didn’t even understand what an orgasm was until the doctors tried to fry the urges out of me. It was in the institution, surrounded by other confused teenagers, and so lonely that I became sexually hyperactive. It was right around the time I realized my mother was never coming for me.

After joining the Sisterhood, I used to imagine tracking her down. Sometimes the fantasies were to show her that her words didn’t break me, that I’m ten times the woman she’ll ever be. Sometimes I fantasized about dragging my dagger across her throat. But most of the time, I just wanted to look her in the face one last time and tell her that I know.

I know my father’s death was her fault, not mine.

But I never could bring myself to do it.

You don’t choose the family you’re born into. Some people hit the jackpot, but some hit rock bottom with their first breath.

These girls don’t know it yet, but they’re forming a new family. A better one. And if it’s the last thing I’ll do, I see that they live long enough to enjoy it.

When the girls eventually fall asleep, I softly close the door and twist the key in the lock, and then I stand outside with a fist pressed to my lips.

The world is quiet except for the pounding of my beating heart.

And then, behind me, muffled behind a door, Zeke starts singing Hard Knock Life.

“Shh.” I rush over to his door and pat the surface. “The girls just went to sleep.”

Silence.