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“Did you tell her why there’s wire over the windows in the sanctuary?” I asked Father Patrick, who nodded while not looking up from the fence repair.
“Father Patrick told me that boys used to throw rocks,” Poppy said.
Father Patrick sat us down with our backs to the church so anyone looking at us wouldn’t see and he gave us rolls from breakfast, stuffed with ham. All the cats came out at the smell of that salty ham.
“Oh, look at you, you wee beggar,” Tommy said with never-before-seen sweetness. He pulled a piece of ham off his sandwich, even though I could hear his stomach growling. Father Patrick watched Tommy, and I wanted to tell him to stop showing the priest so much weakness.
“The boy who used to throw those rocks was my friend,” I said, staring at the top of Father Patrick’s head. “You remember Pikey Tom, don’t you, Father?” Apparently, I hadn’t grown out of provoking priests.
“Of course,” he said and pushed himself to his feet. He met my eyes like a man on the wrong side of a firing squad. “Do you?”
“Of course I fucking remember Tommy,” I said. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
“It’s been a long time and you’ve been gone. It’s sometimes easy to forget the things that cause us pain.”
Poppy was watching this all with wide eyes and I knew there’d be a litany of questions from her once we got back in the cottage. This was such a mistake. I knew it when I decided to come here.
“Why do you stay, Father?” I asked, stepping a little closer. Intimidating the smaller weaker man. At least, that was my plan, but the father only watched me. Tougher than he’d been when we’d met. When we’d built this garden.
“It’s my home,” he said.
“It’s a shit home.”
He nodded, accepting the idea. “I understand how you might think that.”
“Come on, Poppy,” I said. “Let’s go back to the cottage.”
“No. I want to help take down the chain link.”
“I have to go into the village, lass,” Father Patrick said with a smile that made me crazy. It was so kind and understanding. Benevolent. The same way he looked at Tommy when he asked if he could help feed those stupid cats. “The chain link will wait.”
“We won’t be here much longer,” she said. “This is kind of your last chance for help taking it down.”
“Then I suppose it can stay up,” he said, and I wanted to punch that smile right off his face. “There are worse things.”
I took Poppy’s hand, eager to get her away from that smile. That shed. That garden. All the worse things.
“Ronan,” he said, and Poppy stopped, all but forcing me to turn around.
“What?”
“There is something you could do for me.”
That I managed not to laugh in his face was a real win for me.
“Consider forgiveness,” he said, and at that, I could not control myself. I stepped back up the hill to him. Close enough to knock him to the ground if it came to that. Poppy came with me, holding onto my arm like she had a chance in hell of stopping me.
“For you? Never.”
“Forgiveness is not for the one being forgiven,” he said. Calmly, patiently, like I was still that kid with the temper. With the black eyes. With that friend who was still alive. “It’s for the one who forgives. Shed this darkness, son.”
“I’m not your goddamned son!”
He talked over me like I’d never said a word. “Shed this darkness before it’s the only thing you have left. Tommy wouldn’t want—”
“You don’t know what Tommy would want!” I snapped at the man. “Tommy would want to be alive. He’d want to be kicking your ass when you dropped off that file. He’d want a wife and kids and whole goddamned life that you took from him.”
“I know,” the priest said in the way of the resigned. “I know.”
“Ronan?” Poppy whispered, her hand covering my fist. “Let’s go. Take me back to the cottage.”
She pulled me out of that rage, that darkness and memory, and led me by the hand back to the cottage. The cat met us at the door, screeching at us like we’d missed curfew. Poppy opened the door, and we all went inside. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t try to touch me. Or hug me. She stepped away from me and just watched.
“Who was Tommy?”
“A friend.”
“At the school?”
I nodded, my lips closed, trying to keep the story down as best I could, though it seemed to want to be told.
“What happened to him?”
“The priests killed him.”
“Literally?” she asked, unable to hide her shock.
“They killed all the damn cats,” he said. “And they might as well have killed him too.”
“What can I do for you?”
I thought of the millions of cruel and hurtful things I could say to her that would slice me open and spill some of the bile in the back of my throat.
