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“Whose life did you take?” the Deacon asked, no change to his voice. He sounded as he always did.
“The church in California. I … the reason I said it might be hard to come in here … I—” she was failing, fumbling for words in the dark. She’d practiced it all, but reciting the words in the bathroom, staring at her own reflection, it was nothing like being in that small space with him. “I fell in with bad people, and I should have left. But I couldn’t. I had nowhere to go. I’d burned every bridge in my life. I had no family left. So people were looking for me, for, for something else.”
“What were they looking for you for?”
She laughed sadly. “I’ll save that for another day. But, anyway, on the ranch, bad things happened to people. But never to me. They left me alone. But I wanted to leave. So much. And one night, strangers came to the property. And, I thought, maybe I can help right this. Maybe I can help save people from this in the future.”
The Deacon was silent, and she went on. “I killed some of the women. Women who had hurt Nicholas. I should have done something sooner, helped sooner. Taken him from there. But I didn’t. I don’t know that I could have helped him, or if he would have come with me. He was such an angry boy, mocking and mean at times. But they made him that way. And … I don’t know. I wasn’t myself that night. The fire and the screams, I couldn’t help myself.” She lied. She could help herself and helped herself to the taking of lives. And when she’d tasted a spatter of blood on her lips, she’d liked it. And nothing terrified her more than that. The long, dormant thrill she’d felt when she killed her sister and Gregory … it came to life again. It spoke to her. So she’d fled, new beginnings in every town. New ways to outrun what was inside of her.I couldn’t help myself.She turned the phrase over in the dark, and the Deacon sat silent.
She didn’t want to be like Markus. To worship at the altar of the make-believe. But she’d believed it somehow, saw the winged God in her dreams on the ranch. The dreams had left her only to return the night she ate dinner with the Deacon, after he’d told her hewanted more. She saw God, his son, wandering. She saw the Deacon’s face and woke in a sweat, aroused, and she once again craved that copper sweetness.
She pushed the thought away, struck by the silence of the Deacon.
After closing her eyes, she spoke again. “I am truly sorry for all my sins.”
The Deacon opened his eyes then, and she turned to him. His head was down when he spoke. “I can tell you’re shaking, Valerie. You don’t have to be afraid. I am bound to hold our confession.”
“It’s not that,” she started.
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t want you to think … think—”
“You have expressed contrition. I can hear it in your voice, Valerie. You were protecting Nicholas. Can you say it for me? Speak clearly the Act of Contrition?”
Valerie shifted in her seat, turning away from the Deacon’s profile. “My God, I am sorry for my sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, suffered and died for us. In his name, my God, have mercy.” Valerie closed her eyes, steepled her fingers, and brought them to her forehead.
The Deacon looked at Valerie with his white eyes, but she did not see, did not look up as he spoke. “May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of his love for humankind, forgive you of all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy Deacon, by his power given me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Valerie’s lips moved, saying Amen with the Deacon.
“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.” He looked away, smiling as he reached for his glasses.
Valerie said, “His mercy endures forever.”
And the Deacon said, “Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.”
When Valerie looked through the partition, her words faded as she said, “Thanks be to God.”
The Deacon was not there, and the shutting of the door as he stepped into the church, leaving her alone in the confessional, echoed in her heart.
After she gathered herself, she opened the confessional door. The Deacon was kneeling, his back to her. He mumbled something before standing and walking to the first pew. He sat town, turning to her, his glasses on his face.
The sight of him in his grey shirt struck her, and she warmed. She’d only seen him in his lay attire when he looked like the people whom he served. Now he looked important, as important on the outside as he made her feel on the inside.
She walked to him, taking in the empty pews, before turning her gaze upward to the second level. The pews there were empty too, the windows showing the dark of the night.
The Deacon patted the pew, and she sat next to him.
“What else is there, Valerie? Speak to me as your friend. Not someone seeking absolution.”
She wanted to curl into him. To feel his arm around her as she spoke. But she knew that wouldn’t happen. Not yet.Friends until we cannot.
“I have these dark thoughts,” she said. “And I don’t know what to do with them. I have dreams and desires. I try to control them. And I do, for the most part. But I was born wrong. I have this thing … I don’t show people. I’ve never been intimate with a man. And that’s not normal, right? I’m twenty-six.”
“You’re unmarried. I don’t think there’s anything abnormal about that, Valerie. I, too, have urges.”
“Like what?” she asked, looking up at him.
