“She kept calling me that day,” I said. “So many times I actually turned my phone off. I didn’t know what happened until hours later when a family friend texted me.”
He was dead in an instant. No time for goodbyes. No plane tickets to rush home for a final moment with him.
He died, and our lives changed completely.
“Mom was charged with vehicular manslaughter, but we had a judge who wanted to get her help, not lock her up. She spent six months in jail, and then she was released into rehab programs to get sober. She’s a year clean now.”
“Are you proud of her for that?” he asked.
“It’s hard to be proud after what happened,” I said. “I’m glad she recovered. I’m relieved.”
“Can you forgive her for those sixteen years of addictions?”
I hedged, trying to keep my voice light. “Do I have to?”
He chuckled. “It’s the foundation of our faith, my angel. Guilt, shame, rage, disappointment…they’re all burdens, to us and the ones we love. Your mother has changed. Repented for that time. You can shed those burdens too.”
“Forgive and forget?”
“Is it so impossible?”
Yes. No.
I made it that way.
“I can’t forget these last years, Father,” I said. “No matter how hard I want to, no matter how useless it is to obsess over it.”
“Useless?”
“Yes. That woman—the addict and thief and sick, selfish liar—is gone. I can’t forgive her. That person no longer exists.”
“Honor—”
“I can’t be mad at her now. She’s changed. Dredging it up won’t fix my childhood, and it won’t ease that pain. She hardly even remembers that part of her life, not when the drugs and blackouts stole entire years from her. Why would I make her relive those nightmares? She shouldn’t have to answer for a repented past because I’m struggling to accept how things turned out.”
“Do you resent your mother?”
The question came quick. Hard.
Without mercy.
And I had no idea how to respond.
“I shouldn’t,” I whispered.
“Do you?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does, or you wouldn’t have needed to sit in a confessional, in the dark and privacy, to ask me for a favor I would willingly give your family.”
“You’ll write the recommendation?”
“Of course.”
That was all I needed to hear.
“Thank you, Father.”
I crossed myself though I had neither confessed nor earned any blessings. Father Raphael wasn’t pleased. His voice hardened.
“Sit, Honor.”
“I have to go.”
“We’re not done.”
Yes, we were. “I can’t be here anymore.”
“Why?”
Now the tears did come. For him, but not for her.
“Because every time I’m near you, Father, I reveal more and more of my soul.”
“As you should, my angel.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a good priest…and you’re a good man.” I leaned against the confessional door, my words a whisper in the silence of the sanctuary. “And that makes you more dangerous than any temptation.”
Chapter Ten – Raphael
The women of the parish didn’t understand my vow of celibacy.
Of course they liked it—something about a strong man resisting his weaker urges gave them confidence. They could trust me. Tell me their secrets. Ask for my advice in their marriages. Reveal their affairs.
And I was immune to their common and vulgar sins.
We all suffered from lust, and not nearly enough of my flock prided themselves in virtue.
I did.
I had.
And the righteous power my faith and commitment afforded me was a protection against those base instincts. Or, at least, protection against the one threat to my vow.
Honor.
So far, I had defeated my temptations. I’d overcome my depravities with fasting, prayer, and enough cold showers to dramatically lower the electricity bill for the rectory. But sleepless nights were a small price to pay for conquering sin.
If I could only teach Honor the same restraint—the same denial of that sensual and devious desire—I’d protect her virtue as well.
Mondays were my days off, though I often kept busy with volunteer work, meetings, and the occasional emergency, spiritual or otherwise. Idle hands and minds were too often lost in the past, and I refused to sully my present and future with the sins of my childhood.
Or the nightmares bred from it.
So I exercised, prayed, showered, and visited Benjamin. He slept as I watched mindless TV at his bedside. The nurses said he had been sleeping more. I prepared myself for what that meant, but it hadn’t helped. My mind darkened, and I returned home only because, aside from Sundays during Mass, Monday evenings usually brightened my spirits.