“Mom, you’ve never cooked a meal like that in your life.”
“Nonsense.” Mom frowned as she remembered. “I’m sure I have.”
“Not in the past sixteen years,” I said. “I don’t think you know how to cook.”
“We’ll learn.”
“You don’t just learn this stuff.”
“Of course you do. Everyone does.”
Maybe when they were younger. Maybe before the drugs addled their minds. Maybe before they became a woman who couldn’t remember that she put the bread in the freezer and the peanut butter in the cabinet.
“Mom, I don’t think we should do this. Money is…really hard to come by. And we’re behind on the bills—”
“The Lord will provide, Honor. He did in the past.”
“No, He really didn’t.” I tossed the statement on the table. “Dad was the one who provided. Dad shifted his schedules and took harder hours and did everything he could to make ends meet. But now he’s dead, and I’m here trying my hardest. I gave up my school, my job, everything to come here, and we don’t have enough money to—”
Mom crossed her arms. “Honor Maria Thomas, you tell me right now what this is really about.”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to have them come…here.”
Mom looked over our apartment, her mouth drawing into a thin line. “I spent half a year confined to a space smaller than this. I am proud of this home we have. I am proud that I can walk out that door anytime I want without a guard on the other side. I can wear my Sunday best and not an orange jumpsuit. I can go to church and talk with those nice God-fearing people.” She shook her head. “And I’m not going to be ashamed if I invite them into my home.”
“But this isn’t home!” I couldn’t hide the bitterness in my voice. “Home was across town. With Dad. In the house he built with his bare hands for us. A house we don’t have anymore.”
“Home is where your family is, Honor.”
“If that’s true, half of our home is buried six feet under.” I pitched the bank statement onto the table. “Dad’s dead. This family is broken.”
“Don’t you say such things.”
“I hope that money is going to a dinner, Mom. I really, really do.”
“Honor—”
I stood. “I gotta get to the church. We’re doing the festival prep later.”
Mom stood in silence, watching as I grabbed my purse. I hated myself for leaving, for the words I said and the bitterness in my voice when I spoke of family.
But she had never acted like a mother.
And, God help me, I wasn’t acting like the daughter she needed.
The door closed behind me, and I nearly wept.
I didn’t believe her story. A dinner party? With all that cash missing?
She had been clean for an entire year. Why was she throwing it away now? After all the confessions? The jail time?
Dad’s funeral?
She wasn’t the woman I remembered, but I couldn’t allow the mother from my past to return. How was I supposed to help her if I couldn’t face her?
If I hadn’t forgiven her for everything in the past?
I drove to the church, hating how Father Raphael’s voice haunted me. His words repeated in my mind.
Do you resent your mother?
Lately, he was a bad priest, but I knew so much good existed in him. First he lost himself in sin, and now Mom destroyed herself in vice. Two good souls depended on me to make things right. The easiest way to heal Father Raphael was to remind him why he became a priest.
To protect his flock.
I slipped into the church and greeted the few parishioners still lingering in the halls. His office door was closed. I stared at the handle.
I hadn’t come to experience the thrill of his state. I wasn’t there for a kiss or a touch. I wouldn’t even return the rosaries I wore around my neck.
I came to talk to him. My heart ached, and I longed to hear his voice whisper a kind word. Advice. Maybe see his smile and accept a compliment or two.
Was it a sin to imagine a life without guilt?
Probably, if only because it led to my most dangerous temptation. If I let myself imagine that life, I’d fantasize about something deeper than lust and desire. A moment without vows or collars.
But I had enough sins to atone for. I wouldn’t tempt myself to steal more of Father Raphael than I already had. For that reason, I turned from his office and meant to escape back into the church.
I nearly collided with him.
And the warmth and joy that shuddered through me was worse than any sin.
“Hi,” I said.
Father Raphael gave me a knowing and twisted smirk, like he’d read through my intentions. “My angel.”