Sweetest Sin(79)

“Well I don’t feel very idealistic. I remember the past sixteen years. I know what happened, and I saw how hard it was for her to stop. Her addiction didn’t end when Dad died. She finally kicked it when she went to prison for vehicular manslaughter. Dad couldn’t enable her then, and she couldn’t get a fix. She sobered up alone and widowed in a tiny jail cell.”

My words embittered, broken with a quiet whimper. The momentary weakness trembled my lip.

“I didn’t visit her in prison,” I said. “I couldn’t. I left after the funeral, and I went on with my life. I tried so hard to forget my own mother—my own sick mother—because I couldn’t look at her anymore. I felt nothing for her but grief and loss and this…this…”

“Tell me, Honor.”

“Anger.” I pointed to the apartment. The wretched walls became cells of my own guilt. “You asked me why I didn’t want you to write the letter of recommendation? It’s the same reason I didn’t want my mother getting groceries from the food pantry. She doesn’t deserve help!”

I covered my mouth, silencing the awful, terrible, damning truth. Father Raphael and I might have committed the worst of our sins together, but speaking those words felt worse than our forbidden relationship.

We didn’t share this sin.

This pain came from me.

Inside me.

Dark and secret and absolutely consuming me in a terrible rage. The truth ate at me. It festered, and those awful feelings would forever destroy any relationship I’d have with my mother.

Whoever she was.

The words poured from me. I didn’t look at Father Raphael, and I wished desperately for the confessional screen between us, the stark imposition of the church, the curse of the saints as they judged me.

This confession shredded my soul, and I wasn’t sure I deserved forgiveness.

“I blame her for everything. Her addiction ruined our lives. I never had a mother. Because of her we lost our homes and our friends and our families.” I met his gaze, losing myself in the comforting dark of his eyes. “Because of her my father is dead.”

I stood, tossing aside a box of empty tissues and rubbing my face raw with a paper towel instead. I hic-upped. Once. Twice. Too many times.

He came to my side and reached for a glass in the cabinet, as if he already knew the layout to our apartment. Or maybe it was so small and pathetic we only had one place where we could keep our glassware.

He filled the cup and held it for me.

I took the glass from his hands before I sipped, before I committed any more blasphemy. The water was cool. It helped to ease some of the ache.

Not all.

“She’s not that woman anymore.” The cup trembled in my hands. “No matter what I feel or remember or hate…she’s changed, Father. Completely. Totally. And even when I think she’s relapsed...” I pitched it in the sink. “She’s still sober.”

“You must talk with her.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

He shrugged, the dark cassock and collar taunting me. “Comes with the territory. And it helps. It works. Both of you still suffer from that horrible past. She needs to know how you feel.”

“Does she?” I swallowed. “She spent sixteen years in the hell of addiction. Don’t you think she’s suffered enough?”

“That’s up to you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I can’t tell you what to do.”

“You used to, Father.”

It wasn’t fair to turn the spite on him, but he was more patient than me.

“And that’s my own sin, Honor.”

I looked away. “So what am I supposed to do?”

“Forgive her.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you that either.”

“Well, open your book!” I didn’t mean to raise my voice. “Quote some more scripture at me like you always do. Tell me what Jesus would do. Act like a priest!”

He stiffened. “I am a priest, Honor.”

Yeah, and that was another problem I had yet to face.

I pushed past him, collapsing on the couch. I pulled my knees to my chest and lowered my gaze.

“Confronting her feels selfish.”

And confronting him was worse.

“It’s not selfish to want to heal,” he said.

“At the expense of another?”

“Ideally.” He circled before me, kneeling at my feet to look in my eyes. “You’d heal each other. Many people in this world hurt, Honor. And many more carry that burden with them. The more severe the wound, the more likely it is to infect others. Whether they intend it or not, that pain will hurt the innocent people who surround them. Ones who don’t deserve that misery.”