Prey

There are several candles upon the altar for my vision to smear. The hue of warm firelight ebbs, and I feel just faint enough to steady myself on the edge of a rough oakwood pew. Its surface sort of peels like the shed of a snake, stings like one too. There was a time that I would give this old thing a moment of my attention, might even offer to fix it up, but now, as my unease relents and I see things more clearly, I know there is no helping what is already far gone.

Father Garcia clutches his forearms with one of the greiving. The two crowd to the left of the altar, where they so conveniently stored a loose case-worth of communion wine. Next to the wood rot, with a racing heart, I watch the way he fixes his face. His lips downturned and retreated. His eyebrows slanted in thick, beautiful sympathy. He has a square face and a big nose and a widow’s peak. Black hair that looks brown in the sunlight. He doesn’t smile. He nods curtly and finally says some words to the sad man he had embraced. Probably something plucked from the book he clings to with his other hand.

I don't remember even moving. I mean, I suppose I did hear the sound of silver-heeled flats acting as my shepard, but I don’t remember how I got from one point to the other. Yet here I stand, Father Garcia peering down at me with that startled look on his face.

I should turn around.

I should run right past the old pews, the mirrors. Away from this grief, and the wails of some childless mother. I should run, but then what? Sure, sure, I could turn myself in. I could retreat with my sadness and haunt a cell for however long they give me, but how is that fair?

I've learned to despise words like that. Nasty words like justice or forever, or condolence. Even when I hear myself wishing on them and feel myself believing them over time, they age and curdle like milk. There is only truth. There is only consequence.

“Are you thirsty?” I sound exactly as I look. There was no need to wait for an answer. Father Garcia is a desperate alcoholic; he’s always thirsty. He watched without objection as I poured red into a coffee cup. I watched as he looked away long enough to scan the exiting crowd. I fixed my sleeve and handed him his drink, and I didn’t regret a thing.

“You didn't come here for the service, did you?” he took a polite sip from the cup, but you could see it in his eyes, it's been too long and the day too rough. It was an unfortunate coincidence; I knew he would be leading a funeral today, but it was supposed to be outside. I planned on waiting for him here in an empty church, but the rain dismissed all of our plans. I just shook my head. No, I did not come for the service.

“I need a moment of your time, Father Garcia.”

“Again, so soon?” He and his brother had a unique voice, something about it makes you want to lean in and listen. I look away, guiding our attention to the ebony confessional behind us. It calls our name like a sachrinne lure. Like the devil.

“Will you not help a mourning mother?” he looks away quickly and tightens the grip on his lifeline, and I’m not talking about his bible. I’ve thought of a word I do like: Shame.

He wanted me to come back later, a different day altogether would be even better. He began to talk about the reception and how there are people out there who need him. They just lost a friend/cousin/nephew/coworker/son, and at such a young age, too. He has no choice but to help them; they are the ones who are miserable, and it’s just the right thing to do. He would bring the cup to his lips in every other breath, and I watched the movement carefully.

“I went to see the man again,” I interrupted, “ I just thought you would want to hear how it went. I must confess, how else will I be forgiven for what I’ve done?” Here’s another word: Fear.

Wordlessly, he downed his drink and beckoned me to follow.

The booth looked like a coffin in its own right. Like the ones built for wealthy people to spend eternity in. Father Garcia went his way, and I went mine. It felt equally claustrophobic as it did powerful to be hidden away in the dark like this. I took in a meaty breath and begged my heart to still. The light overhead switched on to let all those outside of us know, the priest was in.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been 8 days since my last confession.” There was a long silence. I could hear how his fingers impatiently tapped against his thigh. He sounded restless, utterly incapable of staying still. Something odd bubbled inside me. Here we both were, and I felt like everything I wanted to say, everything that sat on the tip of my tongue since I stepped into this church, sprouted wings and abandoned me.

“Well…” he said impatiently, and I couldn’t help but wonder how long it took for the mind to accept what the body already knew. When I spoke, I did so without thought or reason. Everything I needed to hear myself say was poured out of me.

“I couldn't help myself at first. My actions were no longer my own but those of someone spiteful and soured… Did you know he made bail?” There was a silence.

“ Seven days ago. The man who waited outside a park patiently for a mother to look away. The man who starved and humiliated a young girl. The one who stood outside my home and laughed at my pain, at my panic. The man who killed my daughter got to go home to his family and sleep in his fucking bed. I couldn’t help myself at all.” Father Garcia shifted in his chair. He sounded terrible, like something was stuck in his throat.

“There has not been a night since he’s been home that I haven’t been watching him. Sometimes parked down the street; other times, I found ways inside. He wasn’t a cautious man, I think he truly believed he had nothing to fear.” Father Garcia couldn't quite catch his breath. The word why sounded breathy on his lips. I could only see a griddled blur of him through the lattice, but I could imagine him pulling at his collar, terribly confused as to why he felt so ill. “He would read every day, right after he kissed his wife goodnight. He made her breakfast: pancakes, omelet, then avocado toast–

“Enough. I don’t–I have to get out of here,” he interrupted, and I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of me, like a kernel popping. He could leave at any moment, he could step out of this booth and there is nothing I could do to stop him, but he didn’t; he stayed planted in his seat. He wanted to hear what I had to say.

“Killing him is not my confession. He deserved to die, and there is not a monicum of regret I feel for what I did to him. My confession is killing you.” He cried softly and low as if he wanted privacy with his grief. I wanted to know who he cried for more in this moment. His brother or himself.

“I thought I could forgive you or maybe just forget altogether. There is a version of me, I hear her even now, and she is furious. She hates me for what I have done and what I am doing. She has this innate human knowledge of forgiveness and patience and faith. I wanted, I tried so hard to listen to her, but then I saw you and him last night arguing, and I finally understood.” There was nothing but soft sobs between us now. “Confess, Father.” My voice was kind, like a mother’s. Father Garcia began to pray in fierce whispers. Gradually, his prayers faded and the truth took their place.

“I knew what my brother did and I said nothing,” he talked through chokes and spasms as if the very action pained him. “I let days pass, three nights, while everyone was looking for your daughter, I knew …My brother is a sick man, and I thought, I just–I wanted to help him. I wanted to be there for him and put him on a better path. I had no idea he would do what he did, I swear.”

“What else?” I was on the edge of my seat. I wanted him to say something else, something that made sense.

“After it all… even when he was arrested, I still kept my silence. I was a coward. I spent my every waking moment drunk…I-I paid his bail.”

“Why?” I strained my neck, lacing my fingers in the lattice to bring myself closer to him. There was no fight on the other side; he just lay there sticky with his grief, dying. He looked just like his brother, even in the end.

“I forgave him for what he had done because someone had to.”

I leaned away with a sigh. There has been this chaotic knot winding tighter together inside me. It was born the moment I lost sight of her in the park. It grew tighter, feeding itself throughout the search. This thing inside me festered in its agitation. I thought it would unravel when I killed the man who killed my daughter, but it didn’t; it only spread. I thought it would unravel when I poisoned Father Garcia’s wine, but even now it grows. I have lost my appetite for forgiveness, and I will take this pain to the grave.

We sat with each other for a little while longer.

“I don’t know what to do with myself without her,” I confessed, but it was too late; Father Garcia was already dead.

The rain has settled, and the strange funeral party has returned outside. I used to love how I felt after a storm. The air was thick and humid, and I loved it. Now I can’t stand the way it touches my skin. Further ahead, past the wake, a woman dressed in black sat on a bench. She did not hold herself or stir. She sat so still that one would honestly mistake her for a statue. I found myself, wordlessly, by her side. Unsettled by this muggy air, we sat with nothing left to do.