Beauty and the Blitz

by Sosie Frost

  Judy paled. “Honestly, Honor, I didn’t mean anything by it—”

  “Like hell.”

  I slammed the door behind me and made it to the car before the anger prickled tears in my eyes. That frustration wasn’t directed at Judy or Mom.

  At least, not the new Mom.

  I shouldn’t have needed to defend her. Mom was clean. New. Forgiven. She started fresh—alone, without Dad to help.

  Wasn’t that enough for them? Wasn’t it admirable that she tried to fit together the pieces of her shattered life?

  No one liked her past, not the church, not me, but that was the darkness we weren’t supposed to forget. Those ragged, empty years had to stay there. We had to talk about them. Acknowledge them.

  Accept them as something that happened.

  But I wasn’t a fool. Accepting that terrible past was about as easy as confessing sins.

  It gave me an idea. I checked the time. Father Raphael held Reconciliations on Wednesdays, and I could make it to the church before his hours were done.

  Maybe it’d be easier that way.

  I arrived at St. Cecilia’s with ten minutes to spare. No one waited in the sanctuary, and the confessional door was propped open, waiting for a penitent soul.

  I prayed before I went inside, knowing full well what happened the last time I entered. I willingly trapped myself in the memory. This favor pained me, and I hoped having a solid wall and screen between us would…help?

  Make it easier?

  Give us distance?

  I sunk onto the kneeler. The door closed, and I blinked in the darkness. Father Raphael shifted, and the light cast by his phone abruptly darkened.

  “Go ahead, my child,” he murmured. “I’m listening.”

  How could a man be this intimidating and yet so comforting? I nearly forgot to speak. His voice embraced me just as dangerously as his arms.

  “Bless me, Father…” I crossed myself and sighed. “I…need a favor.”

  “Honor?”

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” His words warmed, like he was smiling.

  I loved that I made him smile.

  “Do you have a minute?” I asked. “There’s no one else here.”

  His amusement grew. “Is that so?”

  I groaned. What was it about this box that made all my words twist? I hadn’t meant to flirt. I didn’t think I’d tempted him.

  Or had I?

  “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean it that way.” I sighed, lowering my head. “It’s just been…a humbling day.”

  “Problems at the food pantry?”

  “How’d you know?”

  He shifted, and I imagined he pocketed his phone. “I got a couple texts from Judy.”

  “Great.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  The authority in his voice amplified within the confessional. He had such a power, not just over me, but over the entire congregation. Good power, but a control nevertheless. His ability to grant absolution through the Lord was awe-inspiring, but even that blessing gutted me.

  His whisper stole my breath, and his words warmed me. Absolution seemed as unlikely as being able to support my family.

  “I um…have to talk to you,” I said.

  “Would you prefer to speak in my office?”

  Yeah, right. The office was just as dangerous as the confessional. I didn’t trust my strength, discipline, or patience now. I needed comfort, and I’d take the wrong kind from him.

  “This is easier, actually,” I said.

  “Are you confessing, my angel?”

  “Maybe? No.” I shivered over the nickname. “Do you remember that day in the adoration chapel? When I asked for you to be a priest for a few minutes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I have that Father Raphael back?”

  He hesitated. His words might have edged hard, but he had infinite patience for me. Wasn’t sure I deserved it.

  “Honor, you never lost him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m a priest, first and foremost. I live for this community. If you need me, I’ll be here. Always. I promise.”

  I believed him, and that’s what made this so much harder.

  “I need a favor from you. As a priest.”

  “Anything.”

  “The Second Chances charity is organized by the diocese. Mom had been a part of it. They helped her with her rent.” I lowered my gaze. “Our rent.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s only a yearlong program, and Mom’s reached the end. She needs to reapply for the help.” I spoke quickly, almost jumbling the words. “I can put off my classes for a while and get a full-time job somewhere, but I don’t think we’ll have enough money to find a new apartment before…”

  “How can I help? Ask anything of me, Honor.”

  “That’s the thing. I know what I have to ask of you…but I hate to do it.”

  “You need a letter of recommendation.” He answered for me. “Something from me which will recommend your mother to the program.”

  “Yes.”

  His voice hadn’t changed, still echoed in confidence and power. “Of course, I’ll write it.”

  It should have relieved me.

  It didn’t.

  I hesitated for too long.

  “Honor?”

  “I’m not sure I want you to write it.”

  Father Raphael hummed. “Do you have another place to live?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have family to stay with?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me why you won’t accept this help.”

  I stiffened. It was easier to get mad at him than myself. “You know, you tend to order people around a lot. Especially in here.”

  “It’s a necessity when they’re being stubborn.”

  “I’m not stubborn.”

  “Foolish then.”

  “Father—”

  “This is a good program. Even if you’re too proud to take the help, your mother deserves it.”

  “It’s not pride.”

  I averted my eyes from the screen and traced the intricate wooden carvings in the confessional. He didn’t make this easy. His voice so often enraptured me, but his silence could punish.

  “I know we need the help,” I said. “But there are others out there who need it more—people I see every day in the food pantry or volunteering with the church or wherever I’m called to help.”

  “You don’t believe you’re worthy of help?”

  I didn’t answer, and in my hesitation, he realized the truth I tried so hard to hide.

  “You don’t think your mother is worthy.”

  I closed my eyes. It might have been easy then, just to whisper it, to tell him.

  Forgive me, Father, I’d deny my mother the help she needs.

  But I didn’t confess it. I threaded my fingers into a fist.

  “Why did you return home, Honor?” he asked.

  “To help Mom.”

  “Why, my angel? It’s not enough to reflect on our actions—be it our sins or our virtues. You must examine why you’ve done the things you’ve done.”

  I wish I knew the answer.

  Was it guilt?

  Pity?

  Or was it just so no one else was forced to deal with her problems?

  I didn’t like the question, and I hated more my answers. “What do you want to know? Why did I wait until after she was clean before coming home…or why did I abandon her after Dad died?”

  “Who said you abandoned her?” How did his voice stay so kind?

  “I did.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  This was getting too heavy. I think I accidentally lied to him. I asked for a priest, and I got one. Now I wished for my flirty, sexy, dangerous Daddy El…not the man who knew exactly what to say to cut through me.

  “I bet other people believe I abandoned her,” I said.

  “I asked about you.”

  “It’s
hard to abandon someone you never had.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  He wouldn’t understand. “The woman here today is not my mother. The woman drunk in the middle of the afternoon or passed out in the tub, burning a hole in the shower curtain with her cigarette, that’s the mother I knew. I won’t say she raised me because she couldn’t. But she was there. She’s the one I remember.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, Honor. Those were her addictions.”

  “But I knew those addictions. The woman here, now, is a stranger to me. Someone I’m supposed to love and trust.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I do…but I’m waiting for my heart to break.”

  “You don’t think she’ll stay sober.”

  “I don’t have much faith in her.”

  “I understand.”

  I closed my eyes. “Is it a sin, Father?”

  “To feel hurt? Betrayed? Absolutely not.”

  “But…what about honoring thy mother and everything?”

  “The only sin here is that you would lie to yourself and her about your feelings.” He lowered his voice. His words were meant to guide me. They only coiled me tighter. “Have you forgiven her?”

  “Forgiven her?”

  “For her past?”

  I leaned back on my knees. “Like it’s that easy.”

  “Some would say it is.”

  They would be wrong.

  “Do you know how my dad died?” I asked.

  I knew he did. As the parish priest, he would have known the history of the area. But he respected me too much to say it, even in a confessional where only God could hear.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “He was killed in a drunk driving accident.” I swallowed bile, the remnants of bitter mourning. “At least, that’s what we tell people. It’s true, but it’s a lie by omission. It’s misleading. It sounds like another car was at fault, that it was an accident.” I couldn’t look at the screen. “There was only one car that day.”

  Father Raphael spoke when I could no longer. “Your mother was the driver.”

  I remembered the day, but I could only imagine the accident. I had to read the police reports to get the details. The first responders couldn’t understand why it happened—how people could be so reckless.

  I did.

  It wasn’t recklessness.

  It was foolish, undying, enabling love that killed him.

  “Mom wanted to drive, but she hadn’t told Dad about the pills she popped before she got into the car. Probably didn’t tell him about the drinks either. But she liked to drive, and Dad always wanted her to feel…” I shrugged. “Special? Normal? Like she didn’t need the alcohol and pills. He treated it like she lacked confidence, not like an addiction. And that killed him. He wanted her to feel in control, like she didn’t need the crutch. He always helped her, but in the wrong way.”

  “What happened?”

  The obvious. “She lost control of the car, and he lost his life.”

  “Where were you?”

  “College. I got the call during a lecture, but I usually ignored her when she tried to get ahold of me.” I explained before he wondered how a daughter could be so heartless. “The last time I had talked to her was when I sent her a thousand dollars of my own money to help with the bills. Dad never saw the check, and Mom had nearly killed herself on the drugs she bought.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He was the one who told me to focus on school, not to look back. So…I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not if I wanted a life free of that misery.”

  I still didn’t know if it was the right choice or not, but as hard as it was to watch Mom destroy herself, I couldn’t stand how Dad enabled every bad decision she made. He loved her, and he was just as responsible for the damage it caused.

  “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.”

  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 th
e 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.

  Men lived for two things. Sex and food. I could indulge in one of those pleasures.

  Mondays were casserole day. The women’s group often prepared meals for me for the week. I owed a debt of gratitude to anyone in the congregation who brought me lasagna, a pot of chicken soup, or spaghetti. My responsibilities didn’t leave me a lot of time to cook. Even if it had, it wasn’t like I’d stayed at home long enough to learn family recipes from my mother.

  Most of the women visited around dinner time, competing with the others to bake the freshest bread, create the most elaborate casserole, or share the most secret of recipes. I didn’t mind having my meals organized for the week.

  Especially since the women’s group volunteered their newest baker to bring me dessert.

  Honor had promised me something…sweet.

  She arrived late. Ten o’clock. She rapped a soft beat against my back door. The rectory was nothing more than a two-bedroom house on the property next to the church, but Honor treated it as though it were the gateway to hell.

  Or Heaven?

  Did she still fear she’d lose that grace…or had she already mourned its destruction?

  She wore a light dress, something casual and pink, perfect for the close summer weather that layered the parish in a constant, simmering heat. She clutched a cake carrier in her hands, brandishing it before her as if the plastic case would protect her against that threatening sweetness.

  “Evening, Father Rafe,” she whispered.

  “Honor.”

  She squirmed under my quiet stare.

  Why did I like that so much?