My eyes widened, and my body went still. “How do you know about that?”
He searched my eyes. “It wasn’t a priest. It was me.”
I think I was in shock. I didn’t understand what I was feeling. I wasn’t upset or angry—I just felt sort of…numb, like I was lost in a heavy fog and couldn’t figure out which way to go. My palms were clammy and legs heavy, even though I was sitting. A wave of lightheadedness mixed with nausea washed over me, and I held on to the sides of the chair.
“Rachel?”
I heard Caine say my name, but I wasn’t really listening.
“Rachel? Maybe you should lie down.”
That was probably what I should’ve done, considering how I felt, but I needed answers.
“When did you figure out it was me?”
Caine smiled sadly and reached into his pocket. When he pulled his hand out, he opened his fist to show me a dozen or so pennies in his palm.
“I kept them all. I have no idea why. But I did. All these years.”
Confused, I took one from his hand. “These are…”
He nodded. “The ones you used to toss into the confessional so I’d have good luck.”
“You kept them?”
“Honestly, I knew I was doing something wrong even then, but after I realized you believed in good luck despite all the shit swirling around you, I couldn’t have walked away if I’d wanted to. I don’t know why I kept them, but when I saw you toss pennies on the floor of my bedroom a few weeks ago, it just clicked.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then, if you realized that day?”
“I wasn’t sure. I guess a part of me didn’t want to believe it was you, that you’d lived with that fucking monster. I needed to be positive. Tossing pennies could have just been an odd coincidence. So the next time the opportunity presented itself, I asked you if your mother had ever remarried.”
My face dropped. “And I said no.”
Caine nodded. “Then at your sister’s—”
“She mentioned Benny.”
He nodded again. “That’s not all. There’s more, Rachel.”
What else could he possibly be hiding? “More?”
“You know the fight Benny got into at the shop?”
“Yeah?”
“It wasn’t a customer. It was me. That Saturday after I’d told you to meet me the next morning, I followed you home, just in case you didn’t show up. Then when you didn’t show up at the church on Sunday, I was coming to check on you. A few blocks from your house, I stopped to get gas, and I saw the same car parked at the station that had been parked in your driveway the day before. I stopped at the place he worked, completely by coincidence.”
“And what happened?”
“I told him to keep away from you and your sister. He said some horrible stuff, and then he came at me with a wrench.”
“He hurt you?”
“Couple of cuts and bruises, but I was fine.”
My head was spinning. “I don’t feel so good.”
“I’m so sorry, Rachel. For everything. For lying to you all those years ago. For not going to the police and getting help sooner. For getting you hurt. If I hadn’t told you to come meet me, that animal wouldn’t have caught you packing, and he…” The pain in Caine’s voice was agonizing. “He wouldn’t have hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
As much as it upset me to see Caine distraught, I needed to be alone. I needed some time to think. It was too much to take in at once.
Talking to that priest had been a lifetime ago. I couldn’t remember all the things I’d told him, but back then, I was lost. He was the only person who made me feel safe. Finding out none of it was real made me feel…confused, angry, violated.
But worst of all, I was ashamed. I’d always regretted hiding what was going on for so long, and I felt responsible for not stopping what my sister went through sooner.
“I need to lie down.” I felt Caine looking at me, but I couldn’t bear to meet his eyes. “You should go.”
He was quiet for a moment while I continued to look away. Then I heard him stand. His voice was a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Rachel. I’m so sorry.”
Rachel
I’d wanted to come back for so many years. But that part of my life was a locked box, and I’d been afraid to open it for fear of finding things inside I couldn’t stuff back in. Yet over the last four days, since Caine had revealed so much, the call to come back here had gotten so strong I couldn’t ignore it any more.
There was no service going on, but in the last ten minutes people had started to wander in and sit in the pews near the confessional. Perhaps, they were waiting for a session to start. I sat on the other side of the church, lost in my thoughts for the better part of an hour. My attention kept drifting over to the people going in and out of the confessional door—the sinners. A woman with a young child walked in and sat down. The little girl was probably about ten years old, not much older than I was when I’d started to come on Saturdays.
After an older gentleman exited the confessional, the woman leaned over and said something to the little girl before going inside for her turn. It reminded me of when I used to come with my mom before she got sick. I closed my eyes and saw Mom and me sitting in those pews twenty years ago.
“You know how when you have a stomachache or a fever and you go to the doctor?” she said as we waited for her turn to go into the weird room.
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is where you come when something is bothering you inside here.” Mom patted her chest.
“When my chest hurts? Like when Riley had pa-noma?”
Mom laughed. “Pneumonia and no. Not your chest. What’s inside of you that makes you feel a certain way.”
I crinkled up my nose. “What’s inside of me?”
“Your soul. It’s the thing you can’t name. It’s the truth of what makes you you.”
I laughed. “I don’t understand.”
Mom smiled. “You don’t have to right now. Just remember this is a place you can come to talk to God about anything.”
“What if He’s busy?”
She leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Then one of His angels will be listening.”
I hadn’t even realized I was crying until a tear landed on my folded hands. Opening my eyes, I looked over to where the little girl was sitting, and the pews were all empty. She was gone, and so was her mother. They’d gone without my even noticing. The open confessional door caught my attention. Looking around, I realized I was the only person left in the church. My chest had a crushing sensation inside from the old memories of my mom.
“Well, this is where you come when something is bothering you inside here.”
“What’s inside of me?”
“It’s the truth of what makes you you.”
Before I could debate it, I’d stood and headed over to the confessional.
It was surreal to step inside after all these years. I might be twenty-five now, but it was a ten-year-old girl who took a seat. Nothing had changed. The room looked the same as it had the last time I’d stepped inside. I could hear breathing on the other side of the confessional—the priest was waiting. And this time I’d seen him walk in. I knew it was actually a priest.
Eventually, after I debated walking out over and over, I took a deep breath and slid open the wooden window that covered the lattice screen.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been fifteen years since my last confession.”
Except for a few go on and tell me more comments, the priest had been relatively quiet. After a rocky start where I wasn’t sure how to begin or what to say, I miraculously babbled on for the better part of half an hour. It was the most I’d ever spoken to anyone about my mother, my sister, my guilt, or the years of struggle over being ashamed for what I’d allowed to happen.
“What brought you here today? It sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of tinking of late.” Thinking—I thought I’d heard a brogu
e.
Even though I’d come here with confusion over Caine, we really hadn’t spoken about him much. What was bothering me, I’d realized, had little to do with him and more to do with me.
“It’s a really long story.”
“I’ve got nothing but time, my dear.”
I guess priests have heard it all, because after I finished my crazy story, he didn’t sound even the slightest bit shocked.
“Is there anything else you’d like to confess today?”
“Well, it’s been a really long time, so I’m sure I have a ton. I use bad language pretty frequently.”
The priest was quiet for a moment. “For your penance, I want you to say one Hail Mary and one Our Father and complete two acts of forgiveness.”
“Okay.”
I stood and looked at the lattice. The priest was facing the door, and I could only make out a vague profile.
“Thank you for listening, Father.”
I had one hand on the door when he stopped me. “Rachel?”
“Yes?”
“That first act of forgiveness should be easy. You haven’t done anything wrong. You need to forgive yourself.”
After I said my prayers, I returned to my car. It wasn’t until I was halfway home that something dawned on me. I hadn’t told him my name, yet the priest had called me Rachel.
On the way back, I did a lot of thinking. I decided to stop in at O’Leary’s and ask for a few days off. My head wasn’t in a good place, and I really needed to work on my thesis anyway. It was late afternoon, and the bar was quiet, with just a few ex-cop regulars hanging around with Charlie.
“Hey, Charlie. You have a minute?”
“Sure, sweetheart. You’re a heck of a lot more pleasant to look at than these two old guys.” He thumbed his finger at his buddies with a smile.
I took a seat at the other end of the bar, and Charlie filled a glass with Diet Coke before coming to talk to me.
“Would it be okay if I took a few days off? I can ask Ava to cover me.”
“Everything okay?”
“I just need to get caught up on some schoolwork.”
“Sure. Of course. And don’t worry about getting Ava to cover you. I’ll cover your shifts.”
“Thanks, Charlie. I really appreciate it.”
“Oh, by the way.” He walked to the register and lifted the money tray, removing an envelope from underneath. “Glad you and that professor broke up. I ran him. He’s got a record.”
“You ran him?”
He tossed the envelope on the counter. “Yeah. Told you I was going to check out the guys sniffing around you girls from now on. Guy’s got a record for assault. It’s old, and it was sealed because he was a juvie. But not too many criminals change their stripes.”
Rather than attempt to explain anything, I just said thank you. It was a fitting end to the day I’d had. When a few new patrons came in, Charlie went to make some wings, and I decided to open the envelope.
It was surreal to read a police report that involved Caine and Benny. The top half was all informational—name, date, location, time of incident. At the bottom of the page was a section labeled Narrative of Incident, and a paragraph had been written in an officer’s chicken-scratch handwriting:
On 8-3-02 at 15:35 hours, suspect committed an act of assault on an unrelated thirty-nine-year-old man. There were no witnesses to the attack, but when I arrived on the scene, the suspect was standing over the victim, who was unconscious. I observed cuts and blood on the suspect’s knuckles, consistent with the victim’s assault. Ambulance number 4631 was dispatched and arrived on the scene at 15:48 hours. The victim regained consciousness during the time the paramedics were treating him. The suspect admitted he had assaulted the victim but refused to give a statement other than requesting that police and social services be sent to 3361 Robbins Lane within the town of Pleasantville. Units were dispatched to the address to investigate. The suspect was searched and cuffed and placed into the back of the squad car while the scene was secured. He remained there until 16:50 when he was transported to the 33rd precinct for processing of charges on second-degree assault.
While I’d already known everything I read, somehow seeing it all on paper hit me. Caine had put my sister and me before himself, making sure we got the attention we needed before even considering what might happen to him. He’d done the same thing again a few weeks ago—or, at least he thought he had—choosing to sacrifice his own happiness for mine when he’d broken things off to avoid dredging up the past.
I closed my eyes. The memory of my mom that had come back today as I sat in the church once again flooded my thoughts. She’d told me to come to the church if I ever needed to talk, and God would listen.
“What if He’s busy?”
She leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Then one of His angels will be listening.”
Suddenly everything was clear. It wasn’t Caine I needed to forgive. He’d never done anything but try to protect me. I needed to forgive myself in order to accept him into my heart. I could run the other way, but it was too late, he already had my heart.
Charlie must have noticed me in deep thought and mistook that for being upset.
“You okay?” He pointed to the ripped envelope on the bar and the papers I’d been reading.
“I am now. Thanks, Charlie.”
Caine
Rachel’s text was the last thing I expected. I read back through the ambiguous exchange from an hour ago.
Rachel: Could we talk tomorrow after class?
Caine: Of course. Is everything okay?
Rachel: Yes. Everything is fine.
Caine: Do you want to discuss something related to school or your thesis?
Rachel: No.
I knew she generally ran off to work on Tuesdays after class.
Caine: Don’t you have to work after class?
Rachel: No. I took a week off.
There was no damn way I was going to get any sleep tonight. I was too anxious. Of course, my mind started to screw with me, imagining all sorts of shit—like why she’d taken a week off. I pictured her sitting on a plane, heading to some exotic destination with that Davis tool. Even though a chunk of time had passed since our last text, I picked up the phone in an attempt to find out something that might help me relax.
Caine: Are you going somewhere?
She typed back a few minutes later.
Rachel: No. Not going anywhere.
Further attempts to relax after that were just as futile. Eventually I grabbed my keys and decided tomorrow was way too long to wait to hear what Rachel had to say. I’d given her the space she’d asked for, but if she was finally ready to talk, I had a lot I needed to say, too.
After I got to her place, I realized it was pretty late. Not wanting to scare her by buzzing the door at almost eleven, I decided to text first.
Caine: Are you awake?
The dots started to jump around. That answered that question.
Rachel: Yes.
Caine: Think we can do a little earlier than after class tomorrow?
Rachel: Sure. What time?
Caine: Right now.
Rachel: I think it’s better if we speak in person.
Caine: Me too. I’m downstairs. Can I come up?
My phone rang a minute later.
“Are you joking?”
I pressed her bell in response. “That’s me.”
After she buzzed me in, I waited in front of the elevator. The damn thing was too slow. Now that I was here and she’d let me in, I was desperate to see her. My heart beat unnaturally fast in my chest as I waited. Impatient, I looked around for a door leading to a stairwell. Once I found it, I flung it open to take the stairs two at a time.
Rachel’s door opened just as I arrived on her floor. “You’re really here.”
I couldn’t tell whether she was happy or upset that I’d come without warning—her face was mostly just shock.
“I am.”
Sh
e stood in the doorway in a thin, cotton T-shirt and shorts. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her face was wiped clean of makeup. I’d seen her looking beautiful all dressed up for an opera, but she was never more beautiful than in this moment.
“Can I come in?”
She stepped aside. “Sure. Of course.”
On the drive over, I’d decided that before she said whatever was on her mind—whether that be telling me off, telling me she was seeing someone else, telling me to fuck off, or even on the long shot that she’d be telling me she was willing to give me another chance—I was going to tell her how I felt about her. I was done keeping secrets from this woman.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
My mouth was parched from nerves and the race up the stairs. “Some water would be great. Thanks.”
While Rachel got me some water, I looked around the room, finding the wall of photos that always caught my attention. My eyes fixated on the photo of Rachel and her roommates. Davis, to be specific. I needed to know. So, when she brought me the water, I asked point blank without any preamble.
“Are you seeing Davis again?”
“No.”
“I saw you with him last week at O’Leary’s.”
“I know.”
“You saw me?”
“No. Ava saw you. Why didn’t you stay to talk to me if you came all the way there?”
I hung my head. “I was trying to do the right thing.”
“The right thing? What does that mean?”
“Let you be with someone better for you than me. Walk away.”
She seemed to contemplate that for a moment. “Why are you here now then?”
I sighed. “Because I’m a selfish asshole.”
“I don’t understand.”
I waited until she was looking in my eyes and decided to say what I should have said weeks ago. “I lied to you. I kept things from you. I got you hurt. I’m the reason you have a scar on your back. You have zero reasons to want to trust me or give me another chance, but I have to try.” I took a deep breath. “I have to try because I love you, Rachel. I’m so fucking desperately in love with you.”