Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance (13 page)

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.”