Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 87031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 435(@200wpm)___ 348(@250wpm)___ 290(@300wpm)
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?”