Whatever Became of Sin

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Book excerpt

Prologue

New Orleans, 2005

He waits apprehensively in the shadowy alcoves until the last parishioner leaves the church.  Confident now that no one will see him, the man slips quickly through the weighty red velvet curtain of the confessional, lowers himself onto the padded, solid oak kneeling rack, and makes the ritualistic sign of the cross.  All that separates him now from salvation -- or is it damnation? -- is a thin mesh screen between himself and the elderly parish priest.

The holy man offers a blessing in Latin then pauses to listen to yet one more confession.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.  It has been four years since my last confession.”  “What brings you here now, after all this time?”  The old priest expects the same old mundane excuses that confessors always offer – “…I haven’t had time… I’ve been afraid to come…didn’t really know what to confess…” and is perfunctory in tone.

The confessor, on the other hand, feels beads of sweat form on his brow, and the nervous knot in his stomach tightens, threatening nausea.

“I don’t know where to begin. It’s so complicated… perhaps incomprehensible.”

“Just start at the beginning and tell me what troubles you.”  The priest stifles a yawn.

“Everything is about to come crashing down around me and I can’t let that happen. But I don’t know if I can stop it.  Or even if I should.”

 Cryptic meanderings are not what the priest cares to hear right now and he exhales, on the edge of impatience.  “Is it the shame of the sin that disturbs you, or the fear that it will be somehow revealed?”

“Would you think me cold if I said it is the revelation that terrifies me?  Believe me, Father, I am not one for harboring guilt, though God knows I have every reason to.  I’m here to find strength, and forgiveness, but I don’t think even God could forgive what I’ve done.”

 Hunger gnaws at the priest’s gut and he silently beseeches the man to get on with it. This is the last confession of the afternoon and he still has to prepare his sermon for evening mass. “God forgives all,” he recites the mantra.  “Please - tell me the nature of your sin.”

There is an audible taking in of breath and then a shaky exhalation as the man shores himself up to articulate his transgressions.  After a painful pause, an obvious struggle with his conscience, he forces out the words, whispering lest someone else overhear, even though the sanctuary is deserted.

“They wanted me to kill her…but I wouldn’t do it.  I couldn’t do it…”

The priest shifts his position to attention, and his tired voice reflects alertness.  “...to kill?  Who?”

“The baby girl.  They wanted me to kill her.  I couldn’t bear to, so I hid her away, where no one would ever find her, where she would be safe.”

“You saved a child’s life?  What you did was a good thing, not an evil one.”

“No, you don’t understand,” the man whispers fervently now.   “In hiding her away I took an innocent child from her mother and father.  I had no choice. I had to do it to save her.”

“You kidnapped a child?  How could you get away with this?  Weren’t there people – authorities, the parents - searching for this child?”

“No. They never searched for her, Father.  You see, they never even knew she was gone.  We…I…replaced her at birth with another newborn, and the parents were none the wiser.  Then, sadly, this child, the new child they believed was theirs, died tragically, leaving an unfillable void in their lives.  I…”

“Wait! Wait! Another newborn?  You stole a child from its parents and hid that one away, then gave a different child to these same, unsuspecting parents?   You stole two babies from their natural parents and switched their identities?”

Even the priest who has heard it all expresses revulsion.  He makes the sign of the Cross for his unpriestly feelings about this faceless man, wishing somehow he was identifiable through the blasted opaque screen.

“Yes. I stole them both, their identities and perhaps their souls as well.  I didn’t do it alone,” he replies, as though the involvement of others mitigated the crime.

The priest sighs deeply and probes deeper, hoping for a clue of some kind, something that would help him solve this mystery that the man clearly does not want solved.

“And what did you do with the other child?”

“Please don’t ask me.  I can’t tell you, Father.  Not just for my sake but for the child’s.  If the people involved discover she is still alive, they will kill her.  I have no doubt about it.”

The priest broods a moment, not knowing which of a million questions to ask first.  So he asks the first that comes to mind. “When? When did all of this happen?”

“Twelve years ago, Father.”

“Twelve years! Holy Mother of God,” he blurts out, then restrains himself.  “Ahem… How…?”

There is a startling silence, and the man braces himself for the interrogation:  How is this possible?  How could you get away with such a deed? How could you even devise such a treacherous plot?  And why?  In heaven’s name, why?  But, surprisingly, the questions never come.  If they were asked, how could he explain with any justification that he did it for her? 

For Trina.

How could he describe Trina?  Oh, sweet, delicious Trina.  Her skin so flawless and white, creamy white like fresh, delectable whipped cream that you dip your fingers into and blissfully lick off.  Velvety to the touch and to the tongue. Her smooth flesh inviting and welcoming his own flesh, fragrant with the smells of youth and innocence and lust all at once.  From the moment he had laid eyes on her eyes, smiled in response to her smile, pressed his lips to her virginal, pouty lips, he knew he would be enslaved to her forever, body and soul, would love her and commit any sin for her, with her, because of her.

She is the reason he is here now, kneeling before God and God’s earthly liaison, confessing the unpardonable, revealing the unspeakable.  And yet, not all of it.  Just bits and pieces of it to assuage his guilt in cowardly increments.  For if he told all, even to this priest, it would be the end of him.  Some of it - the worst of it - had to be kept secret a while longer.

 “And now, after all these many years,” the Priest finally pronounces, trying to be nonjudgmental as priests are obliged to be, but finding it nearly impossible, “you confess to me, yet you seem to express little remorse. You offer no compelling excuse or explanation.”

“I’m more confused than remorseful, Father.  For years, I believed what I did was right for all concerned.  And now I know I was blind to my own selfish desires. It’s crazy and complicated, I know.  I’m ambiguous because I don’t know just how much to tell you without revealing too much. I sense some impending doom.  I face each day with a knot in my gut that tightens like a noose around my neck.  Yet, I’m powerless to do anything, gutless to want to do anything, hoping maybe I’ll walk away unscathed somehow.  But that’s utter fantasy.  It will catch up to me.  I only know I need your absolution before it’s too late to ask for it.”

“In God’s eyes, your sins are already absolved.  In the eyes of the world, the only way to assuage your feelings of guilt is to confess to the parents, tell them where their real daughter is.”

The man shakes his head dismissing the suggestion.  “Obviously, I haven’t the courage, or the integrity to do that.”

“Then, tell me and I will tell them where the child is. You will remain anonymous, protected by the confessional.”

“No, no. It wouldn’t be long before my involvement was discovered.  If it is, then surely everything I’ve worked for all these years, every dream and ambition I have cultivated will be destroyed.”

“You said, ‘they’ wanted you to kill her.  Who are these people who would ask you to do such an evil thing?  What hold did they have over you?”

“People with enormous power, Father.  Enormous power over people’s lives.”

“There is only one power, my son.  The power of God’s Truth.”

“In an ideal world, perhaps, but not in the real world.  In our world truth becomes a distortion, and the line between good and evil is blurred.  Once this kind of power exerts its hold over you, there is no way to free yourself.  No way at all.”

The priest anguishes as to why, oh why do people come in to confess only to partially confess, to hold back the full measure of their sin and torment?  What’s the point?  How am I to give absolution for an incomplete repentance? He states the obvious, but doubts it will penetrate this man’s disturbed psyche.

“Then may God have mercy on your tormented soul,” the priest prays solemnly, defeated.

“On all our souls, Father.  On all of our souls.”

The holy man evokes a blessing designed to end the confessor’s pain, praying that he will recognize and surrender to the loving grace of God, while the man rests his head on folded hands and recites a perfunctory Act of Contrition.

Outside the sanctuary, a dozen young boys and girls play happily in the school playground, unaware that in their midst is this mystery child.  Save for the tormented confessor, no one - not the priest, the child or even the Mother Superior herself - knows that the beautiful little girl the Mother Superior so fondly supervises had been kidnapped and secretly hidden there, in Terrebonne Parish Orphanage, for the past twelve years.