“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Cohen sits comfortably in the chair. At each night’s confession, he has felt more at ease. He has not looked up at the crucified Christ. He’s afraid he will see the same thing he always sees.
Behind the screen, Father James is a vapor, a mist, a temporary gathering of particles that will soon move farther and farther apart, dissipating into the universe. He clears his throat. “The Lord be in your heart and mind and upon your lips, that you may truly and humbly confess your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
The chapel is silent. Outside, night has a firm hold on the city.
“Thank you, Father James.”
Cohen looks closely at the screen separating them, wondering where it was made, what it’s made of. There is something comforting about it being there, something necessary about having that thin barrier between them, between his confession and the person who will hear it.
“I confess to the Almighty God,” Cohen says, his voice barely above a whisper, “to his Church, and to you, that I have sinned by my own fault in thought, word, and deed, in things done and left undone, but especially, again, in regards to the death of my father.”
At first Father James does not speak, and the silence gathers around them like an invisible crowd pressing in for a closer look.
“I have absolved you of this sin,” Father James says in an even voice. “Why do you keep confessing it?”
“My father is not dead yet. His death is ongoing, and I feel like I can’t experience true absolution until after he has died. I’m sorry. I can’t shake it. I know it’s not proper of me to dwell on sins that have been forgiven.”
“I understand, Cohen.”
I understand. Cohen cannot remember the last time someone said that to him.
“You’re pretty quiet back there.” He tries to chuckle, managing something quite a bit less than that.
“There is no true confession without someone who is willing to listen, Cohen. A confession is a thing flung into the silence.”
“Silence. Yes. I wonder about that.”
In the silence, while he considers what to say next, he can smell the old carpet, the winter turning to spring, Father James’s cologne or aftershave.
“Father, has God ever seemed silent to you? He seems silent to me. Actually, this is one of my troubles. I used to believe God heard us. I used to believe he intervened.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like not knowing. What do you think? But you’re a priest—of course you believe.”
“Being a priest is not the same thing as always believing. Yes, God is sometimes silent. God is often silent. It is into this silence that I throw myself daily, trusting there is something more waiting for me there.”
“More? More than what?”
“More than what I can see. More than what I can taste, touch, hear, or smell. Something more.”
“Still, it’s a lonely thing, a world where God does not intervene.”
“Yes. And sometimes the silence is unbearable.”
Cohen sighs. “I was about fourteen years old, I think. I’ve managed to block it out pretty well since then. Haven’t thought about it much. We never talked about it, my dad and me. Never. I never processed it. I don’t think we did that kind of thing in the eighties—processed stuff. Only crazy people went to a shrink. But now with my father’s death, you know, it’s been coming back to me in pieces.”
The chapel seems to grow smaller during his confession, as if the entire universe is pressing in for a closer look.
“What are you thinking, Father?”
The priest stirs, seems to uncross his legs and cross them again. “We are all broken, Cohen. We are all reeling from the things that have been done to us in the past or from the things we have done. We have all killed, all destroyed, all hated. There is nothing new in what you have done or what you are remembering, nothing new under the sun. This is confession: remembering and bringing something into the light so that it can be seen, held, and let go of, into the silence.”
“Yes,” Cohen says. “Yes.”
“We cannot let go of that which we have not grabbed on to.”
“Yes.”
“Who or what did you kill, Cohen, when you were a boy?”
“It is the great secret of my life, Father,” Cohen says, trying to figure out how to tell it.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The sentence runs through his mind over and over again. He remembers Miss Flynne giving the lesson for that one, the wooden cross, the crucified Christ sticking to the flannel board, falling off, being put back on. A little girl—what was her name?—always cried at this lesson. He remembers staring at the flannel-graph Jesus, wishing he could cry.
“This girl, Ava, she was there. She’s here now. She’s the agent who opened the investigation into my father’s death. It’s like everything is converging. I feel emotionless. I feel like I’m a helpless observer forced to watch my past happen over and over again.”
He stops. There is too much to tell. He knows that now.
“I don’t know where to begin, Father. I don’t know how to tell it. It’s all tangled in my mind, some of it here, some of it there. I killed someone when I was a child, not on purpose. Not really. I didn’t know what I was doing. This person, they deserved it, if that’s possible. And I’m angry at my father for never talking to me about it. It’s the one thing he could have done for me when I was young. He could have listened. He could have asked how I was. But he didn’t. And now he never will.”
Father James sits rigid, listening. Cohen does not know what else to say. He stumbles into the rest of the confession.
“For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember,” Cohen says, and there is an ache in his voice, a sadness at the thought that he might never be able to tell it, might never be able to confess the right way. “I am truly sorry. I pray God to have mercy on me. I firmly intend amendment of life, and I humbly beg forgiveness of God and his Church, and ask you for counsel, direction, and absolution.”
“I will speak with my fellow priests in this parish to determine if I should take any further action, but Cohen . . .” There is compassion in Father James’s voice, and sadness. “We are all broken. Hope remains. There is a Mender.”
Cohen stares down at the floor. He wishes he could believe that, even if only for a short time.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ who has left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive you all your offenses; and by his authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
“Amen,” Cohen says.
“The Lord has put away all your sins,” the priest says.
“Thanks be to God.”
“Go in peace, and pray for me, a sinner.”