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Heart racing out of control, seventeen-year-old Jarret West swung open the door to the confessional with a sweaty hand and stumbled out. Eyes to the floor but not really seeing, he staggered to the front of the quiet church and slid into a pew. He lowered the kneeler, dropped to his knees, and slumped over. A bead of sweat dripped down the back of his neck. Too exhausted to care, he let it trace a path to the neckline of his shirt.
“Hail Mary, full of grace...” He moved his lips as he prayed his penance, his voice less than a whisper. The weight of the sins of his past had lifted as Father had spoken the words of absolution, transporting him to the clouds. The effect was similar to the first time he’d confessed them, back in Arizona, after piling up more sins than he should’ve for a kid his age.
Now he couldn’t think straight. But he had to. He needed to plan.
Jarret opened his eyes and caught sight of his hands trembling, dangling over the pew in front of him. He clasped them together and lifted his gaze to the tabernacle. His teary eyes and the spotlight shining on the tabernacle’s gold finish made a starburst.
“I know You’re in there. Won’t You speak to me?” he whispered, hoping vainly for a reply, a feeling, a holy thought popping into his mind. Anything.
Whispers came from the back of the church. And footfalls. Someone coming down the aisle to do their penance, no doubt.
Not wanting to meet up with anyone he knew, he pushed himself up and dashed out the side door of the church. The air cooled his sweaty neck and invigorated him a bit. Squinting against the setting sun, he jogged around the church and glimpsed his red Chrysler 300 on the far side of the parish parking lot. Sun drenched the old blacktop with faded parking stripes. He counted several cars but no people.
As he hustled across it, he dug his keys from his pocket. He pressed “unlock” on the key fob several times, though the headlights had flashed at his first touch, telling him he’d unlocked it. He yanked the car door open. A pungent odor assaulted him.
Irritation and foul thoughts threatening to disrupt his calm, he collapsed into the seat and shoved the key into the ignition. He peeled out of the parking lot with a hand to the window controls, lowering all four windows.
Doggone thing still reeks of Limburger cheese.
He’d discovered the smell three weeks ago, the day he, Papa, and his younger brother, Roland, had returned from Arizona. He’d offered to pick up pizza for their live-in maid and caretaker, Nanny. He’d opened his car for the first time in weeks and gagged. Breathing through their shirts, he and his twin brother, Keefe, dug through the car until they found the source of the smell: a huge block of spoiled Limburger cheese under a seat.
Immediately suspecting Roland’s friend Peter, Jarret’s anger had propelled him toward the house. Peter was always messing with Jarret, taunting him, and Jarret was tired of him getting away with it. To his irritation, Keefe had stopped him in his tracks and told him to let it go. It took a massive amount of self-control, but he did let it go. At least for that moment. Keefe sprayed air freshener in the car, and they rode with the windows down. The next day, Jarret paid to have the interior cleaned and detailed.
Doggone thing still reeked, especially when closed up for more than an hour.
Jarret turned onto a main road. He hadn’t seen Peter since. He’d just confessed indulging in feelings of hate and revenge—and visualizing his fist removing the smug smile from Peter’s face—along with everything he’d confessed to the priest in Arizona. That had been his first real confession in years, probably since he’d made his first confession in grade school. Back when Mama was still alive. “Once you’ve sincerely confessed,” Father Carston, their white-haired, forty-something parish priest, had said today, “it’s forgiven. You can let it go. And work on forgiving yourself and others.”
Easier said than done. But he’d only confessed it all again because he figured if Father Carston was going to be his spiritual director, he should know the real Jarret.
Spiritual director... Jarret shook his head and sighed. Had he lost his mind? The priest in Arizona told him he should get one. Jarret had been going to Mass on Sundays since then, but he’d put off finding a spiritual director. Until today.
Squinting at the sunlight that reflected off the road, Jarret took a deep breath and exhaled. He willed himself to relax, to come down from the emotional state his confession had left him in.
In the canyon in southern Arizona, he’d promised himself he’d make up for his sins, especially for the way he’d treated his younger brother, Roland. He didn’t feel the commitment as zealously now. But he still intended to do it. Having a spiritual director would help. And not seeking revenge on Peter was a good first step. He’d work on actual forgiveness later.
Please, God, don’t let us cross paths for a while.
Jarret sped past the high school and toward the outskirts of town. On one side of the road, puffy white clouds floated in a blue sky over distant hills. Well-spaced houses sat back far from the road with a few clusters of trees, granite outcroppings, and long stretches of grassy land. Peaceful surroundings that didn’t overwhelm the senses. A long drive might help him pull himself together.
Hot wind blew through the open car windows, ruffling Jarret’s shirt and bringing in fresh air. He pulled the band from his ponytail and let his hair go wild, curly dark locks slapping his face and neck.
Jarret zoned out, thinking of nothing for a while, just pressing the pedal to the metal and steering the Chrysler 300 around curves. The road wound a lot more out this way, twisting and turning like his mood. As he drove further, the landscape developed character: more hills and evergreen trees, a log cabin or ranch here and there.
Warm wind on his face, hair flapping around his head, noonday sun in his eyes...
Fifteen or twenty minutes from town, Jarret realized with a hint of pride that he’d put himself back together. He tried to think of what road he’d cross next, so he could turn around. But without warning, his heart betrayed him.
Emotions erupted, stinging and rattling him to the core. The grace of forgiveness and a clean soul sent his spirit soaring to the clouds, but the weight of his weakness dragged him back down. How would he find the strength, the power to remain on the right path?
Anguish brought tears to his eyes and blurred his vision. He stepped on the brakes and eased the Chrysler off the road, to the only section of grass he could find that would accommodate his car. Skinny evergreens lined the road, most growing close together. A granite outcropping, low on one side and high on the other, like a split-level house, rose up a stone’s throw away. He wouldn’t ordinarily park so close to a road, but his emotional state left him no choice.
Jarret glanced over his shoulder, fortunately having enough sense to check for cars, then he jumped out of the Chrysler and dashed to the split-level outcropping. Anguish driving him onward, he staggered around behind it to where he couldn’t be seen from the road. Shrinking and helpless against a wave of emotion, he rested a hand on the warm granite and fell to his knees.
“Jesus,” he whispered, collapsing to wild grass and hard-packed earth. How could he return to his old life, to school and his friends, and stay on the right path? What would keep him from picking up his old ways? Weak and alone, he longed to experience Jesus’ presence again, the way he had in the canyon. But he didn’t deserve it, so he didn’t dare ask.
The canyon... He tried to call it to mind: the dark, the fear, the chill in the air and in his soul, the exhaustion from having poured out his sins, then the Lord drawing near. His wounded hands. His burning heart.
The memory, fuzzy around the edges, drifted to a distant corner of his mind.
“No.” Jarret dug his fingers into clumps of weeds and grass. The memory slipped even further, resisting his efforts to reclaim it. Would he lose it forever?
“Where do I go from here?”