Page 34 of The Sinner's Sanctuary

“Do you play golf?”

I laugh. “Never. It seems pointless.”

“Why Palm Beach then?”

“Have you never been there, either?”

“Why would I go to Palm Beach?” he asks.

Why indeed? “It’s beautiful.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he says before taking a bite of his breakfast.

I sip my coffee, trying not to picture him lying out by the pool at the Palm Beach house, the sun lightening his hair and soaking into his skin. I try not to picture cornering him in that same pool and sliding my hands down his slim sides before forcing myself on him.

Where the fuck is this coming from? Is my sex life really that unsatisfying that I need to incorporate an entirely new gender into the equation?

Apparently.

I wonder if St. Peter’s has a priest available to take my confession.

11

CHRISTIAN

The jet lag hasn’t caught up with me yet, so I’m alert as Gibson and I pass through the Basilica’s doors. The walk over was miraculous. It’s a gorgeous day. Cool with sunshine. We crossed the Tiber River on the Ponte Sant’Angelo with its angel statues and one of the most gorgeous views I’ve ever seen. The line to enter the cathedral moved fast while I took so many pictures I might as well be making a video.

Vatican City is clean and not too crowded. It’s familiar because it’s featured in so many movies, but to be here in real life makes it feel almost more unreal. That all being said, entering the great cathedral, I’m instantly overwhelmed.

I gape at everything, from the sculptures to the stained glass and the dome overhead. When a scattered beam of sunlight hits a bronze canopy in the center, I freeze where I’m standing, swallowing hard. I feel Gibson’s warm palm on my upper back. In a low voice, he says, “I’ll leave you to it.”

I’m not sure where he goes.

If God is anywhere—it’s here. I marvel at the way the light scatters through the nave, and I realize I do believe insomething. This doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

I struggle to find my bearings among so many people and so many things to see. I have no knowledge of art history. None of what I’m looking at means anything to me in terms of something I’ve learned about and looked forward to seeing in person. It’s all a surprise—and there’s so much to see. Frescoes, altars, and nuns in full habit.

I approach the bronze structure slowly, noticing that it’s covering an opening in the floor. The space feels holy. Sacred. I wish I knew why. As I walk around it, taking it in, I stop in front of a crucifix, minuscule compared to the massive column behind it.

I’ve seen a million crucifixes, small and large in my life, but this one is gory and raw. Jesus’s ribs strain with his arms outstretched, nails driven through his palms. I can’t tell if He’s supposed to be alive and suffering or dead. His feet are crossed and nailed together.

I can’t stop staring at it. On closer inspection, His eyes are open.Suffering. It takes my breath away. I know the story, of course. He suffered and died for the sins of humanity, was reborn, and ascended to heaven—and one day He’ll come back.

I don’t believe in any of this—not the way some people do.

I believe He was a unique and special man who died a cruel and unfair death. I believe He probably took on a burden that was not His alone to bear. And I believe something fishy happened after that, but the eternal salvation part—that’s where I get stuck. Was it the suffering, the dying, or the willingness to go through with it that made His sacrifice so fundamentally world-changing?

I walk away after several minutes of contemplating this. I pass a lot of incredible marble statues—famous Romans, emperors, saints, Death, and then I find myself transfixed again before Michelangelo’s Pietà, which is where Gibson happens to be.

The marble sculpture breaks my heart. Jesus is definitely dead here, draped pathetically over the Virgin Mary’s lap. Three thingsstrike me. The scale—how small His dead body looks in His mother’s lap. Her face. Young, looking like a child herself. Sad.

She looks so much like Trinity, a thick lump climbs my throat. I fear all the whiskey I drank last night might decide now is the time it needs to come out. The third part—the worst—is her left hand out, palm up in supplication, like still, even now with her abused and deceased son lying limp on her lap, she’s praying. She still believes.

“Fuck,” I whisper, turning away and walking toward the doors. I think I’m done here.

I step outside, needing air too much to stay inside any longer.

Trinity’s funeral comes back to me in a nauseating wave. The prayer circles, the whispered murmurings about how she was in a better place. That this was all God’s plan. That God brought her home.

---