Page 1 of Forgive Me, Father

One

Olivia

Rain taps rhythmically against my umbrella as I speed walk down the wet sidewalk. It’s late summer, and the petrichor smell of the August storm is all around me. It’s normally one of my favourite smells, one that soothes me and comforts me. But not today. Today, I’m strung tight, like a bow string about to snap.

I have a problem to solve. And I have the means to solve it. All I’ll have to do is give up a part of myself in exchange.

I shouldn’t do it.

I should.

I have no choice.

I can’t.

Those guys made it clear they’ll kill Alessandro if he doesn’t pay.

I have to come up with the money.

My head is a mess of swirling thoughts when I turn the corner. St. Michael’s rises up before me, looking like an anachronism with its Gothic Revival architecture and massive stained glass windows. It doesn’t fit among the steel and glassskyscrapers, the neon billboards, and the honking taxis. I like how out of place it looks. I like how stepping into it feels like entering another world.

Despite my Italian heritage, I’ve never considered myself much of a Catholic. Sure, we went to mass like so many other Italian-Canadian families. My brother Alessandro and I were both baptized. I had my first communion when I was six, my confirmation when I was twelve. I went to Catholic school. But church never really meant much to me. It was just something we did, like going to the grocery store or the library. And then, when I was sixteen and Alessandro was thirteen, Mom and Dad split up. We stopped going to mass after the divorce. Dad took off, never to be heard from again.

And then Mom died, the day after my eighteenth birthday. I took custody of Alessandro, refusing to let him get eaten up by the foster system.

Given the trouble he’s found himself in, I don’t think I did a very good job of steering him onto the right path.

Anyway.

About a year ago, I stepped inside St. Michael’s for the first time. I’m not sure what I was looking for. Solace, or comfort, maybe. Somewhere to belong. A quiet place to contemplate my problems.

What I found washim.

Father Gabriel Thorne.

I’ve never met a priest like him. He’s warm and open. Funny and caring. Easy to talk to, without an ounce of pretension or condescension in his body.

He’s also hot as hell. Which, I know, isnothow I should be thinking about my priest, but I can’t help it. He’s tall, probably 6’2 or 6’3, with impossibly broad shoulders, thick arms and an even thicker ass.

I probably shouldn’t admit that I stare at Father Thorne’s ass, but I can’t help it. It’s so round and firm and fills out those black pants he usually wears so very perfectly.

He has thick, dark brown hair that starts to wave when it gets a little long, and he has a slightly curled tendril that has a tendency of falling across his forehead during mass.

And his eyes…they’re like the colour of a summer sky. Pure, vibrant blue, framed with thick lashes. When he smiles, little lines fan out around them. And his smile…it makes me melt, every single time. His full lips, square jaw and dimples are like something an artist would paint.

I don’t know how old he is. I’ve never asked, and I’m a horrible judge of age. Late thirties, maybe? Possibly even early forties? At least fifteen years older than me, anyway. Maybe closer to twenty.

I stepped into St. Michael’s looking for comfort. And I found that, but I also found an obsession.

My crush on Father Thorne was immediate, overwhelming in its intensity. I started coming to mass twice a week to hear his deep voice, to watch him, to spend a few breathless minutes chatting with him afterward. I’ll never forget the first time he shook my hand, welcomed me to St. Michael’s and told me his door was always open.

After that, I started attending confession weekly, even though I hadn’t gone regularly since finishing high school a couple of years ago. I would centre my entire week around those moments where it was just the two of us sharing the same shadowy air, cocooned away from the world while I confessed my sins. Sometimes he made me laugh. Other times he listened and offered empathy. Never once did I feel judged, no matter what I confessed.

He became my source of strength. My comfort. My rock.

I looked for ways to spend even more time with him. I joined the weekly Bible study he ran, and I volunteered to help prepare snacks and drinks for the break, which meant I got to come early and spend time with him in the church’s kitchen, where we would talk and laugh and just be.

I started coming in on Wednesday mornings too, when I learned the church needed volunteers to help make brown bag lunches to be distributed at various homeless shelters. Father Thorne and I would stand side by side at 6:30 in the morning, making ham and cheese sandwiches, slicing up vegetables, and counting out water bottles. The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to be around him.

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